Obama, Putin to discuss Syria in Mexico

US President Barack Obama would meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Mexico on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit next week, the White House said today, 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 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 G-20 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.