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| Chilly body language on display |
Prospects of agreement
between the American and Russian
presidents on how to end the Syria war dimmed dramatically at the G8 meeting in
Northern Ireland.
Speaking after their
face-to-face talks, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin said they failed to find
common ground on Syria.
Correspondents say both
leaders looked tense as they addressed journalists afterwards, with Putin staring
at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at
the Russian leader.
Putin said:
"We
also spoke about problem spots on the planet, including Syria. And, of course, our opinions do not
coincide, but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in
Syria, to stop the growth of victims, and to solve the situation peacefully,
including by bringing the parties to the negotiations table in Geneva. We
agreed to push the parties to the negotiations table."
In
Obama's words:
"With
respect to Syria, we do
have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an interest in
reducing the violence; securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're
neither used nor are they subject to proliferation; and that we want to try to
resolve the issue through political means, if possible. And so we have
instructed our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up
to the first meeting."
The
chilly bilateral meeting between the two leaders ended with a stiff exchange of
diplomatic pleasantries.
Obama tried to lighten
the mood by joking about their favorite sports. He cited Putin's expertise in
judo and "my declining skills in basketball." Then he added,
"And we both agree that as you get older, it takes more time to
recover."
Putin cracked a brief
smile before adding an awkward admission of the tension: "The president
wants to relax me with his statement."
In a sign of the
tensions, the French president, François Hollande, criticized Russia for
sending weapons to Assad's forces and considering deliveries of a sophisticated
missile system. "How can we allow that Russia continues to deliver arms to
the Assad regime when the opposition receives very few – and is being
massacred?" he asked.
BBC News posted today
two excellent eye-openers on the G8 meeting and Syria.
Mark Mardell, the
BBC’s North America editor, writing just as Obama and Putin prepared to meet,
had this comment:
This was a tale of two President Barack Obamas, the
one with high dreams and the one who must deal with grubby realities.
In
the Belfast hall there was some of the old excitement. As the crowd waited for
Mr. Obama to appear, the rather staid dignitaries in the upper gallery
performed a Mexican wave, to the delight of the school children in the
audience.
Here,
he still has some lingering rock star status. His words were lofty, serious and
inspirational. He told the young people that many around the world looked to
Northern Ireland as an example of how to make peace.
He
urged them not to rest there but to break down more walls, heal more wounds.
There is a feeling here that peace has become so entrenched, so normal that
many are content to accept the gains and not try to improve the two
communities.
This
is the president as the inspirer-in-chief.
It
reminded me of his speech in Israel. That was a more important moment, but
similar in that he was exhorting young people to reach for their better selves
over the heads of bickering politicians, using his own background and America's
civil rights struggle as an example of what can be achieved.
It
is where cynics think, "What a president he would make! Oh, hang on, he
already is."
For
this was surely an opportunity missed.
He
was talking about ending conflict and bringing peace, yet he still has not
talked about the biggest conflict in the world today -- Syria.
He
has made no attempt to explain his shift in policy. That is not to claim there
are easy, glib answers, but he's good at complexity and this is a serious issue
that needs grown-up debate.
He
wants to avoid getting embroiled in another Middle East war and to avoid the U.S.
dictating outcomes in the region, but he doesn't want Syria to spiral further
into chaos or President Bashar al-Assad to continue in power.
His
meeting with Vladimir Putin will be interesting, because the Russian president
knows what he wants and says it.
At
the moment the U.S. and the UK look irresolute -- talking about increasing help
to the rebels without spelling out what they are doing, talking about a
diplomatic solution when none is in sight.
Russia,
on the other hand, appears firm, arguing a no-fly zone would be illegal, and
that backing the legitimate government and selling arms to them should be behavior
beyond reproach.
The
president's rhetoric may inspire school children, but it is unlikely to melt Mr.
Putin.
Nick Robinson, the
BBC's political editor, wrote earlier:
What we used to call the West finds itself in a
pretty strange place when it comes to Syria and Vladimir Putin knows it.
Speaking
at Downing Street the Russian president was completely unapologetic for arming
the Syrian government -- it was quite legal he said -- and looked unimpressed
when his host, the prime minister, called President Assad a "murderous
dictator".
The
renewed talk of arming the rebels was meant to put pressure on Putin so that he
would, in turn, pressurize the Syrian regime to agree to peace talks. Here's
why that strategy may not work.
The
U.S. president talks of supplying the rebels with arms but shows little sign of
wanting to do so whilst the British prime minister sounds positively
enthusiastic about sending weapons but cannot persuade his own government, let
alone parliament, to do so.
There
is a stark contrast in the way the U.S. and the UK have talked about this issue.
Last week it fell to a relatively lowly U.S. figure to announce America's
change of policy.
He
did it in words so vague and ambiguous that some in the U.S. administration briefed
that it might mean a no-fly zone and the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-tank
missiles whilst others suggested it meant only small arms and ammunition. We
still don't know the answer. We still haven't heard from the president himself.
Compare
that with the words of David Cameron almost two weeks ago. Speaking to the
House of Commons on 3rd June the prime minister condemned "those who argue
against ... doing more to support the opposition" as "making some of
the same arguments used in the Bosnian conflict 20 years ago."
He
went on "we were told then, as we are now, that taking action would have
bad consequences, but not taking action is a decision too, and in Bosnia it led
to the slaughter of up to 200,000 people and did not stop the growth of
extremism and radicalization, but increased it. We should be clear, however,
about the nature of what is happening in Syria today. It is not just a tragedy
for Syria; it could end up being a tragedy for us, too, if we do not handle it
properly."
For
months Cameron has been trying to do to Obama what Tony Blair did to Bill
Clinton over Bosnia in the late 90s -- to persuade America that it must
intervene and that there can be no hope for peace talks if it doesn't.
The
prime minister sees Bashar Assad as a modern day equivalent of Slobodan Milosevic
-- in other words a dictator who must be shown that "he cannot fight his
way to victory or use the talks to buy more time to slaughter (people) in their
own homes and on their streets."
The
irony is that Cameron, unlike Blair, cannot deliver military support himself.
That's why the prime minister found himself having to strike a very different
tone when he told SKY News: "I think where we can actually give the
greatest assistance to the official proper Syrian opposition, is advice, is
training and is technical support" - and not weapons.
His
deputy Nick Clegg made the coalition's position plain when he told the BBC that
"we don't believe it (arming the rebels) is the right thing to do at the
moment."
No
wonder the Russian president is not budging. He faces a British prime minister
who cannot do what he believes in and an American president who doesn't show
much sign of believing in what he's apparently committed to doing.
