UK: Obama, Putin, Assad

The Guardian

Obama fails to secure support from Putin on solution to Syria crisis

US president sought pledge against Bashar al-Assad at G20 summit, leaving Syria facing the prospect of increasing violence

• Patrick Wintour in Los Cabos and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 June 2012 23.19 BST

Barack Obama said he and Vladimir Putin had 'candid, thoughtful and thorough conversation' about various issues including Syria. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/EPA

 

Barack Obama and Russia's president Vladimir Putin completed a bilateral meeting on the margins of the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, on Monday with an agreement that there should be a cessation of hostilities in Syria.

But, crucially, Obama failed to secure the support of Putin for regime change in Syria. The US president had been seeking Putin's help in trying to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power and leave the country.

A joint statement issued after their meeting said simply that the Syrian people should independently and democratically be allowed to decide their own future, but there was no joint call for Assad to stand down, as the White House has been urging.

Read it at the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/18/obama-support-putin-syria-g20