Obama to Attend G20 Summit in Russia despite Snowden, Gay Hate Bill

US President Barack Obama has confirmed his intention to attend the Group of Twenty summit in Russia’s St. Petersburg in September, but reproached Russia for its “Cold War mentality.”

“There are times when they [the Russian government] slip back into Cold War thinking and Cold War mentality. What I continually say to them and to President [Vladimir] Putin, that’s the past,” the US president said during “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno, according to RIA Novosti.

"There’s no reason why we shouldn't be able to cooperate more effectively than we do,” he said.

Obama said he was “disappointed” with Russia’s decision to grant temporary asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden but that he would still attend the G20 summit.

Obama also criticized Russia’s notorious legislative measures recently adopted to  punish gay "propaganda.”

"Whether you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality that I think should transcend every country," Obama said on Tuesday when asked about the Russian LGBT hate bill.

The meeting in Moscow is scheduled to take place early next month, ahead of the G20 summit of top world leaders that begins September 5 in St. Petersburg.

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