Russian president Putin leaves open hope over Syria deal Vladimir Putin, Russian president, on Monday night refused to abandon Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, in spite of pressure from the US and other western countries to accelerate a transition of power in the country. Mr Putin told fellow G8 leaders at a summit in Northern Ireland that he would support new peace talks, but was not prepared to abandon what he calls the "legitimate" government of Syria. "The talks were constructive but Putin was not prepared to jettison Assad," said one official close to the negotiations, following a dinner of leaders at Lough Erne. Aides of David Cameron, British prime minister and summit host, had indicated he was prepared to force the issue of a transition of power in the final summit conclusions, to the point where Mr Putin could have been left isolated. But on Monday night British officials said Mr Putin had shown a willingness to work for a peaceful solution and indicated that Mr Cameron would try to fudge the conclusions rather than force a showdown. Mr Cameron - backed by US President Barack Obama and French president François Hollande - wanted to agree a five-point G8 plan for Syria, including making preparations for a transition of power. The plan included a statement that the G8 would prepare for day one of a new government immediately and that the new transitional government would have executive power over the army and police. In a television interview which aired on Monday night in the US, Mr Obama defended his decision to begin giving some arms to the Syrian opposition, but warned that there was "no silver bullet" that could resolve the conflict. Mr Obama said that it was "wrong" to suggest that if "somehow we had gone in earlier or heavier in some fashion, that the tragedy and chaos taking place in Syria would not be taking place." At the same time, he cautioned that "it is very easy to lip slide into deeper and deeper commitments" if there were not quick results in six months. Mr Putin has long argued that it would be reckless to ditch the Assad regime when the west has no clear idea what kind of government would be put in its place. The G8 communiqué being drafted overnight by British officials will attempt to find whatever common ground it can, including a condemnation of the use of chemical weapons, a promise to crack down on extremists on all sides and better access for humanitarian groups to the war zone. British officials were relieved Mr Putin did not repeat his claim that Syrian opposition fighters had been filmed eating the hearts of their slain enemies and drew some comfort from a more conciliatory tone. "Of course our opinions do not coincide but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria," Mr Putin said after a meeting with Mr Obama on the fringes of the two-day summit. We must stop the growth of the victims and solve the problem peacefully, including by bringing the parties to the negotiating table in Geneva. Earlier Mr Cameron's aides had billed the G8 as "a clarifying moment," at which Mr Putin's willingness to work for peace would be drawn out. Instead the summit may end with little real clarity on the way forward. Mr Obama, speaking after his meeting with Mr Putin, said the two leaders had instructed their teams to work on a peace conference about Syria in Geneva. But although the pressure may be increasing on Russia, a businessman close to the regime of President Assad said on Tuesday that the Syrian government was sure of Mr Putin's support. "When you talk about Geneva 2 [the proposed talks], they laugh," says the businessman, referring to the Russian hierarchy. "They say, "Do you mean Geneva 15?"" Mr Putin is so well trusted in regime circles that they call him Abu Ali - a common nickname in Mr Assad's coastal heartlands - the businessman added. Mr Assad warned on Monday that Europe would suffer retaliation if it delivered weapons to Syria. "Terrorists will gain experience in combat and return with extremist ideologies," he said in an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The Syrian regime, which seemed on the back foot late last year, has had several reasons to be bullish in recent months. Assistance from its foreign allies Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah has helped it break up rebel supply lines in central Syria, Damascus and the south, and saw it storm the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanese border this month. Concern about extremism in the opposition, meanwhile, has grown within and outside Syria, fuelled by the notorious video of a rebel apparently eating the organs of a dead government soldier. According to the businessman, even last week's announcement by the US that it was going to start arming the rebels has not dented the regime's belief that it will have turned the corner of the conflict by the time scheduled elections come round in 2014, enabling it to adapt the various transition plans mooted to start then in its favour. He cites an Arabic proverb to sum up the mood in Damascus: "The dogs bark but the caravan moves on." "They [the Americans] have been promising to give them weapons for the last two and a half years," he explains, saying that the regime believes radical elements in the opposition will deter the US from ever giving them serious, game-changing arms. The confidence projected by the regime belies a more complex picture, however. According to Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report business newsletter, the Syrian pound has plummeted 13 per cent against the dollar in the past week, which may indicate that the Syrian people are less inclined than their government to call the US's bluff. A huge explosion in the high-security Mezzeh district on Sunday night, meanwhile, served as a reminder that the opposition is still able to stage daring attacks even in the checkpoint-choked capital, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, says that rebels have taken over buildings in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, underscoring the extent to which the regime's recent victories have been brought about by focusing on core strategic areas in the middle of the country. Moreover, the involvement of Iran and Hizbollah in those victories has come at the cost of further internationalising the conflict. The International Crisis Group's Peter Harling says that while some in the regime are triumphant, others are in a different mood. "What comes across is that there's not much they can do - the conflict is internationalised," he says. Now it's up to foreign actors to sort out this mess, and the outcome is not given. Separately G8 leaders are expected to sign a declaration making commitments to stop paying ransoms to terrorist groups, amid claims that al-Qaeda may have received up to $70m from such payments. The US, Britain and Canada say they do not pay ransoms to terrorists although G8 officials say the situation is less clear in other member countries. Matching words with action may prove harder.