3 yıl önce

Putin: Meeting with Biden could help establish dialogue

The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden is due to take place on June 16 in Geneva amid strained bilateral relations on a wide array of issues.

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In this file image, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with then US Vice President Joe Biden during their meeting in Moscow on March 10, 2011.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he expected his summit this week with US President Joe Biden to help establish dialogue between the two countries and to restore personal contacts, the Interfax news agency reported.

Biden will meet Putin on June 16 in Geneva for a summit amid strained bilateral relations on a wide array of issues.

"To restore our personal contacts, relations, to establish direct dialogue, to create really functioning mechanisms in those areas that represent mutual interests...," Interfax quoted Putin on Sunday as saying in an excerpt from an interview with state television to be aired later.

Exchange of cybercriminals

Putin said Russia would be ready to hand over cybercriminals to the United States if Washington did the same for Moscow and the two powers reached an agreement to that effect.

The White House has said that Joe Biden will bring up ransomware cyberattacks emanating from Russia at the summit with Putin in Geneva.

"If we agree to extradite criminals, then, of course, Russia will do that, we will do that, but only if the other side, in this case, the United States, agrees to the same and will extradite the criminals in question to the Russian Federation," Putin was quoted as saying.

Worsening US-Russia ties

The meeting between Biden and Putin will take place in the light of worsening relations recently, after the US President Biden called the Russian president as a "killer".

In March, Biden was asked in an interview whether he thought Putin is a killer and said, “I do.”

Asked about Biden’s remarks during a video call with residents of Crimea marking the anniversary of its 2014 annexation from Ukraine, Putin charged that they reflect the United States’ own troubled past.

The Russian leader pointed at the US atomic bombing of Japan during World War II, as well as America's past history of slaughtering Native Americans and slavery, arguing that the painful legacies weigh on the United States.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies