Russian President Vladimir Putin’s G20 statements about Syria's future seem to have made some world leaders rush to false conclusions. David Cameron claimed that Putin explicitly “does not want Assad remaining in charge in Syria.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed that during the G20 summit, President Putin shifted his position and now wants President Bashar al-Assad out of power in Syria. "There remain differences over sequencing and the shape of how the transition takes place, but it is welcome that President Putin has been explicit that he does not want Assad remaining in charge in Syria," Cameron told reporters at a news conference in the wake of the G20 summit in Mexico's Los Cabos. "What we need next is an agreement on a transitional leadership which can move Syria to a democratic future that protects the rights of all its communities," Cameron added.
Cameron’s statement was refuted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as “not corresponding to reality.”
During his speech, Putin clearly stated that no nation has a right to decide for another on “who should be brought to power and who should be ousted.”
Reiterating Russia’s firm position on Syria, Putin said that "it is important that after a regime change, if it happens, and it must happen only by constitutional means, peace comes to the country and bloodshed stops." While many of the Syrian people indeed would like President Assad to go, "this is not the whole Syrian people," Putin said. All conflicting parties in Syria should cease violence and start negotiations “to agree in advance on how they will live together in a single country,” Putin added.
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