VOA常速英语:Syria Likely to Dominate Obama-Cameron Meeting

WHITE HOUSE — President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron are expected to concentrate on Syria when they meet Monday at the White House. The leaders hope to work with Russia to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

Three days before his Washington trip, Cameron visited Russian President Vladimir Putin. They discussed a U.S. and Russian proposal to hold talks with all parties to the conflict.

“Not just bringing the regime and opposition together at one negotiating table, but Britain, Russia, America and other countries, helping shape a transitional government that all Syrians can trust to protect them,” said Cameron.

Obama spoke earlier in the week about the need for a negotiated settlement.

“I think that we have both a moral obligation and a national security interest in, A, ending the slaughter in Syria, but, B, also ensuring that we have got a stable Syria that is representative of all the Syrian people and is not creating chaos for its neighbors,” said Obama.

Several conditions are essential for peace talks to succeed, according to Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon, at Washington’s Brookings Institution.

“You have got to strengthen the insurgency militarily, strengthen the pressure on Assad militarily and then also offer a bit of an olive branch to some of the Assad loyalists for what a peace deal and a new government could look like and what the international role might be in upholding it. If you do not do all that, I think these peace conferences, while well-intentioned and not harmful, are pretty unlikely to go very far,” said O’Hanlon.

The latest Obama-Cameron meeting, O'Hanlon said, probably will not result in direct U.S. military involvement in Syria.

“I do not know that Mr. Obama, with his trillion-dollar deficits that we have to worry about in this country, is looking for much outside activity of a new foreign policy variety, and I am not sure how much Mr. Cameron’s advice would really be all that welcome. But I think Cameron’s position is similar. I do not think he is leading a country that particularly wants a highly activist British role in Syria,” said O’Hanlon.

White House officials say the U.S. and British leaders also likely will discuss Iran, the stalled Middle East peace process, and next month’s G8 summit, which Cameron will host in Northern Ireland.