Biden intends to indicate to Putin conditions for better relationship
According to the US leader, there are spheres where Washington and Moscow can work together
American President Joe Biden intends to clearly indicate the conditions of better relations between Moscow and Washington at the summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16.
"This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference to try to embarrass each other. It’s about making myself very clear what the conditions are to get a better relationship are — with Russia," he said at a press conference following the G7 summit in the seaside resort of Carbis Bay in Cornwall, UK on Sunday.
According to the US leader, there are spheres where Washington and Moscow can work together. "We may be able to do that in terms of some strategic doctrine that — that may be able to be worked together. We’re ready to do it. And there may be other areas. There’s even talk there may be the ability to work together on climate," he said.
Biden added that a sincere one-on-one discussion would be the best way to discuss current disagreements and possible spheres of interaction with the Russian leader. "I know you don’t doubt that I’ll be very straightforward with him about our concerns. And I will make clear my view of how that meeting turned out, and he’ll make clear how — from his perspective, how it turned out. But I don’t want to get into being diverted by, ‘Did they shake hands? […] Who talked the most,’ and the rest," the US leader noted.
As the Kremlin and the White House reported earlier, the meeting of Putin and Biden will take place on June 16 in Geneva. According to the press service of the Russian head of state, the two leaders plan to discuss the conditions and prospects for further fostering Russian-US relations, strategic stability matters as well as pressing issues on the international agenda, which include cooperation in fighting the coronavirus pandemic and regulating regional conflicts. This will be the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and Biden since the US president took office.
No guarantees
There are no guarantees of improved relations between Russia and the United States, however, Moscow and Washington can constructively cooperate in many spheres, Biden said.
"First of all, there’s no guarantee you can change a person’s behaviour or the behaviour of his country," the American leader said when asked to specify what he would do differently in order to get Russia to change its behaviour." "Autocrats have enormous power and they don’t have to answer to a public. And the fact is that it may very well be if I respond in kind — which I will — that it doesn’t dissuade him and he wants to keep going," he said about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"But I think that we’re going to be moving in a direction where Russia has its own dilemmas," he continued. Among them, he named maintaining the economic growth, fight against the pandemic and global interaction with the US, Europe and the Middle East.
In his opinion, Russia is engaged in activities that sometimes "are contrary to international norms." "But they have also bitten off some real problems they’re going to have trouble chewing on."
In response to a question as to why the Russian president hasn’t changed his behaviour in spite of everything the US has done to this point, Biden responded with a smile: "He’s Vladimir Putin.".
Source: Tass
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