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No separate Putin-Obama meeting planned at G20 summit

US and Russian presidents, however, will have a talk within the summit

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

STRELNA, September 5 (Itar-Tass) - Presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, “will have a talk” within the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

However, Peskov said, “No separate meeting is being planned.”

The spokesman said the Russian and U.S. presidents would have an opportunity to talk with each other because they would attend the sessions of the summit.

Obama is expected to arrive in St Petersburg at 9:50 a.m. GMT on Thursday while Putin will have bilateral meetings with the leaders of China, Japan and Italy. Then the Russian president will take part in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) meeting.

The summit will open at 12:00 p.m. GMT.

Ahead of the G20 summit Putin said he believed that his U.S. colleague was a good and easy partner to negotiate with. His position is understandable and it is interesting to work with him, the Russian president said.

“Our talks are always very constructive, very content-intensive and quite frank. In this regard, the US president is a very good and easy partner to negotiate with, because it is clear that he wants, his position is understandable. He is listening to the position of his partner in talks, his opponent and responds to it. It is interesting for me to work with him,” Putin said.

“I’m sure that if we meet within the summit or on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the meeting itself will be useful,” the Russian president said.

“We have many issues, which should be resolved. This is disarmament, as well as the issues related to the development of the world economy, North Korea, Iran’s problem and the fight against terrorism,” Putin said.

At the same time, Putin said the talk with Obama would not be easy. “We realise that the U.S. Administration is irritated by Russia’s position on certain issues. But there’s nothing to be d one,” he said, adding, “I believe that it would be good to be patient and work on searching for solutions.”

For his part, Obama recognised that the United States and Russia had deep disagreements on the situation around Syria.

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