Russia disappointed with US for ditching talks

Russia expressed its displeasure with the United States, blaming Washington for a falling out between the two countries after President Barack Obama decided to cancel planned bilateral talks with President Vladmir Putin next month.

“This decision is clearly linked to the situation with former agent of US special services [Edward] Snowden, which hasn’t been created by us,” Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday.

Ushakov insisted that Russia was not at fault in the affair despite his country last week offering asylum for Snowden, a move that factored into Obama’s decision to pull out of the talks.

“For many years, the Americans have avoided signing an extradition agreement,” Ushakov said. “And they have invariably responded negatively to our requests for extradition of people who committed crimes on the territory of Russia, pointing at the absence of such agreement.”

Snowden, an ex-NSA systems analyst, is accused of leaking details about highly secretive government surveillance programs. He spent several weeks in the transit zone of the Moscow airport before being granted asylum for a year.

Ushakov noted that, as far as Russia was concerned, the invitation to Obama for a meeting with Putin was still open.

“Russian representatives are ready to continue working together with American partners on all key issues on the bilateral and multilateral agenda,” he said.

Obama is still scheduled to attend the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg during September but, for the time being, has no plans to meet with Putin in Moscow.

“We have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a US-Russia Summit,” the White House said in a statement.

Citing Russia’s “disappointing decision” to grant Snowden asylum, the White House also listed other issues such as human rights and missile defense as standing between the two leaders.

“We believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda,” the White House said.

“There have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality,” Obama said during an interview with NBC’s “The Tonight Show” that was broadcast on Tuesday night.

Obama also criticized a new Russian law cracking down on gay rights activism, saying he has “no patience for countries that try to treat gays and lesbians and transgendered persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.”

Russia has said it will enforce the law when it hosts the 2014 Winter Olympics. Asked whether the law would impact the Games, Obama said he believes Putin and Russia have “a big stake in making sure the Olympics work.”

“I think they understand that for most of the countries that participate in the Olympics, we wouldn’t tolerate gays and lesbians being treated differently,” he said.

AP contributed to this report.