Biden arrives in Geneva for meeting with Putin
GENEVA (AP) — Buoyed by days of partnership-building sessions with America's democratic allies, Joe Biden arrived in Geneva on Tuesday for the most-watched and tensest part of his first European tour as president: talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Biden is seeking to restore European ties that were strained under former President Donald Trump, who dismissed longstanding alliances with America's democratic partners and sought out Putin and other autocrats. Biden this week has held long days of meetings with global leaders at the Group of Seven, NATO and U.S.-E.U. summits, where he secured joint communiques expressing concern over Russia and China, and on Tuesday helped preside over a breakthrough agreement easing a long-running U.S. trade dispute with Europe.
But Biden's Wednesday meeting with the Russian president is his most highly anticipated.
Biden has called Putin a "worthy adversary" and has said he is hoping to find areas of cooperation with the Russian president. But he's also warned that if Russia continues its cyberattacks and other aggressive acts towards the U.S. "we will respond in kind."
According to a senior administration official granted anonymity to disclose internal discussions, Biden is hoping to find small areas of agreement with the Russian president, including potentially returning
(Continued from Page 1) ambassadors back to Washington and Moscow. Both countries have been without a senior diplomat for months.
Biden is also looking to make progress on a new arms control agreement between the two nations, after Russia agreed to a five-year extension of the current agreement in January. And Biden plans to raise issues ranging from cyberattacks to
Russia's alleged involvement in air piracy, as well as Putin's treatment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was jailed and poisoned in an act seen as political retribution against him for speaking out against the Russian president.
The U.S. and the E.U. issued a statement Tuesday following their summit bolstering Biden as he heads into the meeting with Putin. The two nations have agreed to set up a "highlevel dialogue" together about Russia as part of "a renewed trans-Atlantic partnership" between the U.S. and the 27nation bloc.
A summit statement released Tuesday said that the two "stand united in our principled approach towards Russia and we are ready to respond decisively to its repeating pattern of negative behavior and harmful activities."
They "urge Russia to stop its continuous crackdown on civil society, the opposition and independent media and release all political prisoners."
Biden arrived ahead of Wednesday's talks with Putin buoyed not only by the united front shown by the U.S. and E.U. but also the announcement of a major breakthrough in a 17-year trade dispute between the two global powers, centered on rival subsidies for aircraft manufacturers.