The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Trail of destruction –
If the meetings within the tightly secured G20 summit venue were anything but harmonious, outside chaos and violence gripped Germany’s second city.
Ten minutes’ walk from the summit venue, charred road barricades, trashed shops, debris and shattered glass bore testimony to an anarchic Friday night of street clashes between protesters and police, when commandoes chased militants who hurled rocks from rooftops.
The clashes had blocked US First Lady Melania Trump at her residence on Friday, forcing her to miss a tour of Hamburg harbour, and for G20 organisers to completely alter a programme for spouses of visiting leaders.
On Saturday, thousands of anti-riot cops were again on guard, as helicopters hovered overhead, with tens of thousands of demonstrators on the march.
– Trump vs. Putin –
Within the summit walls, world leaders were dancing a delicate diplomatic waltz, with discord not only dogging the main G20 conferences, but also adding tension to the atmosphere in bilateral asides.
Host Merkel herself admitted that “deep differences” remain with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after they met on the sidelines of the summit.
But it was Trump’s first head-to-head with Russia’s leader President Vladimir Putin that stole the show.
A day after Trump slammed Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Syria, the two men had a “robust and lengthy exchange” about allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.
But Tillerson, who was present at the meeting that ran for two hours and 15 minutes, also said the two alpha-male leaders “connected very quickly” with “very clear positive chemistry”.
Trump said Saturday that the tete-a-tete was “tremendous” while Putin gave an upbeat assessment of ties ahead with the US leader.
“There is every reason to believe that we will be able to at least partially re-establish the level of cooperation that we need,” Putin said.
After scoring at his Russian encounter, Trump turned to another thorny meeting, this time with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test announced this week was the key issue, with Trump warning Thursday that Pyongyang’s military sabre-rattling would bear “consequences”.
Entering into talks, Trump told his Chinese counterpart that “something has to be done” on North Korea.
“It may take longer than I’d like, it may take longer that you’d like,” Trump said, “but there will be success in the end, one way or the other.”
