Pressure on Russia over Syria as G8 summit opens

LOUGH ERNE: World leaders head to the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday looking to put pressure on Russia to back away from its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad amid growing Western efforts to arm the rebels.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, the host of the meeting of top industrialised powers, insisted he could overcome his differences with Russian President Vladimir Putin after they held pre-summit talks in London.

Amid rising tensions over Syria, Putin will meet US President Barack Obama in Northern Ireland on Monday for what could be prickly talks, as both leaders now offer military support to opposing sides in the war.

In London, Putin insisted that Moscow had abided by international law when supplying weapons to Assad's regime and demanded that Western countries contemplating arming rebels do the same.

"We are not breaching any rules and norms and we call on all our partners to act in the same fashion," Putin said.

The Russian leader referred to a video released last month purportedly showing a rebel Syrian fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier.

He asked if the West really wanted to support rebels "who not only kill their enemies but open up their bodies and eat their internal organs in front of the public and the cameras".

But Cameron said: "What I take from our conversation today is that we can overcome these differences if we recognise that we share some fundamental aims: to end the conflict, to stop Syria breaking apart, to let the Syrian people decide who governs them and to take the fight to the extremists and defeat them."

Obama will emphasise to Putin that Washington wants to keep alive a mooted Geneva peace summit co-organised with Moscow, which appears to be slipping down the list of priorities.