Biden, Putin agree on arms talks, to return diplomats at ‘pragmatic’ summit

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at a “pragmatic” first summit yesterday to resume arms control talks and to return ambassadors to each other’s capitals after they were withdrawn earlier this year.

The summit at the lakeside Villa La Grange in Geneva lasted less than four hours – far less than Biden’s advisers had expected.

Putin called Biden, 78, a constructive, experienced partner, and said they spoke “the same language”, but added that there had been no friendship, rather a pragmatic dialogue about their two countries’ interests.

He said it was “hard to say” if relations with the US would improve, but that there was a “glimpse of hope” regarding mutual trust.

Putin also said Russia and the US shared a responsibility for nuclear stability, and would hold talks on possible changes to their recently extended New START arms limitation treaty.

But he showed little appetite for compromise on a range of issues, dismissing Washington’s concerns about the arrest of opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny, about Russia’s increased military presence near

Ukraine’s eastern border, and about US suggestions that unidentified Russians were responsible for a series of cyberattacks in the US.

Putin said Navalny had ignored the law and had known what would happen if he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had received treatment for an attempt inside Russia to kill him with poison. He also accused Kyiv of breaking the terms of a ceasefire agreement with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin leader said Washington and Moscow would start consultations on cybersecurity, adding that most cyberattacks on Russia came from the US.

Arms control is, however, one domain where progress has historically been possible despite wider disagreements. In February, Russia and the US extended for five years the New START treaty, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits the land and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them. Both sides had said in advance of the summit that they hoped for more stable and predictable relations, even though they were at odds over many issues. |