Putin to visit Iran

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his German and British counterparts on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 summit but is not scheduled to have bilateral talks with President Barack Obama, the Kremlin said Friday.

“Turkey has taken an independent position amid imposing the unilateral sanctions by the USA and European Union”, President Putin said in an interview with Interfax and Anadolu news agencies. The Russian president has an invitation to the forum.

“It is logical that in the course of participation in the summit of the forum, of course, bilateral contacts wll be envisaged with host of the meeting and with the countries that will participate at the appropriate level”. The Kremlin aide said the schedule of meetings so far hadn’t been finalized.

Putin has not visited Iran since 2007 and while in Tehran is expected to hold talks with the Islamic Republic’s President Hassan Rouhani, Ushakov said.

Putin and Obama last crossed paths at the UN General Assembly meeting in September, where they held a 90-minute meeting, their first formal bilateral encounter in two years.

Iran and Russian Federation seek to step up economic cooperation after Tehran and the P5+1 group, including Russian Federation, reached a nuclear agreement in the Austrian capital of Vienna on July 14.

Iran, Russia, Qatar, Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are main members of GECF.

The GECF is a gathering of the world’s leading gas producers.