3 Syria At the G-20 summit in Mexico, President Obama met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the continuing bloody uprising in Syria, among other issues. During a tense two-hour meeting on June 18, Obama tried to persuade Putin to help the U.S. force Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down. Two days earlier, the U.N. suspended its observer mission in Syria, saying the situation on the ground had become too dangerous for its monitors. Putin has continued to support Assad, in his eyes a strategic ally, twice using Russia's veto power to block U.N. Security Council sanctions against Syria.
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