Obama snubs Cameron over Syria as Tories accuse the White House of trying to rush the UK into military action

Leaders gather in St Petersburg for G20 summit dominated by Syria crisis

US President refuses talks with British PM but will meet French President



White House frustrated with No.10's handling of the parliamentary defeat

Tory minister Ken Clarke blames US's rush for a 'quick' vote on action



David Cameron will be left in the margins of the G20 meeting in Russia today after failing to secure a one-on-one meeting with Barack Obama.

The US President has refused to hold a formal meeting with the British PM who has ruled out joining military intervention in Syria.

It comes as senior Tory minister Ken Clarke accused the White House of rushing Britain into making a decision on supporting missile strikes – which led to the historic Commons defeat of the government.

Glum: David Cameron looks downbeat as he sits through the early stages of the two-day G20 Summit in Constantine Palace in Strelna near St Petersburg

World leaders gather in St Petersburg today for the meeting of the G20, with Mr Cameron warning it would be ‘very perilous’ for the United States to follow Britain’s example and step back from plans to hit Damascus in response to chemical weapons attacks.

However the White House is reported to have grown irritated with the way the British government failed to deliver on promises to stand should to shoulder with the US.

Number 10 sought to play down the idea of a snub, and suggested Mr Obama will speak to Mr Cameron 'in the margins' of the summit.

At the start of the tense talks, Mr Cameron and Mr Obama were both forced to pose for the cameras shaking hands with Russian President Putin, despite being at odds over how to resolve the Syrian crisis.

Snub: David Cameron (left) will not hold a one-on-one meeting at the G20 with Barack Obama who will instead hold talks with French President Francois Hollande



Summit: World leaders will attend a G20 dinner at the Grand Palace Peterhof State Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia on Thursday night

Mr Obama will hold formal talks with French President Francois Hollande, who is preparing to back US military strikes.

US officials have criticised Downing Street’s ‘bungled’ handling of the vote, which saw a motion backing military intervention in principle defeated by 13 votes.

Asked if the Prime Minister was the victim of a snub, Iain Duncan Smith said: 'No, I don’t think it is.'

The Work and Pensions Secretary told the BBC: 'I’m completely behind the Prime Minister on this one.

'His position is that we are not going to take part in military action as a result of the vote last week, he is talking to Obama all the time.'

Despite being unable to offer British troops to back the military effort, Mr Cameron vowed to do more to help refugees from the Syrian civil war.

Awkward: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is at odds with Britain and the US over strikes against Syria, shakes hands with Mr Cameron at the start of the summit

Arriving in Russia he made clear he backs Mr Obama in taking robust action against Assad and said he will do his best to persuade fellow leaders to help those affected by the violence.

The UK is expected to add to its £348 milllion pound contribution to the relief effort, but the UN has still received less than half the funding it is hoping for from the international community.

Mr Cameron said: 'We are facing the worst refugee crisis of this century and millions of lives are being destroyed inside in Syria by Assad and his regime.

'The world needs to do more to help the innocent victims of this conflict who dreamt of a democratic and peaceful future but who are now living a nightmare far from their homes and struggling to feed their families and keep them safe.

'I will be using the G20 to ensure their needs are heard and to ensure the international community responds.



'We must make more money available for aid agencies to help ease the suffering and we must put pressure on both sides in the conflict to improve access so aid workers can get to those who most need help.'



Smiles: Mr Cameron arrived in St Petersburg with Bank og England Governor Mark Carney and Chancellor George Osborne (right)

It forced Mr Obama to abandon plans for a quick strike against Assad, and announce that he too would consult lawmakers in Congress before sanctioning military action.

However Mr Clarke, minister without portfolio, appeared to blame the White House of the Commons defeat.

‘The Americans wanted us to make this vote very quickly,’ he told Channel 4 News.

‘We actually said we could have another vote later before action if people wanted.’

Mr Clarke, who missed the vote for family reasons, said: ‘People were so scarred by the experience of Iraq we did not manage to get across to enough of our people that we were not repeating the gross error of Iraq, and then Ed Miliband pulled most of the Labour Party out.

Blame: Tory minister Ken Clarke accused the White House of rushing Mr Cameron into staging a Commons vote on Syria

‘I think what we were doing – a targeted response to actually stop the regime being tempted to use chemical weapons again and to reduce their capacity to do so and then [get] out, was fine, but we did not have time to get a good majority.’

Before jetting off to Russia, Mr Cameron warned there was a risk of an ‘Armageddon’ for the people of Syria if the use of chemical weapons went unpunished.

He suggested Labour and other opponents of military action were ‘letting down’ the people of Syria.

The Prime Minister has said he will make the case at the G20 for a robust international response to the use of chemical weapons.

Mr Cameron is expected to hold a difficult meeting with the Russian President, a belligerent ally of Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad.

Mr Putin has revelled in Mr Cameron’s shock failure to secure the support of Parliament for British involvement in a military strike in a crunch vote last week.

Leaders of the Syrian opposition today met Foreign Secretary William Hague.

The Syrian National Coalition’s Monzer Akbik said other countries would form a ‘coalition of the willing to launch strikes against Assad even without the UK’s involvement.

‘The massacres and the crimes against humanity that are taking place in Syria (are) escalating more and more, by the war machine of the regime,’ he told BBC2’s Newsnight.

‘There is a priority now for the International community, east and west, to take measures in order to paralyse the ability of the war machine of the regime to kill.

‘We believe there is no other choice for the international community to assume the responsibility, the legal responsibility, ethical and humanitarian responsibility, to end the massacres in Syria by using force against the regime.

‘Regarding the UK there are many other things to talk about. There are other countries that are going to be in the coalition of the willing.’

Touch down: Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper arrives in Russia ahead of the G20 summit

Arrival: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, arrives in St Petersburg for the G20 which is likely to be dominated by the Syria crisis

Boris Johnson said it was a ‘great shame’ the UK had been left unable to launch military strikes against Bashar Assad.

Mr Johnson, who has been one of the leading voices in calls for MPs to be given a second opportunity to vote on Syria if new evidence can be presented, acknowledged that Britons were reluctant to become involved in the Middle East after being ‘scarred’ by the experience of Iraq.

But appearing on Channel 4’s The Last Leg he said: ‘It is a great, great shame that when somebody is killing large numbers of innocent people with gas, men, women and children, it is a great shame that a country like ours that stands for civilised and decent values around the world cannot do anything.