The last days of mimeograph machines

The question is, is there a tenable position, in light of current events, now available to the left or the right? By tenable, I mean practical in the way Charles DeGaulle was practical visiting Algeria in 1958 to sell the 1 million Europeans and the 9 million Moslems there, as they were called in those days, on the idea of a new French Constitution.

In the old days, our leaders, often military men, put themselves in actual danger, as DeGaulle did time and time again, in political situations. Real physical courage was often displayed--face to face meetings with the enemy, a direct exchange in which both parties put themselves in harms-way for the purpose of achieving a political solution.

Question? Couldn't this approach be applied toward this current East-West problem? Is it out of the realm of possibility for François Hollande or Barack Obama or Merkel or Putin or Erdogan to make a personal appeal their counterparts in the 'enemy' camp for a meeting to address grievances on both sides, that such a proactive positive outreach might provide, at the very least, a salutary public-relations outcome, if not the possibility of a realpolitik win-win?

I know this is naive, perhaps even wishful thinking, but politics is the art of the possible, isn't it? Or am I confusing politics with art or some other pursuit that requires great personal courage?