BREAKING: Obama Cancels Meeting With Putin

President Obama has canceled his "Russian Summit" with Vladimir Putin , President Obama has cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister Putin over asylum given to American, Edward Snowden.





In a rare diplomatic rebuke, President Barack Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The decision reflected both U.S. anger over Russia's harboring of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and growing frustration within the Obama administration over what it sees as Moscow's stubbornness on other key issues, including missile defense and human rights.

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Associated Press
President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin get up to leave after a meeting in Northern Ireland on June 17.

Mr. Obama will still attend the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but a top White House official said the president had no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Mr. Putin while there. Instead of visiting Mr. Putin in Moscow, the president will add a stop in Sweden to his early September travel itinerary.

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Russia's decision last week to defy the U.S. and grant Mr. Snowden temporary asylum only exacerbated an already troubled relationship. And with few signs that progress would be made during the Moscow summit on other agenda items, Mr. Rhodes said the president decided to cancel the talks.

"We'll still work with Russia on issues where we can find common ground, but it was the unanimous view of the president and his national security team that a summit did not make sense in the current environment," Mr. Rhodes said.

Mr. Obama's decision to scrap talks with the Russian president is likely to deepen the chill in the already frosty relationship between the two leaders. They have frequently found themselves at odds on pressing international issues, most recently in Syria, where the U.S. accuses Mr. Putin of helping President Bashar al-Assad fund a civil war. The U.S. has also been a vocal critic of Russia's crackdown on Kremlin critics and recently sanctioned 18 Russians for human rights violations.

For its part, Moscow has accused the U.S. of installing a missile shield in Eastern Europe as a deterrent against Russia, despite American assurances that the shield isn't aimed at its former Cold War foe. Mr. Putin also signed a law last year banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children, a move that was seen as retaliation for the U.S. measure that cleared the way for the human-rights sanctions.

The U.S. was expected to notify the Russians Wednesday morning about Mr. Obama's decision to cancel the Moscow summit, though the two presidents weren't expected to speak directly. Messrs. Obama and Putin last met in June on the sidelines of the Group of 8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Obama, who is traveling in California, said in an interview Tuesday that he was "disappointed" by Russia's move to grant Mr. Snowden asylum for one year. But he said the move also reflected the "underlying challenges" the U.S. faces in dealing with Moscow.