G20 late night sees Syria on the menu
The G20 leaders had a very late night. Dinner didn’t start until 10.30pm.
After President Vladimir Putin‘s introduction, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon got to make his points, trying to put the brakes on US action over Syria.
US President Barack Obama, who had turned up last and late, would’ve been slightly cheered by what then followed.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who would like even more US military action than is planned, spoke about how the UN Security Council (by which he meant China and Russia) should face up to its responsibilities (by which he meant “should back the US”).
Canada, France, Britain, Germany and Italy said their bit, President Obama too, which meant the discussion began dominated by those who unequivocally blame the Assad regime for the attacks even if not all of them are ready to sign off on US military action.
France’s President Francois Hollande actually tried to get EU countries agreeing some sort of line on Syria before the evening dinner.
You see the last moments of this short push as he gesticulates to Chancellor Angela Merkel and David Cameron on the way to dinner.
But he hasn’t got a uniform approach from Europe, and the French press report that he’s peeved with the European Council President Herman van Rompuy for opposing an immediate military response in his press conference on Thursday.
Read more: G20: Obama late to the table
Back at the dinner, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner slowed up proceedings that are never that fast to start with.
She spoke for 25 minutes, sharing her thoughts on her country’s history and past conflicts with the US.
Mr Cameron was amongst those world leaders who took off the translation earphones after a while but it didn’t seem to stop President Kirchner’s flow.
It’s striking watching Chancellor Merkel and President Obama stroll out to the photocall that just happened, together in animated and friendly chatter.
Only last year at the G20 in Mexico, Germany was the villain of the drama, failing in many eyes to act boldly enough to stop the eurozone crisis.
This year, the leaders arrived with the eurozone difficulties down their list of worries and with a note from the IMF telling them it was the more developed economies that were pulling the rest of the world out of stagnation and the emerging economies (some of them, at least) that were having a wobble.
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