Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected charges of authoritarianism and lashed out at the United States in his annual marathon news conference. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected charges of authoritarianism and lashed out at the United States in his annual marathon news conference. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. Putin says a draft bill banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children is a legitimate response to a new U.S. law that calls for sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights violators. But he has not committed to signing it. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)
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Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, poses for photographers with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, center, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso during the EU-Russia summit, at the European Council building in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
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Russia's President Vladimir Putin, looks up, next to his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during the EU-Russia summit, at the European Council building in Brussels, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Brussels for a summit with European Union leaders that is expected to focus on energy disputes and the Syrian crisis and could be marred by EU concerns about the Kremlin's clampdown on dissent. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)
Putin: Russia no defender of Syrian president
BRUSSELS (
AP) — Russian President
Vladimir Putin met Tuesday with European leaders in Brussels to discuss energy,
Syria and human rights, but reached no agreements — as officials on both sides had predicted in advance.
Putin said after Friday's meeting that Russia isn't a defender of Syrian President Bashar Assad and wants to see a democratically elected government. But he maintained his stance that peace can only be achieved through an agreement that would ensure the protection of various religious and ethnic groups in Syria.
His primary concern was energy market regulations, which Moscow has described as discriminatory against Russia's state-controlled Gazprom gas company. EU officials have warned Gazprom that must allow third-party gas producers to use the prospective South Stream pipeline to comply with its new regulations.
EU leaders said after the meeting that they had also discussed human rights in Russia.
Outside the European Council building in Brussels on Friday morning, journalists saw four topless anti-Putin female demonstrators, apparently members of the feminist protest group Femen, wrestled to the ground by police and taken away.
Brussels police did not immediately confirm the arrests.
Tags:
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