Putin torpedoes the G8’s efforts to push out Assad

[attach id="261099" size="medium"]Russian President Vladimir Putin.[/attach]

Russian President Vladimir Putin derailed Western efforts to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad from power at the G8 summit yesterday and, hours after meeting US President Barack Obama, said the Kremlin might sell more arms to Syria.

In a final communique after two days of intense talks, global leaders called for peace talks to be held as soon as possible to resolve the Syrian civil war. But it did not even mention Assad’s name.

Putin, seemingly isolated at the summit, had clashed with other leaders continuously over Syria and resisted attempts to get him to agree to anything that would imply Assad should step down.

Speaking at the end of the summit held in a secluded golf resort in Northern Ireland, Putin struck a defiant tone. He told the West that sending weapons to rebels could backfire one day while he defended his own military contacts with the Syrian Government.

Putin’s rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western since he was re-elected last year

“There are different types of supplies. We supply weapons based on legal contracts to a legal government... And if we sign these contracts (in the future), we will supply (more arms).”

Obama and his allies want Assad to cede power while Putin, whose rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western since he was re-elected last year, believes that would be disastrous at a time when no clear transition plan exists.

Russia has been Assad’s most powerful supporter as his forces struggle to crush an uprising in which 93,000 people have been killed since March 2011 and which is now drawing in neighbouring countries.

It has vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions censuring the Assad government, widely criticised for the ferocity with which it has waged the war.

Syria is one of Moscow’s last allies in the Middle East, where its influence has declined since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian navy has a vital base at the Mediterranean port of Tartus.

The US and its European and Gulf Arab allies have repeatedly called on Assad to surrender power and several times predicted his downfall since the conflict erupted. Recent battlefield gains by government forces against the rebels make that prospect unlikely anytime soon.

In the final document, G8 leaders also called on the Syrian authorities and the opposition to commit to destroying all organisations affiliated with al-Qaeda – a reflection of growing concern in the West that Islamist militants were playing a more dominant role in the rebel ranks.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who chaired the summit, said separately after the talks that the West believed strongly that there was no place for Assad in a future Syria.

“It is unthinkable that President Assad can play any part in the future of his country. He has blood on his hands,” Cameron said at the resort tucked away on a lough amid rolling hills.