NOURNEWS - The Kremlin is not anticipating that the first meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Joe Biden of the United States will sort out all discords and lead to a reset in ties, but suggests that the summit’s significance should not be diminished, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
"It is unlikely that just from the very first meeting, the parties will find common ground on the issues causing deep divisions. At the same time, it would be also wrong to play down the importance of this meeting," Peskov stressed, TASS reported.
Putin will never raise the topic of sanctions during the talks himself, the Kremlin spokesman told journalist, answering a question whether this topic will be on agenda of the US-Russian summit.
"President Putin does not raise the issue of sanctions himself, because Russia has never been a proponent of such sanctions exercised," the spokesman said.
Commenting on the remark made by Biden that sanctions have proven themselves ineffective against the Nord Stream-2, Peskov underscored that "our point of view is that sanctions ineffective in general".
The particular location of the Geneva summit between Putin Biden, needs to be clarified and it will be picked jointly with Moscow’s American colleagues, Peskov added.
"No, we will consider [it] and agree on this together with the Americans," Peskov underlined.
On Tuesday, both the Kremlin and the White House announced that the Putin-Biden summit would take place in Geneva on June 16. According to the Kremlin press service, the presidents will discuss the current state of and prospects for further development of Russian-US relations, problems of strategic stability, as well as current issues of the international agenda, including cooperation in combating the coronavirus pandemic and settlement of regional conflicts. It will be the first personal meeting between the two leaders since the 46th US president entered the Oval Office. It will also be Putin’s first foreign visit since January 2020, when he visited Israel and Palestine.
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