Syria conflict: Barack Obama rejects G20 pressure to abandon air strike plan

St Petersberg: US President Barack Obama has resisted pressure Friday to abandon plans for air strikes against Syria and enlisted the support of 10 fellow leaders for a “strong” response to a chemical weapons attack.Mr Obama refused to blink after Russian President Vladimir Putin led a campaign to talk him out of military intervention at a two-day summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) developed and developing economies in St Petersburg today.He persuaded 10 other G20 nations to join the United States in signing a statement calling for a strong international response, although it fell short of supporting military strikes, underscoring the deep disagreements that dominated the summit.

Leaders of the G20, which accounts for 90% of the world economy and two thirds of its population, put aside their differences to unite behind a call for growth and jobs and agreed the global economy was on the mend but not out of crisis.But there was no joint statement on Syria, despite a 20-minute one-on-one talk between Mr Obama and Mr Putin on the sidelines of the summit today, following a tense group discussion on the civil war over dinner late on Thursday.”We hear one another, and understand the arguments but we don’t agree. I don’t agree with his arguments, he doesn’t agree with mine,” Putin told a closing news conference dominated by questions about Syria.

Participants at the dinner said the tension between Mr Putin and Mr Obama was palpable but that they seemed at pains to avoid an escalation. Mr Obama said credit was due to Putin for facilitating the long discussion of the Syrian crisis on Thursday night.But he defended his call for a military response to what Washington says was a chemical weapons attack by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad which killed more than 1,400 people in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on August 21.

“Failing to respond to this breach of this international norm would send a signal to rogue nations, authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations, that they can develop and use weapons of mass destruction and not pay a consequence. And that’s not the world that we want to live in,” Obama told a separate news conference.

Mr Putin said Washington had not provided convincing proof that Assad’s troops carried out the attack and called it a “provocation” by rebel forces hoping to encourage a military response by the United States.Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to dissuade Obama from military action during talks today, telling him that Beijing expected countries to think twice before acting. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against military action that did not have the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

Unable to win Security Council backing because of the opposition by veto-wielding Russia and China, Mr Obama is seeking the support of the US Congress instead.

g20

Syria conflict: Barack Obama rejects G20 pressure to abandon air strike plan added by Deepika Mehta on September 7, 2013
View all posts by Deepika Mehta →