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Putin – Moscow and Washington could strike Syria deal within days

“And we’ll see in coming days whether on Syria we can reach a near-term agreement”. However, we have to be sure that this agreement would be really effective.

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But European Union commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said he opposes such talks while Britain remains part of the European Union.

Putin insisted he believed a deal with Washington could be firmed up in the “coming days” but refused to give concrete details, saying that United States and Russian officials are still “working out some of our preliminary agreements”. “We haven’t yet closed the gaps”.

The talks came hours after Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were unsuccessful in their attempts to strike a deal for a Syria ceasefire, according to a senior State Department official.

The prime minister said stamping out corruption, tax evasion and erosion of tax bases was not only about ensuring the financial and economic systems work but restoring public trust.

“We expect to provide additional details of their discussion later today”. The Kurds are the most effective US -backed anti-IS force, but the Turks consider them to be terrorists.

“I always want to make sure if I’m having a meeting that it’s productive and we’re getting something done”, Obama said during his news conference. USA officials blame Russian intelligence for a hack on the Democratic National Committee that resulted in a leak of emails damaging to its presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

But experts fear the gathering will be short on substance, with no acute crisis pushing leaders to defy rising populist sentiment and to take hard steps such as liberalizing trade.

If all the countries that said they will try to ratify the deal this year do so, including Brazil, Japan, Argentina, and South Korea, then the agreement could be entered into force before year’s end.

President Barack Obama wrapped up his final G20 meetings Monday confronting two of his prickly global counterparts, saying his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was “candid, blunt and businesslike” but didn’t yield a deal on ending the violence in Syria.

Obama’s relations with Putin are strained not only because of the Syrian situation but Moscow’s moves in Ukraine and the possibility the Russian leader is trying to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump get elected.

Mr Turnbull was due to meet on Monday night with French President Francois Hollande, whose country is working with Australia on the biggest-ever defence contract to build the next generation of submarines.

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Truce talks were complicated on Sunday as government forces and their allies laid siege to the rebel-held eastern side of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war which Assad is determined to fully recapture.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye walks past Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit