Biden and Putin to meet in Switzerland on June 16
Washington, May 25 (EFE).- The United States president Joe Biden will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on June 16, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.
“The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship,” a statement said.
The Kremlin also confirmed the meeting in a statement where it said the leaders would discuss strategic nuclear stability, regional conflicts and the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Geneva summit will be the first high-level meeting between the leaders of the two countries since Putin and former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) met in Helsinki in July 2018.
The meeting was announced after US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev met in Geneva on Monday and agreed that normalising US-Russia relations would benefit both countries and the international community.
Relations between the countries deteriorated after Biden said ‘I do’ when asked if he thought Putin was a killer in an interview with ABC news on March 17.
Following Biden’s condemnation, Putin suggested the leaders hold online talks. During a phone call in April, Biden suggested meeting with Putin in person, to which the Kremlin responded positively.
The foreign ministers of both nations, Antony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov, met in Reykjavik, Iceland last week to prepare for the summit. EFE
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