U.S., Russia Foreign, Defense Ministers to Meet Friday
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet their Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu on Friday in Washington, a U.S. defense official said.
The so-called "2+2" meeting, to be held at the State Department, comes at a time of tensions between Washington and Russia over Moscow's decision to grant asylum to U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
The White House has said it is reassessing the "utility" of a planned summit between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin, which had been set for early September.
The U.S. defense official, who spoke Tuesday to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, declined to provide details about the agenda for the talks.
But Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the New York Times: "We expect a very intensive discussion, all the more so because there are quite a few sharp, controversial and difficult questions."
The Obama-Putin summit had been agreed to in principle back in June, but Washington has since made clear the meeting is now in doubt, implicitly linking it to the Snowden affair.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday a decision on the summit would be made "in coming days."
"We obviously disagree with the Russians very strongly about the decision they've made on Mr. Snowden," Carney said.
Snowden, a former U.S. intelligence contractor, is wanted by the United States for revealing the existence of secret U.S. electronic surveillance programs that scoop up phone and Internet data on a global scale.
Other troublesome issues in the U.S.-Russia relationship include Moscow's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and a split over how to deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
In Rome on Tuesday, Lavrov criticized calls by U.S. lawmakers for harsher sanctions against Tehran in the wake of the inauguration of new Iranian President Hassan Rowhani.
Washington and Moscow are also at odds over Obama's proposal to reduce nuclear stockpiles, and Russia's opposition to U.S. missile defense system programs.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/93395 |