Obama cancels meeting with Putin

President Barack Obama has canceled the Moscow summit he was to have held next month with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, an administration official said Wednesday.

The decision comes amid growing frustration in Washington over Russia's decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, and and what it sees as Moscow's stubbornness on other key issues, including missile defense and human rights.

Despite the summit snub, Obama still plans to attend the Group of 20 economic summit in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, but a top White House official said the president had no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Putin while there. Instead of visiting Putin, the president will now add a stop in Sweden to his early September travel itinerary.

A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia is "disappointed" by Obama's decision and acknowledged the cancelation is linked to the Snowden case. The invitiation remains open, the spokesperson said, but added that the U.S. is not ready to build ties with Russia on an "equal basis."

Obama, who is traveling in California, said in an interview Tuesday he was "disappointed" by Russia's move to grant Snowden asylum for one year. But he said the move also reflected the "underlying challenges" the U.S. faces in dealing with Moscow.

"There have been times where they slip back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality," Obama said on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, said Russia's decision last week to defy the U.S. and grant Snowden temporary asylum had exacerbated an already troubled relationship. And with few signs that progress would be made during the Moscow summit on other agenda items, Rhodes said the president decided to cancel the talks.

"We'll still work with Russia on issues where we can find common ground, but it was the unanimous view of the president and his national security team that a summit did not make sense in the current environment," Rhodes said.

Obama's decision to scrap talks with Putin is likely to deepen the chill in the already frosty relationship between the two leaders. They have frequently found themselves at odds on pressing international issues, most recently in Syria, where the U.S. accuses Putin of propping up the regime of President Bashar Assad. The U.S. has also been a vocal critic of Russia's crackdown on Kremlin critics and recently sanctioned 18 Russians for human rights violations.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press