President Bashar Assad is willing to run in an early presidential election, hold parliamentary elections and discuss constitutional changes, but only after the defeat of "terrorist" groups, Russian lawmakers said after meeting with the Syrian leader.
Sunday's meeting came as Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were discussing new ideas for a political transition to end Syria's nearly five-year civil war, which has killed 250,000 people and displaced half the country's population.
The Western-backed Syrian opposition and other insurgent groups have refused to back any plan that does not include Assad's exit from power, and were unlikely to view any elections held by his government as legitimate.
The Syrian government considers the entire armed opposition to be terrorists.
"This is all political equivocation," Munzer Akbik, a member of the main opposition Syrian National Council, told The Associated Press.
"There is no sense in talking about elections now before a real transition of power."
Russian lawmaker Alexander Yushchenko told the Tass news agency that Assad is ready to hold parliamentary elections "on the basis of all political forces that want Syria's prosperity".
He said Assad is also ready to discuss constitutional reform and, if necessary, hold presidential elections, but only "after the victory over terrorism".
Assad won re-election more than a year ago by a landslide in a vote dismissed as a sham by his opponents.
Voting did not take place in areas controlled by the opposition, excluding millions of voters.
Assad's term expires in 2021.
Sergei Gavrilov, another Russian lawmaker, told Tass that Assad was ready to hold parliamentary elections that included "reasonable, patriotic opposition forces".
Parliament's term expires in May 2016.
The latest push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict comes in the wake of Russia's military intervention, which Moscow says is aimed at helping the Assad government defeat the Islamic State group and other "terrorists".
But most of Russia's airstrikes have focused on areas where IS militants do not have a major presence, and have enabled a multi-pronged government ground offensive backed by Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah militia and Iran's Revolutionary Guard against other insurgent groups.
Assad told the Russian delegation that Moscow's entry into the conflict is "the writing of a new history" and will determine the future of the region and the world, Syria's state-run SANA news agency said.
After first questioning the presence of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and calling it a "phantom structure," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday that Moscow is ready to aid the group in its fight against IS militants.
The FSA is an amalgam of rebel groups, some headed by defectors from the Syrian army, and includes factions armed and trained by the CIA and others backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Two rebel members, including a commander of a CIA-backed group, said representatives of the Russian government have reached out to them to arrange for meetings.
Moscow has invited the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to coordinate their air campaigns, which target IS militants, with Russia.
But so far the US-led coalition has refused to cooperate with Russia's operations beyond a basic agreement intended to prevent midair incidents.
The conflict began with a wave of mostly peaceful protests in 2011 against the Assad family's four-decade rule, and only escalated into a full-blown civil war when his forces launched a bloody crackdown on dissent.
US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Saudi Arabia Saturday to meet with King Salman and other officials.
The two sides "reiterated the need for a transition away" from Assad and pledged to continue support for the moderate Syrian opposition.
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