ADDS DETAILS FROM WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING ON MEETING IN GRAFS 5-6
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) – US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold their first face-to-face meeting next month, the White House announced on Tuesday.
The June 16 summit will take place in Geneva following more than one month of deliberations between Moscow and Washington about the timing and location of the meeting.
"The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The meeting is going to be tacked on to the tail end of Biden's first international trip in which he is set to visit Europe for meetings with allies, including a G7 summit in Britain from June 11 to 13, and meetings with NATO and EU partners in Brussels on June 14.
During the summit, Putin and Biden "will spend a fair amount of time on strategic stability," as well as next steps on arms control after the countries extended a nuclear arms reduction treaty known as New START, as well as ongoing negotiations to resume compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Psaki told reporters during a later press conference.
Biden "will also raise Ukraine, underscoring America’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and he will also plan to raise Belarus and convey our grave concerns as he has now done publicly," said Psaki, noting a "range of issues" could arise in the three weeks before the meeting.
The summit comes amid mounting problems in the US-Russia relationship, including a sweeping cyberattack the US blames on Russia that compromised government and corporate networks. The US imposed sanctions on Russia and expelled its diplomats in response to the hack, and has repeatedly criticized Moscow for its jailing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Navalny had been poisoned in a nerve agent attack, and was sent to Germany for medical treatment. He was detained by Russian authorities upon his return to the country.
Biden proposed the meeting in April when he phoned Putin to warn him of the then-pending penalties the US was to impose on Russia in response to the SolarWinds hack.
US and Russian officials then spent the next month-and-a-half negotiating the appropriate time and third-party nation in which to meet with Biden expressing confidence that the summit would happen.
