Obama, Putin to discuss Syria in Mexico

Washington - US President Barack Obama would meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Mexico on the sidelines of the G20 Summit next week, the White House said on Friday, adding that both the leaders would discuss among others their disagreement on Syria.

"We have had a very substantial difference with Russia on the issue of Syria. And essentially our view for some time now has been that Bashar al-Assad has no legitimacy to lead that country anymore.”

"He's lost that legitimacy by the actions he's taken, the violence he's committed against his own people. And therefore he needs to step down from power," Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters at a White House news conference.

He said the US' relationship with Russia is "interest-based".

"We have always said it's an interest-based relationship (with Russia) and that, frankly, we weren't going to have a relationship that depended overly on personalities, because what we wanted to do is build a foundation of common interests that could sustain progress," Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters at a White House news conference.
 
On the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Mexico next week, Obama would meet Putin for the first time after the later was sworn in as the Russian President recently.

"This is his first bilateral meeting with President Putin since President Putin was elected and inaugurated. Expect that the agenda for the meeting will cover a range of issues. We continue to have good cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan and the supply of our troops there," he said.

Besides Syria, Iran would be another key issue to be discussed during the meeting.

"Deepening economic cooperation between the United States and Russia. Commercial ties will certainly be on the agenda as well, given Russia's accession to the WTO, our continued efforts again to get greater access for US businesses to Russian markets," he said.

Rhodes said the reset with Russia was based on the belief that they could cooperate with them on areas of common interest, understanding that they saw some differences.
 
"I think we continue to see very positive results from that reset policy. We supply our troops in Afghanistan significantly through the northern distribution network that passes through Russia. So Russian cooperation in Afghanistan is essential to, again, supplying our troops," he said.

The Obama administration, he said, has been able to work with the Russians and cooperate on a set of issues, even though they have differences.

"And it's our view that just because you have differences on certain issues doesn't mean that you want to throw aside the very substantial cooperation that we're getting with the Russians, again, on issues from Afghanistan to Iran to nuclear security," he said.

Rhodes said Putin, as prime minister, was certainly an influential figure within Russia during the time of the reset.

"So given his influence within Russia and its system, even as Dmitry President Medvedev was of course the leader of the government, our assessment is that Prime Minister Putin was supportive of the reset as it unfolded over the course of the last several years," he said.

"Then I'd also say that President Putin has indicated that he is in full agreement with the policies that President Medvedev undertook as relates to the reset and that, frankly, he wanted to continue the cooperative nature of the relationship in a set of areas," Rhodes said.

"So in the initial phone calls that President Obama's had with President Putin, the indication that we've given and that the Russians have provided is that we want to continue to build on the common ground that we've had," the top Obama aide said.