US President Obama welcomes British PM Cameron to White House US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron opened wide-ranging talks at the White House Monday on Syria and trade. Cameron arrived at the White House Monday morning for an Oval Office meeting with Obama. The two leaders were then to hold a joint news conference in the East Room.
David Cameron hailed a "real breakthrough" in diplomatic efforts to end the civil war in Syria. Fresh from a trip to Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's few remaining backers, Cameron said US pressure had convinced Moscow to join a conference on a political transition in Syria, which was a significant step forward.
He told National Public Radio that Secretary of State John Kerry made a "real breakthrough" in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin "when they agreed to an American-Russia peace conference."
The British leader also said that Putin was "keen now to move from the generalities of having a peace conference to talking through the specifics of how we can make this work."
"World leaders must do everything in their power to stop the bloodshed in Syria, after more than two years of conflict. Syria's history is being written in the blood of her people, and it is happening on our watch. The world urgently needs to come together to bring the killing to an end," Cameron told a joint news conference with US President Barack Obama, adding that plans for the G8 summit next month in Northern Ireland were also up for discussion.
Obama has resisted directly arming the Syrian opposition but - with reports that Syria used chemical weapons, despite US warnings that doing so would cross a "red line" - is coming under increasing pressure at home and abroad to do so.
The president said last week that Washington had a moral and national security obligation to stop the slaughter in Syria - but he could not act on "perceived" use of chemical weapons and needed more evidence.
Cameron and Obama met amid indications that Assad's regime may not be rushed out of power quickly, as the army gained ground in the strategic central province of Homs.
British based watchdog, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that the military, backed by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, seized much of the strategically vital Qusayr area, which connects the capital Damascus to the coast.
In southern Daraa, which nurtured the Syrian uprising against Assad, the army secured control of the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh, on the route between Damascus and the Jordanian border.
The Observatory said on Monday that it has now documented the deaths of some 82,257 people since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, including 34,473 civilians.
Reverberations meanwhile mounted from a string of deadly bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, which the Ankara government blamed on Damascus.
Thousands of Turks took to the streets to urge their government to rethink its outspoken support for rebels fighting Assad, warning that the decision had provoked reprisals against Turkey, including the bombings, which killed 48 people.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet Obama at the White House on Thursday, with Syria also topping their agenda.
In another sign of accelerating diplomacy on Syria, the Kremlin said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold talks on Tuesday with Putin amid concerns Moscow plans to deliver advanced missiles to the Damascus regime.