Azernews.Az

By Gunay Hasanova

Russian and U.S. Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama instructed Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry to meet as early as this week to keep working on a deal on the Syrian issue, Reuters reported citing a senior U.S. administration official.

President Obama and Putin spent about 90 minutes in a "constructive" meeting about getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the official told reporters.

Obama and Putin did not get into the finer details of a deal, but made progress to clarify "the remaining gaps" and directed Kerry and Lavrov to meet as early as this week to keep working on a deal, the official told reporters.

"If an agreement can be reached, we want to do so urgently, because of the humanitarian situation. However, we must ensure that it is an effective agreement," the official said. "If we cannot get the type of agreement we want, we will walk away from that effort."

Putin and Obama met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in China.

The press-secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, earlier said that the meeting went well and lasted longer than planned.

"The meeting lasted longer than planned. They discussed, above all, Syria and Ukraine. After that Obama and Putin had a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors," Peskov said.

He noted that the Russian and U.S. leaders discussed Syrian and Ukrainian issues.

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