REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LOS ANGELES - In a rare diplomatic rebuke, President Barack Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The decision reflected both US anger over Russia's harboring of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and growing frustration within the Obama administration over what it sees as Moscow's stubbornness on other key issues, including missile defense and human rights.

Obama will still attend the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but a top White House official said the president has no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Putin while there. 

Obama, traveling in California, said in an interview Tuesday that he was "disappointed" by Russia's decision to grant Snowden asylum for one year. He said that decision indicates the "underlying challenges" the US faces in dealing with Moscow.

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

In Moscow, the Kremlin on Wednesday voiced its own disappointment with the decision but said Russia remains ready to work with the United States on a variety of issues. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters the American decision reflected a US inability to develop relations with Moscow on an "equal basis." At the same time, he said the invitation to Obama to visit Moscow next month still stands.

"This decision is clearly linked to the situation with former agent of US special services (Edward) Snowden, which hasn't been created by us," Ushakov 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 US accuses Putin of helping President Bashar Assad fund a civil war. The US has also been a vocal critic of Russia's crackdown on Kremlin critics and recently sanctioned 18 Russians for human rights violations.

For its part, Moscow has accused the US of installing a missile shield in Eastern Europe as a deterrent against Russia, despite American assurances that the shield is not aimed at its former Cold War foe. Putin also signed a law last year banning US adoptions of Russian children, a move that was seen as retaliation for the US measure that cleared the way for the human rights sanctions.

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