Putin digs in on Syria while Cameron claims progress

Not entirely clear that the wording in the G8 communique moves on from what Russia accepted in the June 2012 Geneva communique.

The word “transition” was accepted then in many forms by the Russians. The main gain (you can judge for yourself how substantial it is) is a joint commitment to another peace conference “as soon as possible” with a side-briefed muttering that it could be August and certainly won’t be sooner.

The hopes were never great of a massive breakthrough, but reading the runes it’s not obvious that the trip to this remote, rural part of the UK has produced any sort of breakthrough at all.

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It sounds like the Russian leader in the room was emphasising that it is not the G8’s business to go around saying who should or shouldn’t be leader of an individual country, and he’s dug his heels in opposing anything that looks like he’s giving up on President Assad.

Re-reading the original 2012 Geneva communique (albeit on a bumpy bus ride through Fermanagh lanes), I get the impression that the G8 leaders struggled to get Putin to sign up to more or less exaxctly what his foreign minister signed up to nearly a year ago to the day.

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