Wednesday 14 April 2021
America wants crisis meetings
Biden’s initiative leaves Putin indifferent at first
Will there be a summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin? In view of renewed tensions in Ukraine, the United States was invited to participate in it. The Kremlin chief has not yet decided whether he will accept the offer.
The Kremlin reacted cautiously to US President Joe Biden’s proposal for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin in Moscow confirmed Biden’s proposal, but left it open whether Putin would accept the invitation. However, Putin had recently offered to speak to Biden after the US president recently responded positively to the question of Putin being considered a “killer”.
Because of this statement, Russia has temporarily withdrawn its ambassador from the United States. Against the backdrop of the deployment of the Russian military on the border with Ukraine, Bidin Putin proposed a summit meeting in a telephone conversation on Tuesday. The White House said that at a third country summit meeting in the coming months, Biden would discuss the full range of issues “facing the United States and Russia”.
In the conversation, Biden expressed his concern over, among other things, the sudden deployment of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border and the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. In Moscow, Biden’s proposal was seen as communicating a constant confrontation. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev said Biden’s meeting with Putin would be an opportunity to take Russian-American relations to a new level. “Time does not wait,” the former Kremlin chief said. Both sides should start preparing for the meeting without delay.
“A World Class Message”
Highly-placed foreign politician Konstantin Kosachev wrote on Facebook about the planned meeting, “It is a world-class message in terms of scope, importance and outlook.” The Deputy Head of the Russian Funding Council also said that the two sides will now begin to fundamentally prepare the summit. The Foreign and Defense Ministers of NATO States want to discuss the current escalation of the Ukraine conflict in a joint video conference today, Wednesday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are expected to join the talks – including an in-person withdrawal from Afghanistan at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The White House announcement stated that Biden urged the Russian president to “de-escalate tensions” with a view to Ukraine. He also emphasized “the United States’ unwavering commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”. In addition, the Kremlin announced that in 2015 the internationally recognized Minsk peace plan was to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Russia supporting the separatists in Donbas complains that Ukraine is not carrying out the plan.
Biden plans a stable relationship with Russia
The US president has also reiterated his goal of building a stable relationship with Russia, Washington said. The talks also dealt with America’s intention to pursue strategic talks with Moscow on security issues and arms control. Putin announced that other urgent problems were also resolved, including phone calls, Biden’s initiative, defense of the nuclear deal with Iran and the situation in Afghanistan. Biden invited Putin to attend a climate summit on 22 and 23 April via video switch.
Given the strong growth of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, there are currently growing concerns that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine may escalate again. This has occurred in parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk along the Russian border being controlled by separatists loyal to Moscow for almost seven years. Earlier, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea with more than two million of its inhabitants.
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