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Vladimir Putin postpones Paris talks on Syria Vladimir Putin cancels Paris visit amid Syria row
(35 minutes later)
Vladimir Putin will not visit Paris next week after declining to meet François Hollande solely for talks on Syria, in the latest deterioration of ties between Moscow and the west. Vladimir Putin has cancelled a visit to Paris after the Kremlin accused France of seeking to “humiliate” the Russian leader.
French officials have been looking for ways to put pressure on Russia after Moscow vetoed a French-drafted UN security council resolution on Syria. Their growing anger at what has been taking place in the rebel-held areas of Aleppo had led them to reconsider whether to host Putin on 19 October. Moscow announced on Tuesday morning that the planned trip was off, hours after the French president, François Hollande, said Russia could face war crimes charges over its bombardment of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city.
“The president made the decision to cancel his visit,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “The president noted that he is ready to visit Paris at a time convenient for Hollande. We will wait for this convenient time to come.” France is furious at Moscow’s veto of a French resolution at the UN calling for an immediate halt to Russian bombing of Aleppo.
A source in the French president’s office said: “There were contacts between the Kremlin and the Élysée this morning to offer to Putin a working visit on Syria, but excluding all other events that president Hollande could have taken part in. In response to this proposal, Russia has just indicated that it wants to postpone the visit.” Hollande had suggested he might refuse to meet Putin, who was due to fly to France next week, and planned to downgrade the trip to a “working visit based on Syria”.
The Russian leader was due to inaugurate a new Russian Orthodox cathedral and visit a Russian art exhibition in the French capital. It is thought the Kremlin decided this was humiliating for the Russian leader, who was to have inaugurated a new cultural centre in the French capital.
While France has said it is vital to keep dialogue going with Moscow and not cut ties, events in Syria have damaged relations, with the two parties supporting opposite sides in the conflict. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, blamed this on the cancelation of cultural events, rather than Hollande’s demand to discuss the Syrian conflict.
On Monday the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said his diplomats were working to find a way for the international criminal court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to launch an investigation into what France says are war crimes committed by Syrian and Russian forces in eastern Aleppo. “Certain events were planned connected with the opening of a Russian cultural-spiritual centre and the holding of an exhibit. Unfortunately, these events dropped out of the programme, and for this reason the president to cancel the visit to France for now,” Peskov said in commentary broadcast on state television. Peskov had earlier said Putin would appear at the centre, which stands next to a Russian Orthodox cathedral being built on the bank of the Seine near the Pont de l’Alma.
Diplomats said Paris was leading discussions on whether to impose new EU sanctions on Russia specifically over Syria, where Moscow backs the president, Bashar al-Assad. Asked why the events had dropped out of the programme, Peskov said this was a question for the French side. He insisted that the “Russian president doesn’t have any problems” with the cancelation and said Putin remained “ready to visit Paris whenever it is comfortable for president Hollande”.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian ambassador to France, Alexander Orlov, had said Putin still wanted to come to France as planned on 19 October. Peskov denied the developments showed Putin was isolated internationally. “We saw, for instance, last week there were reports in several French newspapers that the president was insisting on this visit to escape isolation. This is absolutely absurd,” he said.
“I think dialogue needs to continue and we are here to talk, especially in difficult moments,” Orlov told Europe 1 radio. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said there was “neither a split nor complicity” between the two countries, adding that Russia remained “a partner, not an enemy”.
British MPs will participate in an emergency debate on Tuesday, in which the former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell will say western air forces must be willing to confront Russian military jets over Syria to enforce a no-fly zone. In a television interview recorded last weekend but broadcast Monday evening, Hollande questioned whether he should received Putin.
“I ask myself … Is it useful? Is it necessary? Can it be a way of exerting pressure? Can we get him to stop what he is doing with the Syrian regime? If I receive him, it will be to tell him that it’s unacceptable [bombing Aleppo], that it’s very serious for Russia’s image,” Hollande told TMC.
He added: “Those who commit these acts will have to take responsibility for them including before the international criminal court.”
The threat of a war crimes trial was theoretical as Russia, which has never ratified the setting up of the ICC, could use its UN veto to avoid being referred to it.
Moscow’s decision to postpone Putin’s visit has saved the Élysée from a potentially difficult diplomatic situation. Ayrault had previously said that if Hollande met Putin in Paris he would “give a few home truths and not chit-chat”.
Russian media were putting a positive spin on the canceled trip by saying Putin could still see Hollande at a meeting of the Normandy Four. It emerged on Tuesday that Angela Merkel had suggested the group of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia gather on 19 October.
“Merkel invited Putin to dine in Berlin in place of talks with Hollande,” read a headline on the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets website.
British MPs will participate in an emergency Commons debate on Tuesday in which the former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell will say western air forces must be willing to confront Russian military jets over the skies of Syria to enforce a no-fly zone.