Putin, Cameron to Meet on Syria before G8 Summit
Russian President Vladimir Putin will fly to Britain a day before next week's G8 summit for talks with David Cameron on the conflict in Syria, the British prime minister announced Wednesday.
The two leaders will meet at Cameron's Downing Street office on Sunday, before heading to Northern Ireland for the summit of Group of Eight nations on Monday and Tuesday.
"We should use the G8 to try and bring pressure on all sides, to bring about what we all want in this House, which is a peace conference, a peace process and a move towards a transitional government in Syria," Cameron told the House of Commons.
"I'm delighted to tell the House that President Putin will be coming in advance of the G8 for meetings in Downing Street on Sunday, when we can discuss this."
Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has with the United States proposed an international peace conference to get the two sides in the conflict to the negotiating table.
However, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned at the weekend that military gains made by the Assad regime, including taking back the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border from the rebels, made peace more elusive.
During Cameron's weekly question-and-answer session in the Commons, the opposition Labor leader accused him of neglecting efforts for peace in favor of pushing the EU to drop its embargo on providing weapons to the Syrian rebels.
The prime minister rejected this, while insisting that Britain had made no plans yet to arm the uprising.
"We all want to see a peace conference. The question is how we are most likely to put pressure on the parties to attend that peace conference," Cameron said.
"The Russian regime has been arming this regime for decades and frankly it is naive to believe anything else."
He added: "We've made no decision to supply the opposition with weapons."
Source: Agence France Presse
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