US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed security issues, including the apparent use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Civil War, as well as the Boston Marathon Bombing.  It was the two presidents' second phone contact since the bombing.

The call was apparently quite cordial and the two also discussed mutual cooperation to ensure safety at the 2014 Winter Olympics, taking place in Sochi, Russia which is only a few hundred kilometers away from Chechnya. 

The Tsarnaev brothers suspected of planting the bombs at the Marathon were ethnic Chechyans, and by many accounts have taken up the radical Islamic cause of many Chechyan rebels, although they’ve never actually been to Chechnya themselves.

“The presidents reached a practical agreement about active contacts between the special services and their leaders,” read a statement from the Kremlin, adding that both also “underscored the importance of joint work providing security for the security of the Sochi Olympics.”  “Special services” is Kremlin-ese for security and intelligence agencies.

Although a White House statement insisted that President Obama used the call to underscore “his concern over Syrian chemical weapons", the two presidents may be signaling they are putting aside other concerns to focus on security.

Last week, senior US officials said there is evidence that Syrian government troops used Sarin gas, but did not specify when or where.