In retaliation against Russia’s grant of asylum to fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, US President Barack Obama has cancelled his scheduled bilateral summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month. Obama will, however, be visiting Russia to attend the G20 summit to be held in St Petersburg.
“Following a careful review begun in July, we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a US-Russia Summit in early September,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement on Wednesday. The statement spoke of Russia’s “disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum,” noting it was “also a factor” that the US considered in assessing the current state of bilateral relationship.
“We value the achievements made with Russia in the President’s first term, including the New START Treaty, and cooperation on Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea,” Carney noted, but stressed: “However, given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months, we have informed the Russian Government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda.”
“Our cooperation on these issues remains a priority for the US, so on Friday, August 9, Secretaries Hagel and Kerry will meet with their Russian counterparts in a 2+2 format in Washington to discuss how we can best make progress moving forward on the full range of issues in our bilateral relationship,” the statement added. For all the bunching of other issues, it is unquestionably the Snowden issue that has single-handedly prompted cancellation of the summit that was slated to take place in Moscow immediately after the G20 meet in St. Petersburg in the first week of September.