Little ground given as old powers debate Syria

US President Barack Obama sparred with Russia’s Vladimir Putin over how to end the war in Syria during an icy encounter at a G8 summit where divisions over the conflict eclipsed the rest of the agenda.

Speaking after talks with Obama, Putin said Moscow and Washington had differing views over Syria but agreed the bloodshed must stop and that the warring parties should be brought to the negotiating table.

Both leaders looked tense and uncomfortable as they addressed reporters after about two hours of talks, with Putin staring mostly at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at the Russian leader.

“Our positions do not fully coincide, but we are united by the common intention to end the violence, to stop the number of victims increasing in Syria, to resolve the problems by peaceful means, including the Geneva talks,” Putin said.

“We agreed to push the process of peace talks and encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiation table, organise the talks in Geneva.”

Obama tried to lighten the mood at the end of their talks by discussing judo but Putin, a black belt in the martial art, replied that the then-smiling US President was simply trying to get him to relax.

Divisions over Syria dominated yesterday’s talks. While Putin has called for negotiated peace talks, he has not called for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to leave power, and he remains one of Assad’s strongest political and military allies.

Obama was using his first face-to-face meeting with Putin in a year to try to persuade the Kremlin chief to bring Assad to the negotiating table to end a conflict in which at least 93,000 people have died.

Putin has described anti-Assad rebels as cannibals and warned Obama of the dangers of giving guns to such people. Moscow also said it would not permit no-fly zones over Syria.

For their part, Western leaders have criticised Russia for sending weapons to Assad forces and considering deliveries of a sophisticated missile system.

Earlier, French president François Hollande said: “How can we allow that Russia continues to deliver arms to the Bashar al-Assad regime when the opposition receives very few and is being massacred?”

Stung by recent victories for Assad’s forces and their support from Hezbollah guerrillas, the US said last week it would step up aid to the rebels, including automatic weapons, light mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades.

Divisions over Syria dominated the atmosphere as global leaders streamed into the heavily guarded resort, a place once rocked by decades of violence but which British prime minister David Cameron now wants to showcase as a model of conflict resolution.

The EU has dropped its arms embargo on Syria, allowing France and Britain to arm the rebels, though Cameron expressed concern about some of Assad’s foes.

“Let’s be clear — I am as worried as anybody else about elements of the Syrian opposition, who are extremists, who support terrorism, and who are a great danger to our world,” said Cameron.

New evidence emerged of escalating foreign support for the rebels, with a Gulf source saying Saudi Arabia had equipped fighters for the first time with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, their most urgent request. Rebels said Riyadh had also sent them anti-tank missiles.

The weapons deal was disclosed as rebel fighters confront government troops and hundreds of militants from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia seeking to retake the northern city of Aleppo, where heavy fighting resumed yesterday.

After months of indecision, the Obama administration announced last week that it would arm the rebels because Assad’s forces had crossed a “red line” by using nerve gas. That has put Washington on the opposite side of the two-year civil war from its Cold War foe Moscow, which supplies weapons to Assad.

The UN has urged all sides to stop sending arms to the conflict, but those calls have been ignored, with regional and global powers doubling down on support for either side.

The White House said last week that Obama would try to persuade Putin to drop support for Assad at the summit.

Putin showed no sign of being convinced. Speaking on the summit’s eve, he hammered home his point that arming fighters was reckless, zeroing in on an incident last month when a rebel commander was filmed biting a piece of an enemy’s entrails.

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper said Putin was supporting thugs.

Russia says that it is unconvinced by US evidence accusing Assad of using chemical weapons, and said it would block any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, a step Washington says it has not yet decided on but says it has put on the table.