Despite the failure to secure an agreement, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin met informally on Monday at the G20 economic summit in China.
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But Obama has expressed skepticism that Russian Federation would hold to its agreement.
Obama and Putin did not get into the finer details of a deal, but made progress to clarify “the remaining gaps” and directed Kerry and Lavrov to meet as early as this week to keep working on a deal, the official told reporters.
Park said a fourth nuclear test by North Korea this year followed by a series of missile tests had “gravely damaged peace on the Korean peninsula and the region and posed a challenge to the development of South Korea-China ties”, Yonhap said.
The U.S. has been trying unsuccessfully to broker a cease-fire with Russian Federation in Syria that will hold. Obama said the aim was to reach “meaningful, serious, verifiable cessations of hostilities in Syria”. The State Department has said it wants a nationwide cease-fire between Assad’s military and the rebels, rather than another time-limited agreement like ones that failed before.
Obama said “the typical the tone of our meetings are candid, blunt and businesslike and this one was no different”. 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.
Obama first held a “pull-aside” with President Francois Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
The hard diplomacy on Syria set the tone for an uneven few days for Obama on his final tour of Asia as president.
The conversation came hours after USA and Russian negotiators acknowledged that a recent round of intense talk had come up short.
“In exchange, Russian Federation would prevail on its ally, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, to stop bombing moderate rebel groups and civilians”, David reported in July.
At the start of his trip, a logistical spat over missing airline airplane stairs needed for Obama to reach the red carpet at Hangzhou airport and verbal altercations between U.S. and Chinese officials grabbed headlines.
A kerfuffle over aircraft stairs – or lack of them – and overzealous Chinese apparatchiks drowned out Obama’s efforts to laud his “pivot” to Asia and a deal between Beijing and Washington to jointly ratify a major climate accord.
Obama also invested significant first-term political capital in improving relations with another foreign leader he met at the G20 – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey – with whom tensions were on display in their joint appearance.
“Free trade must be fair trade”, Juncker said at a news conference with Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.
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Obama suggested Monday his planned meeting Duterte may not go forward.
