Hollande Uncertain on Putin Visit After Aleppo Veto

Paris: French President Francois Hollande has not yet decided whether to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Paris next week, after the Kremlin blocked a UN bid to end the bombing of Aleppo, Paris said.

Putin is due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a new Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower in a visit that is fast turning into a diplomatic headache for France.

On Sunday, Hollande left open the question of whether he would receive Putin, describing the scorched-earth campaign in the Syrian city of Aleppo as a war crime.

"I asked myself the question... Is it useful? Is it necessary? Can it be a way of exerting pressure? Can we get him to stop what he is doing with the Syrian regime?" Hollande told the TMC channel yesterday.

The Kremlin however said preparations for Putin's visit were continuing.

"There are plans for talks with the Elysee Palace (seat of the French presidency) and Putin will take part in the inauguration of the Russian spiritual centre," his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Paris had not informed Moscow of any changes to their plans, he added.

Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told France Inter radio yesterday that Hollande would decide whether to meet with Putin "in light of the situation in Aleppo and Syria".

If Hollande agrees to meet Putin, "it will not be for pleasantries, it will be to speak the truth," he said, calling the Syrian and Russian bombardments of Aleppo a "gift to terrorists".

Ayrault was given short shrift in Moscow on Friday as he tried in vain to persuade his opposite number Sergei Lavrov to implement the Aleppo ceasefire plan.

But Ayrault said Russia was still "a partner" of France and there might also be talks to try to resolve the nearly three-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine.

He did not give details but France and Germany have for weeks been trying to organise a meeting between Hollande, Putin, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko.

During a visit yesterday to Istanbul, Putin outlined a potential first step toward getting badly needed aid into Aleppo, where some 250,000 residents live in the rebel-held east.

"We have a common position which is to do everything to get humanitarian aid to Aleppo... The problem is ensuring the safety of these deliveries," Putin said.