Ceremonies honor fallen troops

As servicemen remember D-Day sacrifices, world leaders meet privately about Ukraine

World leaders and veterans paid tribute on the 70th anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings to soldiers who fell in the liberation of Europe from Nazi German rule, as host France sought to use the event to achieve a thaw in the Ukraine crisis.

Wreaths, parades and parachute-drops honored history's largest amphibious assault on June 6, 1944, when 160,000 US, British and Canadian troops waded ashore to confront German forces, hastening its defeat and the advent of peace in Europe.

Flanked by stooped war veterans, some in wheelchairs, US President Barack Obama joined French President Francois Hollande to commemorate victory and reaffirm US-French solidarity before the 9,387 white marble headstones of fallen US soldiers at the Normandy American Cemetery.

Obama said the 80-km stretch of Normandy coastline - where allied soldiers landed under fire on beaches codenamed Omaha, Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno - was a "tiny sliver of sand upon which hung more than the fate of a war, but rather the course of human history".

"Our victory in that war decided not just a century, but shaped the security and well-being of all posterity," Obama said.

The president sought to link the sacrifices of WW II to US servicemen killed in combat since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al-Qaida militants.

The "9/11 generation of service members" understood that "people cannot live in freedom unless free people are prepared to die for it", he said.

Hollande declared that France "would never forget the solidarity between our two nations, solidarity based on a shared ideal, an aspiration, a passion for freedom".

Speaking earlier in Caen, which was devastated in the fighting, Hollande honored French civilians killed during the allied invasion, calling D-Day "24 hours that changed the world and forever marked Normandy".

Twenty-one foreign leaders are attending the series of commemorations, including Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister David Cameron, Canada's Stephen Harper, Germany's Angela Merkel and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

But while the unity of allies and their bloody sacrifices were the central theme of D-Day remembrance, government leaders were sounding each other out in private on the most serious security crisis in Europe for more than two decades: Ukraine.

Putin, Obama meet

Obama and Putin spoke on Friday on the sidelines of a lunch for world leaders attending D-Day commemoration ceremonies, marking their first face-to-face conversation since the crisis in Ukraine erupted.

The conversation was informal and lasted 10-15 minutes inside a chateau where the leaders ate lunch, the White House said.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Obama and Putin had exchanged views about the situation in Ukraine and the crisis in the east, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting with militias.

"Putin and Obama spoke for the need to end violence and fighting as quickly as possible," Peskov said.

As leaders posed outside the building for a group photo before the lunch, Obama and Putin appeared to be avoiding each other deliberately. But once inside, they made time for their first such exchange since Putin annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

As the crisis as developed, Obama and Putin spoke multiple times by phone. But they had not met in person until their mutual interest in paying tribute to the bravery of Allied forces 70 years ago brought them both to the shores of France.

'Soonest end'

Putin also spoke with Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko on Friday on the sidelines as they met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Reuters reporter said.

The Kremlin said Putin and Poroshenko called for the "soonest end to bloodshed in southeastern Ukraine and combat by both parties, the Ukrainian armed forces and supporters of the federalization of Ukraine", in a statement carried by Russian news wires.

In their eagerly anticipated contact, Putin and Poroshenko discussed how Russia could recognize the Ukrainian elections, and a possible cease-fire, said an official at Hollande's office, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly with The Associated Press.

AFP-Reuters-AP

(China Daily 06/07/2014 page8)