Tony Abbott promises 'very robust' talk with Vladimir Putin at APEC summit ahead of G20

Updated

Vladimir Putin will meet Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who famously promised to "shirtfront" the Russian president over the MH17 plane crash, during the APEC summit in Beijing next week, the Kremlin says.

"Australians turned [to us] with an official request for a meeting during an APEC summit and we are agreeing to such a meeting in China," Mr Putin's top foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov told reporters.

The meeting was being planned for November 11, the second day of the Beijing summit and Mr Ushakov said: "It will be short."

Mr Abbott said that he had a very strong message from the Australian people to give to the Russian president.

"I am going to have a very robust conversation with him," he said.

"But the conversation will be ... about our absolute expectation that Russia will be as good as its word, that it will fully cooperate with the investigations that are underway and that it will do what it can to ensure that justice is done.

"Russia owes this to the families of the dead. It owes this to the wider world.

"It has pledged its word in the [UN] Security Council to do what it can to bring the perpetrators to justice and I expect Russia to be as good as its word."

PM wants personal assurances from Russian president

Mr Abbott said he wanted personal assurances from Mr Putin.

"I will be seeking his personal assurance some months down the track that this is not an issue which Russia now expects to be forgotten, that this is not an atrocity which Russia thinks can be swept under the carpet," he said.

"Thirty-eight Australians were murdered and I will speak for our dead, I will speak for our nation, I will speak for decency and for humanity in stating to the Russian president he owes it to us, he owes it to our common humanity to ensure that justice is done."

The two leaders are also expected to come face-to-face at the G20 summit next week in Brisbane, but Mr Abbott said he did not want the event to be overshadowed by their rift.

Mr Ushakov confirmed their formal meeting would take place in Beijing, not in Brisbane, at the request of Australian officials.

During joint talks this week with visiting Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, Mr Abbott insisted he would directly confront Mr Putin "one way or another" over the tragedy.

Almost 200 Dutch nationals were on board the Malaysia Airlines flight.

Mr Rutte said when he first heard Mr Abbott's shirtfront threat he did not understand what it meant, but now thinks it was meant in a "proverbial way".

"I'm sure, knowing Tony Abbott, that he will find his style and his way to communicate with Vladimir Putin, and the most important thing is that the two speak, and that Najib Razak of Malaysia will speak with Vladimir Putin in Beijing," he told Lateline.

Mr Rutte recently met with Mr Putin face-to-face for the first time since the tragedy.

"This was the Asia-European meeting in Milan, and I told him again that I expect him and his government to do everything they can to put pressure on the separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine to stop the violence, to stop the fighting with Ukraine," he said.

"We are at the same time discussing with Ukrainians to hold the ceasefire and keep up to immense protocol where they basically agree on a ceasefire and buffer zones so that for Australia, Malaysia and other elements it is possible to do what we need to do at the crash site."



Mr Abbott was one of the first world leaders to publicly point the finger at Russian-backed separatists for shooting down the plane over eastern Ukraine, but Russia has repeatedly denied the claim and pointed the finger at Kiev over the disaster.

He said that was based on "very strong" security advice in the days after the tragedy, and "there's been nothing since then to question that original security advice".

ABC/AFP





Topics: federal-government, foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, world-politics, abbott-tony, australia, russian-federation, china

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