Putin: US, Russia’s positions on Syria don’t jibe

On sidelines of G-8 summit, Obama says Washington and Moscow share interest in ending civil war, bloodshed

17 June 2013, 11:13 pm

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From right, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, US President Barack Obama and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy attend a media conference regarding EU-US trade at the G-8 summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland on Monday, June 17, 2013. British Prime Minister Cameron said he expects formal agreement to launch negotiations on a European-American free trade agreement. He also said a pact to slash tariffs on exports would boost employment and growth on both sides of the Atlantic. (photo credit: AP/Andrew Winning)

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Barack Obama on Monday that their positions on Syria do not “coincide” but the two leaders said during the G-8 summit that they have a shared interest in stopping the violence that has ravaged the Middle Eastern country during a two-year-old civil war.

Obama acknowledged in a bilateral meeting with Putin in Northern Ireland that they have a “different perspective” on Syria but he said that both leaders wanted to address the fierce fighting and also wanted to secure chemical weapons in the country. The US president said both sides would work to develop talks in Geneva aimed at ending the country’s bloody civil war.

“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,” Obama said. “We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible.”

Putin said “of course our opinions do not coincide, but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria and 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.”

While Putin has called for negotiated peace talks, he has not urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power, and he remains one of Assad’s strongest political and military allies. The White House did not expect any breakthrough with Putin on Syria during the gathering of the Group of Eight Summit and the meeting further highlighted the rift between the two countries on how to address the fighting in Syria.

Obama announced Friday that the US would start sending weaponry, while Britain and France remained concerned that the firepower might end up helping anti-democratic extremists linked to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia. Putin has defended Russia’s continuing supply of weapons to Assad’s military.

At least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict since it erupted in March 2011, according to a recent UN estimate. Millions have been displaced.