NEW YORK—U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first formal meeting in more than two years started with an awkward handshake and ended without a breakthrough on Syria, a crisis that has strained their already tense relationship.
On the biggest issue that divides them in Syria — the status of embattled leader Bashar Assad — Obama and Putin left their discussions Monday exactly where they started. The U.S. still insists Syria’s future cannot include Assad, while Putin appears to only want to bolster the standing of his longtime ally, casting him as the best defense against Islamic States militants.
Even so, both leaders appeared interested in whether their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly could yield progress toward ending Syria’s 4½ year civil war. After the 90-minute sit-down at U.N. headquarters, Putin and U.S. officials who described the meeting on Obama’s behalf each spoke of the need for cooperation.
Putin also moved swiftly to try to capitalize on the failure of U.S. efforts to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels — a $500 million Pentagon program that was supposed to yield more than 5,000 fighters but instead only has only a handful of active graduates. The Russian leader jabbed Obama over the program’s failures in his remarks to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.
The global landscape looks far different than what some in the Obama administration envisioned earlier this year.
Fresh off the success of Iranian nuclear negotiations that resulted in a rare alignment among Russia, China and the West, some U.S. officials wondered whether that partnership could serve as a model for tackling other crises, including Syria. Officials also suggested there was reason to be optimistic that Putin was growing impatient with Assad.
Privately, some U.S. officials say they still believe Putin is inclined to cooperate with the U.S. to ease Assad from power. They’ve raised the prospect that Putin’s increased military footprint in Syria isn’t just to prop up Assad, but perhaps also to curry favor with whoever might replace him.
