Peter Stegny, Russian Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador and an expert of the Russian Council for Foreign Affairs, said that Syria was an important topic for the upcoming G20 summit in Saint Petersburg and organizers of the meeting had had to reconsider the agenda to fit the problem into the list of economic issues for discussions.
The expert noted that a military intervention in Syria was a disputable issue in the West, East and Latin America.
Contacts between Presidents Obama and Putin were especially important Stegny reminded that Russia was against use of chemical weapons.
Leonid Syukiyanen, a professor of the National Research University of the Higher School of Economics, expects attendants of the summit to search for new common views on the problem. He said that there were little chances that the summit would convince the US to abstain from intervention.
Vitaly Naumkin, Director of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the RAS, said that it will be very hard to find a peaceful solution for the Middle East at the G20 summit, even in the light of US attempts to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Andrey Kokoshin, Dean of the World Politics Faculty of the MSU, expressed hope that G20 leaders would come to economic agreements at the G20 summit and stabilize the global economic situation. Countries need reduction of budget deficits, governmental debt and encourage the states provoking the 2008 crisis to be more responsible, he believes. Kokoshin emphasized that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan caused economic losses of $2 trillion and rise of the governmental debt that affected the 2008 crisis.
