Obama to Meet Putin Next Week at United Nations General Assembly
- First encounter between the two leaders in more than a year
- Tensions are high over Russian moves in Ukraine, Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Dushanbe on Sept. 15, 2015.
Photographer: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
President Barack Obama will hold a rare in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the United Nations General Assembly next week in New York amid a new flare-up of tensions over Russia’s moves in Syria.
The White House decided the meeting would serve as a test of whether high-level engagement with the Russians can result in any progress in resolving profound differences, according to a administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The official said Putin requested the discussion, which also was announced in Moscow by a Kremlin spokesman.