Obama and Putin Meet But Don’t Make Ground With Talks

Tensions between the U.S. and
Russia are at their highest point since the Cold War, and all eyes
have been on President Barack Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to
begin mending relations. The two met and had an informal discussion
at the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing yesterday,
but it seems like they’ve made no ground.

From Reuters:

Both sides played down the significance of the moment. “They
only had a brief encounter where they didn’t have time to cover
issues,” a senior U.S. official said. “We’ll let you know if they
interact/cover issues tomorrow.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also described a short exchange
while holding out prospects for further discussions. Both will also
attend a G20 summit in Brisbane later this week.

“There were no talks. They greeted each other,” Peskov told
Russian journalists in Beijing. “They exchanged a few lines.”

They would seem to have much to discuss but little chance of
finding common ground. Communicating mostly by telephone over the
past year.

A major point of contention is the war in Ukraine, which Putin
denies instigating in spite of overwhelming evidence to the
contrary. The Obama administration has been hitting Russia with
both targeted and broad sanctions in order to deter further
conflict on the ground, but Ukraine is currently facing some of its
bloodiest days yet.

Secretary of State John Kerry was also at the APEC summit and
met informally with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and it
seems like Russia holds the upper-hand in any talks.

“We do have some disagreements about some of the facts on the
ground with respect to Ukraine. We have agreed to exchange some
information between us regarding that. We have also agreed this is
a dialogue between us that will continue,” Kerry
reported after the meeting. Talk about an understatement.

The White House issued a stern warning, saying that it’s “very
concerned by intensified fighting in eastern Ukraine” and Russia’s
provocation of it.

That’s not tough enough talk to deter Russia from pulling back
the
dozens of tanks it sent into Ukraine late last week.

The two countries are also divided on how to deal with the ISIS
war in Syria. Russia is an ally to the Assad regime, but Obama
wants Assad out of power. 

Obama will have another chance to address his issues with Putin
soon. The two are set to have informal discussions at the G20
summit in Brisbane this weekend.