MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled Tuesday a visit to Paris after the French leader called the recent bombings of the Syrian city of Aleppo a “war crime” and questioned publicly whether it made sense to meet with Putin at all.
The decision to call off next week’s planned trip underscores the increasing divides between the West and Russia over Moscow’s military aid to Syria’s government in the country’s more than five-year conflict.
French officials have said that they want the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to launch a war crimes investigation into Russia and Syria’s airstrikes in Aleppo, which have become a byword for the grave humanitarian crisis unleased by the Syrian civil war.
Russia says it is only targeting terrorists in Aleppo, and has accused the West of using so-called terrorist groups to seek the downfall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key Russian ally. The attacks on Aleppo expanded sharply late last month after the collapse of a cease-fire plan brokered by Russia and the United States.
The Kremlin confirmed that next Wednesday’s planned visit to Paris had been cancelled, ostensibly because the opening of a Russian cultural and spiritual center had been delayed. But the presidential spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, also noted that “Putin said that he would be ready to visit Paris when it was convenient” for French President Francois Hollande.
“We will wait for this convenient time to come,” Peskov said.
The cancelled visit is the latest diplomatic breakdown between Russia and the West over Syria.
The United States last week halted diplomatic talks with Russia because of the Aleppo bombing, claiming Russia had “failed to live up to its own commitments.” Russia on Saturday blocked a French-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed a no-fly zone in Syria. A Russian counter-proposal, also vetoed, would not have halted airstrikes in Aleppo.
Hollande on Sunday questioned whether he should receive Putin at all.
“I asked myself the question: 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?” he said during an interview on France’s TMC television channel.
He said he would tell Putin that the bombing of Aleppo is “unacceptable” and called the campaign a “war crime.”
Putin may still meet with Hollande next week in Berlin as part of discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.
Featured Image: (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Andrew Roth
