Obama-Putin meeting not on G20 summit agenda: U.S. official

PanARMENIAN.Net - A bilateral meeting between presidents of Russia and the United States is not on the agenda of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg due in early September, a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday, August 30, according to RIA Novosti.

“At this time there is no bilateral meeting or pull-aside expected between the presidents, although…the [U.S.] president and President Putin are going to have many opportunities to engage during the course of the G20 session” the official said.

Barack Obama cancelled his scheduled meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, planned for early September, after Russia gave temporary asylum to U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Showden. Relations between Moscow and Washington were further strained by differences over last week’s reported chemical weapons attack in Syria.

The Syrian issue will undoubtedly be raised by the G20 leaders during the summit, the White House official said.

“There’s, at this point, no formal session or event that would involve Syria, but we know that leaders will be talking about it,” he said.