Page 3 - aruba today sept 29,2015

U.S. NEWS A3
Tuesday 29 September 2015

Obama, Putin clash over fate of Syria, Assad

JULIE PACE that happen. join the U.S.-led coalition Hollande backed Obama’s while Syria’s government
V. ISACHENKOV The crisis has taken on already launching strikes call for Assad’s ouster, say- needs reform, the country
Associated Press fresh urgency amid Rus- against the militants. He ing “nobody can imagine” will fall to the Islamic State
UNITED NATIONS (AP) sia’s recent military buildup said Russia would only take a political solution in Syria if if the international com-
— U.S. President Barack in Syria. Putin has cast the such a step in accordance he is still in power. Hollande munity makes getting rid of
Obama and Russian Presi- Assad its top goal.
dent Vladimir Putin sharply U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, toast during a lun- Despite Obama’s staunch
disagreed Monday over cheon, at United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015. opposition to Assad re-
the chaos in Syria, with maining in office, the U.S.
Obama urging a political (Mikhail Metzel, RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) has struggled to push him
transition to replace the from power. Russia has long
Syrian president but Putin increased presence of with international law, a called on countries with in- been a major obstacle,
warning it would be a mis- equipment and troops in veiled reference to his criti- fluence in Syria, including shielding Assad from U.N.
take to abandon the cur- Syria as part of the effort cism that Obama’s coali- Gulf nations and Iran, to be sanctions and continuing
rent government. to defeat the Islamic State, tion does not meet such a engaged in a transition. to provide the Syrian gov-
After dueling speeches at and suggested Monday standard. However, Iran — which ernment with weapons.
the United Nations General that Russia could launch The Syria crisis largely over- along with Russia is a strong In fact, Russia has ap-
Assembly, Obama and Pu- airstrikes against the mili- shadowed the summit’s backer of Assad — said the peared to deepen its sup-
tin also met privately for 90 tants. “We are thinking other discussions on peace- Syrian president must re- port for Assad in recent
minutes — their first face- about it and don’t exclude keeping, climate change main in power to fight ex- weeks, sending additional
to-face encounter in near- anything,” he said. and global poverty. tremists. Iranian President military equipment and
ly a year. It’s unlikely Putin would French President Francois Hassan Rouhani said that troops with the justification
At the heart of their dis- that it is helping the govern-
pute over Syria is the fate ment fight the Islamic State.
of embattled Syrian leader The military buildup has
Bashar Assad, a Russian confounded U.S. officials,
ally. The U.S. has long called who spent the summer
for Assad to leave power, hoping Russia’s patience
while Russia has cast the with Assad was waning
Syrian government as the and political negotiations
only viable option for de- could be started.
feating the Islamic State, Obama and Putin each
a militant group that has framed his case for Syria’s
taken advantage of the future in the context of a
vacuum created by the broader approach to the
civil war. world, launching veiled
During his address to the criticisms at each other.q
UN, Obama declared,
“We must recognize that
there cannot be, after so
much bloodshed, so much
carnage, a return to the
prewar status quo.”
Putin, speaking shortly after
the U.S. president, urged
the world to stick with
Assad.
“We believe it’s a huge
mistake to refuse to co-
operate with the Syrian
authorities, with the gov-
ernment forces, those who
are bravely fighting terror
face-to-face,” Putin said
during his first appearance
at the U.N. gathering in a
decade.
Obama and Putin’s dis-
parate views of the grim
situation in Syria left little
indication of how the two
countries might work to-
gether to end a conflict
that has killed more than
250,000 people and result-
ed in a flood of refugees.
Indeed, the leaders’ pri-
vate meetings ended with
vague statements about
the need for a political res-
olution to the crisis, but no
clear pathway for making