The decision reflects US anger over Russia’s decision to give Snowden asylum.
U.S. President, Barack Obama, has cancelled his Moscow summit with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, over the U.S. frustration with Russia’s decision to shelter Edward Snowden, who leaked America’s surveillance secrets.
Mr. Obama will however, still attend the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but a White House official said Mr. Obama had no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Putin while there.
Meetings between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry and their Russian counterparts scheduled for August 9 in Washington will also go ahead as planned, the White House said.
“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,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.
“Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship.”
Mr. Snowden in June disclosed previously secret U.S. telephone and internet surveillance programs while in Hong Kong and then travelled to Russia, where he holed up in an airport for weeks.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin last met face-to-face in Northern Ireland in June.
The decision to cancel the meeting reflected both U.S. fury over Russia’s harbouring Mr. Snowden although other issues such as Syria and Iran are believed to play a part.
Mr. Obama had said earlier in an interview that he was “disappointed” by Russia’s move to grant Mr. Snowden asylum for one year. He said the move also reflected the “underlying challenges” the U.S. faces in dealing with Moscow.
“There have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”
The U.S. president now plans to add a stop in Sweden as part of this travels to the G20 summit in early September, the White House said.
Russia said by calling off the meeting, the US has shown it is not ready to build relations on an equal footing. Mr.Putin’s aide, Yury Ushakov, said the Snowden situation, on which the decision was based, is not Russia’s fault.
“We are disappointed by the US administration’s decision to cancel the visit of President Obama to Moscow that was planned for the beginning of September. It is clear that the decision is related to the situation around the former intelligence agency employee Snowden – something that was created not by us,” Mr. Ushakov told reporters on Wednesday.
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