Obama, Putin to Talk Syria at G-8

Russian president Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet privately on the sidelines of the 2013 G-8 Summit in Northern Ireland. It will be the first time these leaders have met since they were both returned to office. While they have many critical issues to discuss, the troubling events in Syria will likely top the list. Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the U.S. and Europe, previews the meetings, saying there’s little hope that these talks can persuade Russia to change its stance on Syria. She also expects President Putin to participate in the meetings under his “statist persona,” a facet of the Russian president that she describes in her book, with Clifford Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings, 2012).

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