U.S. President Barack Obama said that China has understood his "blunt" warnings against cyber-hacking as he credited new leader Xi Jinping with accepting more global responsibility for Beijing.

"We've had very blunt conversations about this. They understand, I think, that this can adversely affect the fundamentals of the U.S.-China relationship," Obama told "The Charlie Rose Show" in an interview broadcast late Monday.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview Monday that Iran's election result showed the country's people wanted to back away from confrontation with the outside world but ruled out for the moment lifting economic sanctions on Tehran.

"Well, I think it says that the Iranian people want to move in a different direction," Obama told PBS television's "Charlie Rose" show.

President Barack Obama expressed skepticism Monday that setting up a no-fly zone in Syria or other major U.S. military action could save lives or tip the balance against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Speaking to PBS television, Obama said critics urging bold intervention failed to understand there was no simple solution and "if you set up a no-fly zone, that you may not be actually solving the problem."

Russia and the U.S. have not abandoned hopes of holding a Syria peace conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after meeting his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Monday.

Putin told Obama that their positions on Syria do not coincide but both leaders agree on the need to push for negotiations in Syria's two-year-old civil war, the Associated Press reported.

President Barack Obama told the youth of Northern Ireland Monday to bravely defend peace, saying their "contagious" hope inspired other peoples still locked in sectarian violence.

Obama said the burden of protecting the hard-won peace that has regenerated the province after years of strife would soon fall to new leaders, who had the good fortune not to grow up in fear of bullets and bombings.

The biggest security operation in the troubled history of Northern Ireland swung into action on Monday for the start of the G8 summit and U.S. President Barack Obama's speech in Belfast.

Obama, who flew in aboard Air Force One accompanied by his family, then took his Marine One helicopter in a squadron of eight U.S. military choppers carrying his entourage to the center of Belfast.

Confidence in President Barack Obama has dropped below 50 percent to its lowest level in 19 months as Americans worry over broad government surveillance and other controversies, a poll showed Monday.

The tumbling approval numbers come as the White House faces criticism about a domestic program that gathers data on millions of Americans, the U.S. tax agency's targeting of conservative groups which applied for tax-exempt status, and secret collection of journalists' phone records.

U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Syria conflict with European leaders ahead of next week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland, the White House said Saturday.

Obama spoke late Friday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a bilateral meeting at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland after Washington upped the ante in the Syrian war by pledging military aid to rebels, the Kremlin's foreign policy aide said.

Putin and Obama will meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit at the Lough Erne resort on Monday and will also kickstart a Syria session at the summit at the request of host Britain.

The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said Friday he hoped that U.S. weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future, saying it will boost the morale of the fighters on the ground.

The comments by Gen. Salim Idris to Al-Arabiya TV followed a decision by President Barack Obama to authorize sending weapons to Syrian rebels, marking a deepening of U.S. involvement in Syria's two-year civil war.