Speaking in China amid the G20 summit, President Barack Obama said a lack of trust between the United States and Russian Federation is a hindrance to an agreement between the two countries to establish peace in Syria.
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Putin and Obama spoke for almost an hour and a half.
China agreed to cooperate more closely with its trading partners on its politically volatile steel exports as leaders of major economies ended a summit Monday with a forceful endorsement of free trade and a crowded agenda that included the Koreas, Syria and refugees.
The visit opened on a high note, with the USA and China consummating their unlikely partnership on climate change by announcing they were both entering the global emissions-cutting deal reached previous year in Paris.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayypip Erdogan, met to discuss the conflict in Syria and to try to mend frayed relations. Russian Federation blamed Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based leader of the Gulenist Terror Group (FETO), for the coup and asked the U.S. to extradite him.
His words on cyber weren’t the only ones that pointed to areas of tension with the Russian leader.
Mr Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion about whether, and how, they could agree on a deal, a senior U.S. administration official said. Song said the U.S. and China moves increase the chances that the Paris climate agreement will be implemented by the end of the year. “After that Obama and Putin held a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors”, he said, according to TASS.
Obama suggested Monday his planned meeting Duterte may not go forward.
The G20 summit wrapped up on Monday night with leaders agreeing to a “blueprint on innovative growth”, which host President Xi Jinping said was a centrepiece of the global leaders’ meeting.
Obama notes at his news conference before leaving China that he will be the first US president to visit the southeast Asian country.
“If you’re looking for blood, steel overcapacity was the issue”, the official said.
But Duterte did not take kindly to that notion.
At the press conference Monday, Obama also addressed concerns about cybersecurity, acknowledging that the USA has “had problems with cyber intrusions” from Russian Federation and other countries.
The hard diplomacy on Syria set the tone for an uneven few days for Obama on his final tour of Asia as president.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who supports protectionist trade policies, has pulled into an effective tie with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, erasing a substantial deficit.
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During his news conference, Obama faced questions about both candidates’ opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a centerpiece of his Asia policy, which he’s urgently trying to promote on his final trip to the continent as its fate hangs in the balance.
