Russia-US: President Obama cancels meeting with President Putin

US President Barack Obama has canceled a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after Mr Putin's governments decision to grant asylum to US inteligence leaker Edward Snowden. In a statement, the White House said: "We have reached the conculsion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a US-Russia summit", adding; "We believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda". A White House aide said Mr Snowden's asylum had deepened the pre-existing tensions between the two countries, and the decision to cancel the talks comes a day after President Obama described Russia's decision as "dissapointing". In addition to the Edward Snowden issue, the US cited a lack of other issues including missile defenses and human rights for the cancellation of the talks. However, the White House reaffirmed Mr Obama's commitment to attending an upcoming round of G20 economic talks; due to take place in Russia this September.