Yes. Look at how an old-fashioned mercury barometer works.
It is the external pressure that pushes the mercury up the column.
Without external pressure, the vacuum inside the tube can't pull the mercury up, it is the *difference* between external end internal pressure that does it.
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Barometerhttp://www.ask.com/wiki/SiphonBut a siphon has both ends open to the atmosphere. The barometer doesn’t.
Besides, just by an energy equivalence analysis, atmospheric pressure cannot drive a work process in that manner. Gravity-based potential energy by way of the relative difference in liquid levels, is the main source of energy causing the flow.