Kremlin: Putin and Obama meet in New York agreed

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting in New York on Monday met with US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.

“At the moment, Putin’s program in New York is as follows: he will fly in, listen to the speech of his colleagues at the General Assembly for some time, speak himself, then he will have a conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and he will take part in a protocol event from named after the UN Secretary General in honor of the heads of delegations. After this, he will meet with Shinzo Abe and Barack Obama,” Peskov said.

According to Reuters, the initiator of the meeting was Putin.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Obama would hold a meeting with Putin, “if it can be organized,” citing sources.

“Obama, who had refused to meet with Putin amid deep divisions over Russia's intervention in the Ukraine conflict last year, decided that a meeting now could be useful to urge the Kremlin to maintain a truce near its borders while at the same time insisting on diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria,” the newspaper said.