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Russia reaffirms Assad support and takes initiative on 'contact group' talks
Obama and Putin present opposing views on Syria and Isis in blunt UN speeches
(about 7 hours later)
Efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria may be taken up by an international “contact group”, including Russia, Iran, the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, it emerged on Monday, hours before a high-stakes meeting between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the United Nations in New York.
Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin clashed with an exchange of blunt rhetoric at the UN general assembly on Monday, as they vied for global leadership on Syria and the fight against Islamic State.
Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minster, said the group could meet by October, the RIA news agency reported from Moscow. The group conspicuously excludes Britain and France – both permanent veto-wielding members of the UN security council who are hostile to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad – as well as China.
The two leaders also swapped barbs over Ukraine at the annual gathering of world leaders, in a verbal duel that was reminiscent of some of the tensest episodes of the cold war.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are respectively the most active Middle Eastern supporters and opponents of the Assad regime. Putin had earlier strengthened his support for the Syrian president, dismissing evidence of widespread atrocities as enemy “propaganda”.
In a throwback to that era, the Russian president, making his first appearance at the general assembly for a decade, was not in the chamber during Obama’s address. He was shown on Russian television walking down the steps of his official plane just as Obama began his address. He arrived at the UN headquarters in midtown Manhattan just after the US president had left the podium.
European diplomats were understood to be exploring the idea of reviving the P5+1 format – the five permanent members of the security council plus Germany – which achieved July’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran. A contact group is an informal grouping of influential countries that have a significant interest in policy developments.
Likewise, when Putin was speaking, the US presence was reduced to relatively junior officials. And Ukrainian officials walked out during the Russian address.
The idea of a Syria contact group has been discussed by the UN and in diplomatic circles for the past few weeks, but this was thought to be the first time it has been mentioned in public by any big power. It appeared to fit a pattern of Russia taking the initiative on the Syria crisis at a time when western policy is in disarray.
The most contentious and divisive issue of all was over the continuing slaughter in Syria, the rise of Isis and the mass exodus of refugees from the conflict. And at the core of the US-Russian power struggle was the fate of Bashar al-Assad and whether he is the root of the problem or part of the solution.
Iran’s involvement will be controversial in the US and opposed by Syrian rebels – but the inclusion of Saudi Arabia could help persuade opponents. Turkey is also a key supporter of Islamist rebels. Egypt, the most populous Arab country, is fiercely anti-Islamist and recently restored diplomatic relations with Syria.
It is a fundamental difference that has prevented concerted international action on Syria for the entirety of the four-year war, which has cost the lives of over 250,000 Syrians and driven more than 11 million from their homes. On Monday, against the green marble backdrop of the general assembly podium, the rift appeared as debilitating as ever.
In a wide-ranging interview with the CBS programme 60 Minutes, aired on Sunday, Putin praised America for its “creativity and open-mindedness” and shrugged off descriptions of him as a gangster.
Related: Iran's state sponsor of terrorism label excludes it from UN summit on Isis
But it was his remarks on Syria that carried the most significance: he will be meeting Obama at the UN general assembly later on Monday for talks about the international response to the Syrian war and the global humanitarian crisis it has triggered. His remarks come weeks after he deployed warplanes and an estimated 1,700 troops to western Syria to help prop up the Assad regime in the name of fighting Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
Obama was first of the leaders to speak. He assailed states who gave in to the temptation of a “might makes right” philosophy.
Related: Vladimir Putin bids for major world role as his forces move into Syria
“In accordance with this logic, we should support tyrants like Bashar al-Assad who drops barrel bombs to massacre innocent civilians because the alternative is surely worse,” Obama said in remarks clearly aimed primarily at Putin, who has repeatedly insisted that defeat of Isis can only be achieved by support of the “legitimate government” of Syria.
The White House has said it would welcome a Russian role in the fight against Isis but insists that Assad’s departure from power has to be part of the solution. His regime’s atrocities against civilians, through daily barrel bombing of residential areas and other means, mean that his continued presence serves as a recruitment tool for extremists, it says.
The US president indicated that he was ready to talk with everyone, including Russia and Iran, in seeking common ground on the issue, but equally clearly laid out US red lines, the most important of which was transition away from Assad.
In the interview, however, Putin flatly rejected the evidence of war crimes by the Assad regime. The former KGB officer said: “Speaking in a professional language of intelligence services, I can tell you that this kind of assessment is an ‘active measure’ by enemies of Assad. It is anti-Syrian propaganda.
“Yes, realism dictates that compromise will be required to end the fighting and ultimately stamp out Isil. But realism also requires a managed transition away from Assad and to a new leader, and an inclusive government that recognises there must be an end to this chaos so that the Syrian people can begin to rebuild,” he said.
“We support the legitimate government of Syria,” Putin said. “And there is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism, but at the same time urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform.”
