Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a brief meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Vladivostok, his aide said on Thursday.
At the APEC summit on September 7-9, member states will be represented at the top level, whereas the United States will be represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama will be unable to attend due to an ongoing election campaign in his country.
The Russian president and the top U.S. diplomat will have a brief meeting during the presidential reception for top-level summit guests.
The Kremlin said the meeting would be held on the initiative of the U.S. and will “continue the serious conversation that Putin and Obama had [during the G20 summit] in Los Cabos.”
“Maybe, she [Clinton] will share her impressions of the [U.S.] domestic policy developments. The Republican congress is over, the Democratic convention will either be over or about to be completed. Syria will definitely be among the international issues up for discussion,” presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.
During the dinner, Putin will also hold a brief conversation with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang and Singapore’s Prime Minister Hsien Loong Lee.
The Russian leader is scheduled to have about 15 bilateral meetings with leaders of the APEC countries, including Chinese leader Hu Jintao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Thai Prime Minister Yinglak Chinnawat, Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, Peru President Ollanta Humala, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key.
The meetings will begin on Friday afternoon and continue on the following day.