Obama, Medvedev to hold a meeting in Honolulu

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said.

The APEC summit will be held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu on November 12–13.

“The Russian president has a very tough schedule, not only because of the APEC working meetings, but also because several bilateral meetings have been scheduled – the main one is with Barack Obama,” Dvorkovich said.

Medvedev and Obama have agreed to set up a joint working group on modernization, Dvorkovich said, adding that he would be the Russian chairman of the group. He also said Medvedev would hold up to seven other meetings, but the details had not yet been finalized.

"The agenda of the summit will see a discussion of "regional conflicts, regional threats, global threats, as well as issues related to defense systems and in particular to missile defense," he added. He also said the situation in the Middle East and North Africa will be discussed.

He also emphasized that Russia has made substantial progress towards joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). “We expect that within the next days the working group will approve a package of documents for Russia’s accession to the WTO. In this case, the final decision will be taken at the ministerial meeting in December,” Dvorkovich said, RIA Novosti reported..