Obama later talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but there was no immediate word on the outcome.
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The Syrian crisis was top of the agenda at the two leaders’ meeting in China, Putin said, adding that he felt real interest and concern from the American president in finding solutions in Syria.
“I believe that we reached mutual understanding, an understanding of the issues before us, but technical details still must be elaborated”, he added.
“We’re doing a bunch of stuff at home and we want to coordinate internationally”, Obama told reporters at a briefing at the close of the summit. Saying that they discussed “a range of issues”, the American president noted the situation in Syria was the most important of them.
“Given the gaps of trust that exist, that’s a tough negotiation, and we haven’t yet closed the gaps in a way where we think it would actually work”, Obama said during a news conference after the meeting.
Putin and Obama met for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Hangzhou on Monday.
Mr Obama said he and Mr Putin “had some productive conversations about what a real cessation of violence would look like, that would allow both us and Russian Federation to focus our attention on common enemies”, like Islamic State, also known as Isis, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). He said he made clear to the Russian leader that until the Minsk accord is implemented, Washington “will not pull down sanctions”.
Speaking in China, Erdogan said he had repeated a proposal for a “no-fly zone” in Syria during his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama.
Washington should “aim to find a compromise which would reflect the interests of both cooperating sides”, Putin said, adding that sometimes the United States leadership only considers its “own benefit”.
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The ruling against Apple has pushed the issue into the limelight and raised the risk of significant push-back from the United States, where some lawmakers are saying it represents a European encroachment on the US potential tax base.
