PUTIN DESCRIBES TALKS WITH BIDEN AS ‘QUITE CONSTRUCTIVE’

Wed 16 June 2021:

The United Nations looks forward to learning more about the results of the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Wednesday.

“At this stage, we are looking forward to learning more regarding the outcomes of today’s summit, considering it has just wrapped up,” Haq said during a press briefing. “We’ve consistently supported all of efforts to dialogue and we hope that today’s discussions to address pressing global challenges and to achieve greater strategic stability and security will move us forward.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he discussed topics such as strategic stability, regional security, and cyberthreats during his face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden.

“The themes [of the discussions] are likely known to everyone: strategic stability, cybersecurity, regional conflicts, trade relations, and we also talked about cooperation in the Arctic,” Putin said.

Russia and the United States are set to begin consultations on the next steps to ensuring strategic stability, following the recent extension of the New START treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

“I think it’s clear for everyone the fact that President Biden has taken on responsibility and has taken the decision, which we think is quite timely, to extend the New START treaty for five years up until 2024. Of course there is a question of what comes next. We agreed that consultations will commence at the inter-agency level between the US State Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry,” Putin said in a post-presser summit.

Taking a question from CNN, Vladimir Putinwas asked whether the talks between him and Joe Biden were hostile in nature.

“I think there was no hostility. Quite the contrary,” Putin said, according to the translation of his comments.

The Russian president insisted the talks were in fact “quite constructive,” with both sides showing a “willingness to understand one another”.

Putin added that he and Biden agreed to “begin consultations” on cybersecurity. The White House had indicated Biden would raise the issue of recent cyberattacks against major corporations during his meeting with Putin.

The Russian president told the media that he and Biden had agreed their ambassadors should return to their respective posts and resume their diplomatic duties.

The Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, and the US ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, had been in their home countries for the past several months because of heightened tensions between the two nations.

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