\n Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday cancelled a visit to France in a furious row over Moscow's role in the Syrian conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n The announcement from the Kremlin came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a \"war crime\" in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Putin had been due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also took part in talks with him about Syria.\n<\/p>\n
\n Russia has been waging a punishing aerial bombing campaign in Syria for more than a year in support of President Bashar al-Assad's forces, part of a multi-front war that has claimed some 300,000 lives and seen Moscow further estranged from the West.\n<\/p>\n
\n The French president had admitted he was agonising over whether to meet Putin, but the Kremlin on Tuesday called off the visit.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was \"ready to visit when it is comfortable for President Hollande\", adding that Moscow would \"wait for when that comfortable time comes\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Hollande responded that he was prepared to meet Putin \"at any time... to further peace\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Speaking in Strasbourg, Hollande said France and Russia had had a \"major disagreement\" over Syria.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It is necessary to have dialogue with Russia but it must be firm and frank,\" Hollande told the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe rights body.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Saturday, Russia blocked a draft French UN resolution calling for an end to the barrage of air strikes on the rebel-held east of Aleppo that have escalated in the last month, leaving hundreds of people dead, including dozens of children.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was the fifth time that Russia used its veto to block UN action to end the five-year war in Syria that has sent millions fleeing and triggered the biggest migration crisis in Europe since World War II.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Heaviest bombardment in days' -\n<\/p>\n
\n In the aftermath of that decision, Hollande described the bombing of Aleppo as a \"war crime\".\n<\/p>\n
\n He said in a TV interview on Monday: \"Those who commit these acts will have to pay for their involvement, including at the International Criminal Court.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n On Tuesday, at least 12 civilians were killed in the heaviest Russian bombardment in days of Aleppo, a monitoring group said.\n<\/p>\n
\n An AFP correspondent and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported it was the most intense bombing since the Syrian army said on October 5 it would reduce its onslaught on the northern city.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite cancelling his visit to Paris, Putin is still considering travelling to Berlin on October 19 for a meeting on the conflict in Ukraine, one of his aides told Itar-Tass on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed the meeting along the lines of the so-called Normandy format, bringing together Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, with the possible participation of Hollande.\n<\/p>\n
\n But it is uncertain whether Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is prepared to take part.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is not the first time in recent years that Moscow's foreign policy has strained relations between France and Russia.\n<\/p>\n
\n The outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 eventually prompted France to cancel the delivery to Russia of two Mistral assault ships and repay almost 950 million euros ($1.1 billion).\n<\/p>\n
\n The ships were subsequently sold to Egypt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday cancelled a visit to France in a furious row over Moscow's role in the Syrian conflict. The announcement from the Kremlin came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a \"war crime\" in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-29774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n