Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Monday to his US counterpart, Barack Obama, parallel to the G20 summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, according to reports on Russian television.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met yesterday with the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, and Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, were also present during the discussion with president Obama.

Peskov reported earlier that Putin and Obama had conducted brief informal discussions on several occasions on Sunday, in the framework of the eleventh G20 summit.

Local media outlets reported that Obama requested a formal meeting with Putin to address issues such as the situation in Syria, which was subject of analysis yesterday by Kerry and Lavrov, who referred to a breakthrough in several controversial points on this matter.

The meeting of Putin and Obama is the first face-to-face meeting from November last year, when they met during the Summit on Climate Change in Paris.

Moscow and Washington are now seeking an approach on the coordination of military action in Syria, where Russian aviation is assisting the Syrian military in the fight against terrorist groups, including the Islamic State (ISIS).