Russian President Vladimir Putin and his United States counterpart Barack Obama held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China on Monday.
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“Let’s face it, over the last several years, President Putin has operated in ways that very much have been against our interests”, Corker said.
Obama said he and Putin also discussed the security situation in Ukraine and disputes over cyberespionage.
Obama remains a central figure, but there was a palpable sense at this gathering that the world is waiting for a new president to reset USA policies on Syria, Ukraine and North Korea.
“It has been a memorable and at times moving visit”, the president said.
A second day of talks in China between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, ended on Monday without a deal to announce.
“I am not going to comment on specific investigations that are still live and active, but I’ll tell you that we had problems with cyber intrusions from Russian Federation in the past, from other countries in the past”, Obama told reporters, according to news outlets.
Aside from the diplomatic challenges, a push deeper into Syria by the Turkish-backed Arab and Turkmen rebels poses significant military risks.
The collapse of a deal comes as a major new Syrian-Russian offensive in the besieged city of Aleppo appeared to undermine key components of the proposed agreement.
Putin told reporters at a separate news conference that talks with the United States and Turkey were continuing concerning Syria and negotiators had made a step forward. But this depends to a certain degree on talks between the Turkish, Russian and U.S. chief diplomats.
Moscow and Washington support different sides in Syria’s festering conflict that has left 290,000 dead, with Russian Federation backing President Bashar al-Assad while the United States supports rebel groups fighting him. Adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping has never asked him to comment on the matter, the Russian leader said that any non-regional interference into such issues was only harmful.
The outstanding gaps, the official said, were “technical”, having to do with the implementation of the agreement.
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Obama has expressed skepticism that Russian Federation would hold to its agreement.
