G20 'Split' as US Hits Out at Russia

G20 leaders were divided over Syria at the end of the first day of
their Russian summit, as the US envoy to the UN showed her frustration
at Moscow.
Italian PM Enrico Letta said the splits were confirmed at a working
dinner, reports the BBC.
At the UN, US ambassador Samantha Power accused Russia of holding the
Security Council hostage by repeatedly blocking resolutions.
She said the Security Council was no longer a "viable path" for
holding Syria accountable for war crimes.
The US government accuses President Bashar al-Assad's forces of
killing 1,429 people in a poison-gas attack in the Damascus suburbs on
21 August. The UK says scientists at the Porton Down research
laboratories have found traces of sarin gas on cloth and soil samples.
But Assad has blamed rebels for the attack, and China and Russia have
refused to agree to a Security Council resolution against Syria.
The US and France are the only nations at the G20 summit in St
Petersburg to commit to using force in Syria. China and Russia insist
any action without the UN would be illegal.
Ms Power told a news conference in New York: "Even in the wake of the
flagrant shattering of the international norm against chemical weapons
use, Russia continues to hold the council hostage and shirk its
international responsibilities.
"What we have learned, what the Syrian people have learned, is that
the Security Council the world needs to deal with this crisis is not
the Security Council we have."
US President Barack Obama is thought to be trying at the G20 summit to
build an international coalition to back strikes against military
targets in Syria.
But the Italian prime minister said in a tweet that "the G20 has just
now finished the dinner session, at which the divisions about Syria
were confirmed".
President Obama said last week the US military was prepared to launch
a "limited, narrow" strike on targets in Syria, but promised to allow
Congress a vote on the issue.
The BBC's Bridget Kendall in St Petersburg says the views of the G20
leaders on any US action could be the least of Obama's worries as his
real difficulties might lie back in the US.
President Obama cancelled a trip to California on Monday to lobby
Congress, as a poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News suggested
more than one-third of Congress members were undecided whether or not
to back military action.