Britain Pledges Extra 52m In Syria Aid

David Cameron holds Syria humanitarian relief talks with G20 world leaders as international tensions continue over the crisis.

新闻背景：

俄罗斯圣彼得堡二十国集团(G20)峰会期间：联合国秘书长潘基文在晚宴上对各国领导人表示，任何军事行动都必须得到安理会的支持。

普京表示对叙实施武装干预将扰乱世界经济秩序，并称若叙利亚遭到美国袭击，俄将会展开援助。

欧洲理事会主席范龙佩在圣彼得堡的记者会上表示，欧盟反对军事解决叙利亚危机，主张尽快公布叙利亚化学武器问题调查结果。

美国驻联合国大使萨曼莎·鲍尔（Samantha Power）表明美国政府将放弃在对叙动武上寻求联合国安理会支持的努力。

It was never going to be an easy chat. But at least as G20 leaders prepared for dinner, Syria was no longer the elephant in the room. It was the centre piece for discussion and debate.

On the key question of prorposed military action, David Cameron has no hand left to play. But he made a decent face of not looking too deflated. While unable to offer active support to Barack Obama, the Prime Minister aimed to buttress his arguments in what proved to be a polite but predictable tabling of entrenched and opposed positions.

“Some people will never be satisfied with...”

“Do you think that includes President Putin? It sounds like he would.”

“I haven’t yet seen any evidence that Russia will change their position at the United Nations. But the best way of doing this, of course, is to have a UN resolution, a condemnation of Syria, a backing for all necessary measures to be taken.”

The hand shake between David Cameron and Vladimir Putin was not the warmest at this summit. The two men don’t see eye to eye on a host of issues. But nor of they yet descended to the arctic level of US-Russia exchanges.

However, remarks attributed to Vladimir Putin spokesman threaten to throw a bit of spanner into the works. It said Dimitri Pescov described Britain as just a small island. No one pays any attention to them.

“The whole story is a bit odd, because one thing we know is that this remark didn’t come from one of the G20 press conference halls. In fact, it wasn’t made in St Petersburg at all. It seems to have from some sort of press briefing earlier on in the week that no one at that time chose to report. Anyway, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the Russian position generally about the British parliamentary vote was that it was great news, because it undermined the move towards the military action.”

The hosts pulled down all the stops with the sound-and-light show stretching into the small hours. After their spectacle, the Russian President found time to meet David Cameron, who once helped to facilitate humanitarian aid in Syria. He’d hoped to be able to forge agreement on such a pressing subject. But given the divisions of the top table, it might be wise not to bet on it. Joy Jones, Sky News, at the G20 in St Petersburg.