White House, Kremlin aiming for Biden-Putin summit in Geneva

WASHINGTON－US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely hold a summit in Geneva in June, US media reported on Monday.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, several media outlets said the Swiss city of Geneva is expected to be the venue for Biden's first in-person meeting with Putin.

The reports came as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held consultations with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev.

"The meeting was an important step in the preparation for a planned US-Russia summit, the date and location of which will be announced later," the White House said in a statement on Monday.

The two sides are eyeing June 15-16 for the summit, The Associated Press said.

The meeting between Sullivan and Patrushev was "constructive" despite "outstanding differences," the statement said. The two officials discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest, with high priority given to the topic of strategic stability.

"The sides agreed that a normalization of US-Russian relations would be in the interest of both countries and contribute to global predictability and stability," it added.

Relations between Washington and Moscow have been badly strained in recent years, with obvious differences on issues such as Ukraine, cybersecurity, human rights, and alleged interference by Russia in US elections.

The Biden administration noted it seeks "a more predictable, stable relationship" with Russia. During their meeting in Iceland last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov expressed willingness to cooperate while admitting "serious differences" given tense relations between the two countries.

'A lot of rubble'

"There is a lot of rubble, it's not easy to rake it up, but I felt that Antony Blinken and his team were determined to do this. It will not be a matter for us," Lavrov said, according to news agency Tass.

Biden has taken a very different approach to Russia than his predecessor, former president Donald Trump. Their sole summit, held in July 2018 in Helsinki, was marked by Trump's refusal to side with US intelligences agencies over denials by Putin of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Under Biden, the US has sought to pressure Russia through economic sanctions. It imposed penalties last week on Russian companies and ships for their work on a natural gas pipeline in Europe, though the Biden administration spared the German company overseeing the project, to the frustration of several Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

In April, the administration expelled 10 Russian diplomats and placed sanctions on several dozen companies and people, an attempt to punish the Kremlin for so-called interfering in last year's US presidential election and the SolarWinds hacking that breached federal agencies and private companies.

Russia responded quickly to the sanctions by ordering 10 US diplomats to leave, blacklisting eight current and former US officials, and tightening requirements for US Embassy operations with bans on the hiring of Russian citizens and third-country nationals.

Biden said earlier this month he expected to meet with Putin during his trip to Europe in June, when he would attend the Group of Seven Summit in the United Kingdom and then the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium.

Xinhua - Agencies