President Obama has canceled a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin following Russia's decision to grant asylum to former government contractor Edward Snowden, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Putin and Obama were expected to meet in September while both were attending the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.
"Following a careful review begun in July, we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. "Given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months, we have informed the Russian Government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda."
The U.S. President said he 'disappointed' in Russia's decision to allow Snowden political asylum following a 5-week standoff between the two countries regarding his potential extradition. The U.S. had both publicly and privately asked Russia to return Snowden to the U.S. where he faces three felony charges concerning leaking information about National Security Agency surveillance programs. Washington lawmakers have built a criminal case against Snowden, citing him for violating the Espionage Act.
Senator Chuck Schumer said that "the President clearly made the right decision. President Putin is acting like a school-yard bully and doesn't deserve the respect a bilateral summit would have accorded him."
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham added in a statement that it is "time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin's Russia."
The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald broke news of the NSA programs on the surveillance of phone and Internet metadata after Snowden leaked information.
