China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during the opening ceremony of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, September 4, 2016.
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“I think if only the American group had respected the working arrangements first made with China then this wouldn’t have occurred”, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reportedly said in Beijing on Monday.
President Obama said today: “Where we see them violating worldwide rules and norms, as we have seen in some cases in the South China Sea or in some of their behaviour when it comes to economic policy, we’ve been very firm”.
“I will tell you that we’ve had problems with cyber intrusions from Russian Federation in the past”, said Obama, without detailing precise intrusions.
There was even a joint announcement by China and United States that they would ratify the Paris climate change agreement, a significant step for the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion about whether, and how, they could agree on a deal, a senior USA administration official said.
“Who is he?”, the fiery new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, asked Monday at a news conference, referring to Obama.
Despite this, both leaders described what will probably be their last encounter, as Obama prepares to hand his presidency to Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. After an aide scrambled to remove the podium once intended for his bargaining partner, Kerry eventually announced there was no deal – standing alone.
Obama added that now the gaps have not been closed in negotiations between Russian Federation and the U.S. in a way that they think would “actually work”.
“I believe that we are on the right track and could, at least for some period of time, agree to carry out mutual energetic attempts to make the situation in Syria more healthy”, he said.
The latest carnage came in a series of blasts, the deadliest of which was a double bombing in the coastal province of Tartus, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Russia’s naval and air force base in the area.
The civil war has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced 11 million, causing a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and contributing to a rise in militant extremist groups. Amid the chaos, IS has emerged as a global terror threat.
Meanwhile on Monday, a string of explosions across Syria, a lot of them targeting government checkpoints, killed at least 40 people.
“Our mutual work with the United States in fighting terrorist organisations, including in Syria, will be significantly improved and intensified”. And the USA must get rebels to break ranks with the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a task that grew tougher after its fighters last month successfully broke the siege of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and the site of fierce recent fighting. “Both sides recognize the importance of clear policy communication”. The idea is for Russian Federation to use its significant influence over Assad to ensure compliance with the deal.
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Beyond Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad have continued to refuse to allow United Nations humanitarian aid convoys to enter more than a dozen besieged towns and cities held by various rebel forces. The U.S. wants Russian Federation to focus exclusively on IS and al-Qaida-linked groups. Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said a deal was “close” but that Washington had to dissociate itself from Nusra. The Kurds are the most effective US-backed anti-ISIL force, but the Turks consider them to be terrorists.
