US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have met for the first time, shaking hands at the start of a G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. They met as US news outlets reported that Trump wishes to expand cooperation with Russia in Syria
It is being suggested that in line with the strategy, Syrian President Bashar Assad will be left in power and the United States will agree on the idea of safe zones in Syria proposed by Russia, Iran and Turkey, widening in cooperation with Moscow.
Trump’s administration is reportedly not going to hand the territory liberated from the Daesh terrorist group over to Damascus. These areas will be policed by forces allied with the United States such as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), while in areas controlled by Syrian government troops the ceasefire observation will be left to Russian forces.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that despite a number of unresolved contradictions, Moscow and Washington have the potential for coordinating actions on Syria. Meanwhile major clashes at a ‘Welcome to Hell’ rally erupted outside the G20 meeting as riot police stormed the crowds of anti-capitalist protesters with baton charges and volleys of tear gas.
Yesterday as the clashes between police and protesters escalated, the German police turned their water cannons on the crowds.
The Group of Twenty is a summit for 19 countries, both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’, plus the EU.
The individual countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US.
‘We are all aware of the great global challenges,’ German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her summit opening statement. We know that time is short and therefore solutions very often can only be found if we are ready to compromise and work together.’
On Thursday, Trump used a speech in the Polish capital Warsaw to attack Russias relationship with Iran and Syria.
In a highly provocative move, he called for Poland to break its reliance on Russian gas imported by the EU and import gas from the US instead. Within just 24 hours, Poland has unveiled a plan that would make it the European hub for imports of natural gas from the US. The plan was unveiled by Polish President Andrzej Duda during Trump’s visit to Warsaw. ‘Can we become a hub through which American LNG gas will flow to central Europe? I am convinced the answer is “Yes”,’ Duda told journalists meeting Trump.
The Polish president stressed the issue is under the framework of the Three Seas Initiative – an alliance of a dozen eastern and central European nations that border the Adriatic, Baltic and Black seas.
The announcement came a month after the first US tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived in Poland. Poland imports most of the 16 billion cubic metres of gas it consumes a year from Russia, on the basis of a long-term deal with Gazprom which expires in 2022.
Putin has argued strongly in favour of the Paris climate agreement, saying it was a ‘secure basis for long-term climate regulation’ and Russia wanted to make a ‘comprehensive contribution to its implementation’. President Trump, of course, has taken America out of the agreement.