On Sunday, in the first session of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo focused on pushing for a worldwide commitment for a more inclusive economic reform, as he reminded the forum of its target of securing additional global growth of 2 percent by 2018.
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Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Hangzhou, said it was “a curious incident” as China has tried everything to pull off a trouble-free G20 summit, its highest profile event of the year.
But officials removed Lavrov’s podium just before Kerry came out – alone – to announce that no agreement had been finalised.
To achieve that, he said, “we need to act to eliminate safe havens for economic offenders, track down and unconditionally extradite money launderers and break down the web of complex worldwide regulations and excessive banking secrecy that hide the corrupt and their deeds”.
Russian Federation and the USA have been striving for weeks to secure a ceasefire between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government and moderate rebels that would expand access for hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire.
“(The two presidents) discussed, above all, Syria and Ukraine. A Chinese international-relations professor who advises the Chinese Foreign Ministry and who does not want his name used because of the sensitivity of the issue, blamed an over-eager Chinese security apparatus for declining to follow standard American protocol.
Ahead of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, the presidents of China and the US deposited instruments of ratification for the Paris Agreement to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday.
It would ensure that government fighters pull back in some areas, including around Aleppo, to allow convoys of humanitarian aid to reach civilians caught in the fighting.
The war has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced 11 million, causing a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and contributed to a rise in militant groups.
For Obama, a military partnership with Russian Federation would mark a significant change. Officials from the U.S. and Russian Federation, which back opposite sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war, have been meeting since Mr Kerry travelled to Moscow in July with a proposal that would halt the fighting. The U.S. has always been wary of increasing military coordination with Russian Federation in Syria’s civil war because it says Russian Federation continues striking moderate, U.S. -backed opposition groups in a bid to prop up Assad. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper both have expressed misgivings.
Neither side explained Sunday in detail what sticking points remain.
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“Part of what I’ve tried to communicate to President Xi is that the United States arrives at its power, in part, by restraining itself”, Obama said during the interview that was broadcast September 2. Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said a deal was “close” but that Washington had to dissociate itself from Nusra.
