Vladimir Putin can expect to face pressure from the leaders of Germany and France for a change of heart on Syria when he visits Berlin and Paris on Friday - but there's little sign that the Russian president is prepared to tighten the diplomatic screws on Bashar Assad, AP reported. Putin's meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and, later, with new French President Francois Hollande are part of his first foreign trip since returning to the Russian presidency. The visit to the 17-nation eurozone's two biggest economies, after a stop in Belarus on Thursday, reflects a policy course driven primarily by Russia's economic interests. Still, Germany and France - both members of the U.N. Security Council and France, like Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member - will want to bend Putin's ear on the escalating crisis in Syria. Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Syrian President Assad's regime from United Nations sanctions over his crackdown on protests. Syria is Russia's last ally in the region, providing Moscow with its only naval base outside the former Soviet Union and serving as a top customer for Russian weapons industries. Germany and France are among Western powers that sought to isolate Assad further by expelling Syrian ambassadors after the massacre of more than 100 people in Houla, nearly half of them children, provoked international outrage. Nearly 300 U.N. observers have been deployed around Syria to monitor a cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect April 12 as part of a peace plan negotiated by international envoy Kofi Annan, but the plan has been unraveling amid daily violence. Western leaders have talked about how the Security Council can act to ensure the Annan plan's implementation but, Merkel conceded Thursday, "the prospects are really bad."
