The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Putin and Obama apart in more ways than one at G20 table

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In terms of table placement at least, the Russians are trying to avoid a fight. When world leaders file into St Petersburg’s imperial Constantine Palace on Thursday, with the nightmare of Syria and a wider Middle Eastern war on their minds, presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama will be distant from one another literally, as well as politically.

The seating order, which would have had the Russian and US leaders separated only by the Saudi king, has been reshuffled to put five leaders, including David Cameron, between the two key adversaries over Syria and much else.

“The seating will be arranged according to the English alphabet,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the Moscow newspaper, Izvestiya. Had the Russian alphabet been used, Putin and Obama would have been almost cheek-by-jowl.

If the rushed re-seating is one measure of the US-Russian tensions militating against a breakthrough arresting the slide to greater conflict over Syria, there are plenty more. Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, holed up in Russia, wanted in America, is the most recent.

Since Putin re-occupied the Kremlin last year, relations with Washington have gone from bad to worse. Obama kicked off his first term by talking of pressing the reset button with Moscow.

These days he compares his Russian counterpart to a tiresome schoolboy. “He’s got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom,” Obama said of Putin last month after cancelling a summit with him. Putin jabbed back on Tuesday. “We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed.”

The G20 summit was to have been preceded by an Obama-Putin bilateral summit. That has been cancelled, the first time a Washington-Moscow summit has been ditched in more than 50 years.

“Obama’s famous reset was initiated. It didn’t work. Relations are really frosty,” said a senior EU official attending the G20.

“US-Russia relations? Things can’t really get much worse,” said Stefan Meister, Russia expert at the European Council on Foreign relations in Berlin.

G20 summits traditionally focus on the global economy. But with leaders relatively sanguine that five years of financial crisis have bottomed out, there is no doubt that Syria will preoccupy the summiteers.

Simultaneously, European foreign and defence ministers will grapple with their Middle Eastern options in nearby Vilnius in Lithuania, with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, expected to join them. One problem here is that there is no European policy.

There is a collapsed British policy, a relatively gung-ho French policy and a distinctly reticent German policy. In substance, this is closer to Russia than to America but dare not say so after Berlin caused ructions with its decision to side with Russia and China against the US, Britain and France on Libya two years ago.

The Libya campaign is one central reason Putin is not expected to relent in his blockage of the UN security council or in trying to make common cause with the west in seeking to de-escalate the international tensions around Syria.

The Russians abstained in New York on Libya, facilitating a no-fly zone and air strikes to protect civilians. They argue that their good faith was abused and the mandate was turned into a campaign for toppling Gaddafi and pursuing regime change.

They won’t repeat the same “mistake” over Syria. “Well, you could say it was about regime change in Libya, couldn’t you,” admitted a former senior EU official engaged in security policy.

The other main reason for Putin’s role as the spoiler in the quest for greater international consensus on Syria and the Assad regime is his fear of triumphant Islamist militancy in Syria should the Americans embark on a campaign of regime change.

Asked in a pre-G20 interview with the Associated Press about the Ghouta chemical weapons attack, Putin said: “These are horrible pictures. The question is only who did it and what they did, and who is responsible for this. These pictures do not answer the questions I have just posed. There is an opinion that it’s a compilation by these very rebels, who are connected with al-Qaida and who were always distinguished by exceptional brutality.”

The issue of who did it is the question looking for a conclusive answer in St Petersburg. It is an awkward one for Putin, exposing his weak spot. It is also a tough one for Obama because it is the basis for the strikes the Pentagon is preparing against the Syrian regime.

“People say that the Israelis passed on Syrian telephone intercepts to the Americans. That’s what people will be asking Obama here,” said the senior official attending the G20. “They’ll be asking, what do you have, what are you going to do, what’s the plan for afterwards, what about Syrian retaliation, what are your targets? We need a serious analysis of what the Syrians are capable of.”

In recent days, the Germans, British, Americans and French have unveiled bits of intelligence pointing – albeit not conclusively – to regime responsibility for the chemical weapons attack.

The Russians refuse to accept this as final and will surely have their own intelligence, not least because of their longstanding ties with Damascus, their small naval base in Syria, and because there are thousands of Russian nationals living in there.

But if the awaited evidence from the UN inspectors on Ghouta lends critical mass to the growing belief that Assad is responsible, Putin’s bluff may also be called.

“Putin’s getting nervous,” said the former senior official. “That this was done by Assad is almost certain. At the point where the evidence piles up, Putin finds himself in an incredibly difficult position. There won’t be a smoking gun, but if there is such an accumulation of evidence that denial becomes implausible, then the US and Russia will need to work something out.”

In his interview, Putin was careful not to rule out military action while insisting it could only take place with a security council mandate – which he can block.

“I do not exclude this, but I would like to draw your attention to one absolutely key aspect: in line with international law, only the security council can sanction the use of force against a sovereign state. Any other pretext or method which might be used to justify the use of force against an independent sovereign state is inadmissible and can only be interpreted as an aggression.”

Western diplomats said they detected a “chink in his armour”, leaving himself wiggle room if he is embarrassed on the issue of chemical weapons.

Assad’s other key ally, Iran, could also take a critical line on the chemical weapons, scarred as it was by Saddam Hussein’s widespread use of gas against Iranians in the 80s. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president, blamed Assad this week for the attack.

Given the competing claims and counter-claims, there will be pleas for a delay in any military action until the UN inspectors have reported. And Putin, who appears in no mood to do the west any favours, may simply be relishing the agonising prevarication of Obama over the past 10 days, enjoying the humiliation of David Cameron over Syria, and gleefully anticipating greater western disarray as a moment of truth approaches over Syria.

“I don’t see any will on Putin’s part to co-operate on anything with the west right now,” said Meister. But that the G20 is taking place at all is a fortuitous coincidence, diplomats and analysts say. Despite all the planning and preparation, it is being transformed into perhaps the last big council of world leaders before a bigger war.

From Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of Turkey, clamouring for a Kosovo-style air campaign to topple Assad, to Obama preparing limited punitive strikes, to Putin exhibiting the Kremlin’s default position as spoiler in international crisis management, the differences are very large, the rhetoric is cacophonous.

Optimists say the drift to war brought about by the chemical weapons episode might catalyse a diplomatic process that seeks some kind of consensus between the west, Russia and Iran.

“It’s lucky timing, this summit,” said the former senior EU official and foreign policy architect. “The political strategy should get Russia and Iran on the right side. That should be the primary objective, the really big prize even if it doesn’t bring the overthrow of Assad.”