Obama first held a “pull-aside” with President Francois Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to discuss the situation in Ukraine. While Obama looks on intently, Erdogan can be seen engrossed in a chat with his newfound friend Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. She has juxtaposed two images of the gathering of world leaders at G20 – one from 2016 and the other from previous year.
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Turkish-backed forces clashed with YPG fighters in the initial stages of the two-week old Turkish incursion into Syria, but have since shifted their focus onto territory held by Islamic State and captured a string of villages.
Meanwhile, the Turkish president said Ankara was working with US-led coalition forces and Moscow to instate a ceasefire in Aleppo for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, expected around September 11. He said “frankly we have more capacity than any other country, both offensively and defensively”. The official spoke anonymously to discuss a private conversation.
In July, just days before the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks released almost 20,000 emails that, it said, came from the accounts of top DNC officials.
Meanwhile, Putin told reporters that a deal with the U.S. to “ease tensions in Syria” may come “within a few days”, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS. “If we can not get the type of agreement we want, we will walk away from that effort”.
The 2015 picture has the role reversed for Obama and Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016.
Photos of the session distributed by the Kremlin show the two leaders and aides, including Kerry and US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, seated around a table.
The president is obviously referring to his country’s intelligence agencies and branches of the military, which have been stockpiling and using zero-day exploits for a good long while now.
When Obama and Erdogan met at G-20 summit in Antalya a year ago, both were fighting together to keep Bashar al-Assad out of power in Syria, Islamic State at bay and Russian Federation away from middle east. Obama urged Kerry and Lavrov to work together in the coming days to get aid to those in need. Millions have fled the country.
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Obama said he’s instructed Kerry, and Putin had told Lavrov “to keep working at it over the next several days – because the faster we can provide some relief to folks on the ground, the better off we’re going to be”. The two leaders used the talk to clarify sticking points, the official said.
