Obama and Putin in agreement over Syria
Source: Agencies |
June 20, 2012, Wednesday
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PRESIDENTS Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin agreed on Monday that Syrians should choose their own next government, marking a subtle shift for both the United States and Russia as they confront the prospect that Syria could slide into civil war.
Sharing pledges of cooperation, yet hardly much eye contact or obvious kinship in front of reporters, Obama and Putin met for the first time since the Russian leader returned to the presidency last month.
Obama spoke at greater length, emphasizing several areas of cooperation between the onetime Cold War enemies, but the unending bloodshed in Syria hung over the talks.
The two leaders "agreed that we need to see a cessation of the violence, that a political process has to be created to prevent civil war and the kind of horrific events that we've seen over the last several weeks," Obama said.
Putin, seated next to Obama following a private meeting, said: "We've been able to find many commonalities" on Syria.
But he offered no specifics, and it was unclear how much their talks did to close strategic gaps about how to end the violence.
Russia has refused to call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to go, and neither leader mentioned him by name.
Obama called for a "political process," that would bring the violence in Syria to an end. His careful language appeared designed to give Russia elbow room. In other settings, he had insisted Assad must step aside.
Sharing pledges of cooperation, yet hardly much eye contact or obvious kinship in front of reporters, Obama and Putin met for the first time since the Russian leader returned to the presidency last month.
Obama spoke at greater length, emphasizing several areas of cooperation between the onetime Cold War enemies, but the unending bloodshed in Syria hung over the talks.
The two leaders "agreed that we need to see a cessation of the violence, that a political process has to be created to prevent civil war and the kind of horrific events that we've seen over the last several weeks," Obama said.
Putin, seated next to Obama following a private meeting, said: "We've been able to find many commonalities" on Syria.
But he offered no specifics, and it was unclear how much their talks did to close strategic gaps about how to end the violence.
Russia has refused to call for Syrian President Bashar Assad to go, and neither leader mentioned him by name.
Obama called for a "political process," that would bring the violence in Syria to an end. His careful language appeared designed to give Russia elbow room. In other settings, he had insisted Assad must step aside.
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