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He said that the Russian troops currently in Syria were not there to conduct combat operations, but he did not rule out that happening in the future.
Obama’s address was also an ode to the twin virtues of democracy and diplomacy, interwoven with admissions of when the US had fallen short of those ideals, in the invasion of Iraq, and the xenophobia that has risen to the surface in the nation’s current political discourse.
“Russia will not participate in any troop operations in the territory of Syria or in any other states. Well, at least we don’t plan on it right now,” Putin said. “But we are considering intensifying our work with both President Assad and with our partners in other countries.”
Putin’s address was different in tone. While Obama had repeatedly paused for dramatic effect, the Russian leader galloped through his lines. The American president talked optimistically about the common aspirations that united all peoples; Putin struck darker, conspiratorial notes.
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Sunday evening that his country’s outlook was close to the Russians’. Tehran was willing to work with other countries in Syria but only if their priority was to fight terrorism, not change the regime in Damascus, he said.
He noted how Isis had drawn its strength from former Iraqi servicemen made jobless by the US-led invasion in 2003 and then by the western bombing of Libya that led to the destruction of the Gaddafi regime in Tripoli. He suggested that the religious extremists were sent deliberately into Syria by unnamed powers to destroy the secular, anti-western government in Damascus.
“This doesn’t mean the Syrian government is not in need of reform,” Rouhani said. “But if a government says it simultaneously wants to fight terrorism and change the government in Damascus, it will be a futile effort.”
Putin showed no sign of willingness to compromise on Assad’s fate, not even conceding that Damascus might be ripe for “reform” after Isis was defeated – a more conciliatory formula put forward by the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani. Instead, he increased his praise for the regime, which he said was “fighting valiantly against terror face to face in Syria”. Furthermore, he said, the Syrian forces had been struggling almost alone up till now.
Russian actions in Syria have exacerbated the dilemma in Washington and allied capitals over what to do about the Syrian conflict. Despite the US’s denunciation of the regime’s atrocities, it has not been prepared to confront Assad with military force. Costly efforts to support moderate rebel groups have resulted in only four or five US-backed armed guerrillas on Syrian territory. A former top aide to Obama on the Middle East argued on Sunday that in the absence of realistic means to oust Assad, it was better to enter negotiations without demanding Assad’s departure as a precondition.
Putin not only presented a rival narrative for the Syrian conflict – he also offered an alternative mechanism for dealing for it. The Russian leader will have left New York by the time Obama chairs a summit on combating Isis and violent extremism on Tuesday. Putin did not mention it. Instead, he called on UN member states to take part in a ministerial meeting convened by Russia in its current role as president of the UN security council, which would lead to a new UN resolution on combating Isis, presumably built around support for the Damascus regime.
“There may have been a time when it seemed that violence – an insurgency to overthrow the Assad dictatorship – was worth the lives it would cost in an attempt to produce better and more humane governance in Syria. That time has long past,” Philip Gordon wrote in Politico Magazine.
The sharply conflicting speeches from Obama and Putin offered little hope of a breakthrough at their face-to-face meeting on Monday evening. It promises to be more of an arm-wrestling session to test personal resolve rather than a meeting of minds.
Instead, Gordon suggested the US explore the potential of local and regional ceasefires. Iran and Turkey have recently helped rebels and the regime agree to a precarious ceasefire around the city of Idlib, with a regime undertaking not to carry out aerial bombing.
On the evidence of the opening morning of a week’s worth of speeches at the general assembly, Putin had gathered some momentum. In her brief remarks on Syria, the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, blamed only Isis and “associated groups” for the violence. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, did not mention Syria by name but stressed the importance of respect for national security as a pillar of the UN charter.
In other remarks in his 60 Minutes interview, Putin offered some rare praise for Americans and in particular for their creativity: “Creativity when it comes to tackling your problems. Their openness, openness and open-mindedness. Because it allows them to unleash the inner potential of their people. And thanks to that, America has attained such amazing results in developing their country.”
When his turn came, Rouhani blamed the US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and its support for Israel for creating an environment for terrorism to flourish. In earlier remarks on Sunday, he had stuck to a line on Syria that was close to the Russians’, calling for the fight against Isis to take precedence over any aspirations for reform in Damascus. But in the debating chamber on Monday, he opted to stay out of the US-Russian clash, with all its cold war echoes.
Putin said that his KGB past had helped his performance as president, saying: “Anything that we do, all this knowledge we acquire, all the experience, we’ll have it forever and we’ll keep that. And we’ll use it somehow.” He also pointed to that professional background to ridicule allegations of gangsterism, in particular from the Republican presidential candidate, Marco Rubio.
“How can I be a gangster if I worked for the KGB?” Putin asked. “Come on. That does not correspond to reality.”
