He told reporters Dobrynin, due at the White House to say farewell after 25 years in Washington, has been empowered by the Kremlin to discuss a summit preparatory meeting between Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
As part of their preparatory work for the summit, finance ministers, when they met in Halifax, also discussed another much-heralded policy initiative, first introduced in 1999: the provision of debt relief to the poorest developing countries, known as HIPC.
The preparatory conference for the summit, held in Bali last month, was marred by disputes between developed nations and poorer states and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), despite efforts by British politicians to broker compromises on key issues.
European officials said that two senior American officials — the under secretary of state for political affairs, William J. Burns, and the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Philip H. Gordon — had attended a preparatory meeting for the summit meeting two weeks ago in Madrid, and that there was no hint then that Mr. Obama would decide not to attend.
Euro zone finance ministers complained that their new Greek colleague Euclid Tsakalotos, while more courteous than his abrasive predecessor Yanis Varoufakis, had brought no new proposals to a preparatory meeting before the summit.
Officials said that with the exception of Russia, all of the 54 countries that participated in this year's March summit attended the preparatory meeting in Washington.
The US had tried to put the focus of the London meeting, a preparatory gathering for the leaders' summit, on its proposal for a new international accord to increase banks' capital reserves.
Asked about the seven G8 countries backing out of preparatory meetings ahead of the summit in Sochi, Putin's spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, reportedly replied: "It's not a minus for Russia.
Instead, leading western countries dropped out of preparatory work for a G8 summit hosted by Russia in June, with Kerry saying Moscow could be expelled from the organisation and economic sanctions aimed at the Russian elite, moves unlikely to have much impact.
