TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Biden, Putin face off in tense Geneva summit
The setting -- a sumptuous villa overlooking Lake Geneva -- may be picturesque, but a gruelling diplomatic face-off awaits.
Change Size
The 'Villa La Grange' is seen on June 16, 2021 in Geneva, ahead of the summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin which takes place in the plush 18th-century lakeside villa steeped in the Swiss city's history. The Villa La Grange, set in Geneva's biggest park which slopes down to the shore, is well used to hosting showpiece events -- but the Biden-Putin talks rank as the most high-powered of them all. (AFP/Sebastien Bozon)
J
oe Biden and Vladimir Putin face off Wednesday at a tense Geneva summit, where ghosts of the Cold War will hover over modern-day US concerns about Russian cyberattacks and what the White House sees as a dangerous authoritarian drift.
The setting -- a sumptuous villa overlooking Lake Geneva -- may be picturesque, but a gruelling diplomatic face-off awaits.
US President Biden arrived in Geneva on Tuesday, but his Russian counterpart Putin touched down at the city's airport just over half an hour before the summit was due to start at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT).
Putin is due to arrive first at the villa, then Biden, with Swiss President Guy Parmelin acting as host during the talks, scheduled to last up to five hours.
Asked if the two leaders might share food together -- a staple gesture of goodwill in summit diplomacy -- a senior US official said no.
"There will be no breaking of bread," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The choice of Geneva, following long US-Russian negotiations, recalls the Cold War summit between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the Swiss city in 1985.
The villa, surrounded by a lush park, was under intense security. Grey patrol boats cruised along the lake front and heavily-armed camouflaged troops stood guard at a nearby yacht marina.
The classical villa's symmetrical design had made it possible to split it evenly so both leaders could have access to exactly the same amount of space, a Geneva protocol official told Swiss public broadcaster RTS.
In contrast with 1985, tensions are less about strategic nuclear weapons and competing ideologies than what the Biden administration sees as an increasingly hostile, rule-breaking regime.
From cyberattacks on American entities and meddling in the last two US presidential elections, to human rights violations and aggression against Ukraine and other European countries, Washington's list of allegations against the Kremlin runs long.
Putin, however, came to the summit arguing that Moscow is simply challenging US hegemony -- part of a bid to promote a so-called "multi-polar" world that has seen Russia draw close with the US's arguably even more powerful adversary China.
Biden, ending an intensive first foreign trip as president, arrived in Geneva after summits with NATO and the European Union in Brussels, and a G7 summit in Britain.
Asked if he was ready for Putin, Biden smiled and said: "I'm always ready."
Optimism? 'Not much'
In an interview with NBC, Putin scoffed at US accusations of dirty tricks abroad and authoritarian crackdowns at home.
As well as denying any connection to what the United States says are Russia-based hacking and ransomware gangs, Putin rejected having any hand in the deaths of many of his opponents during two decades in power.
Addressing one of the main irritants in relations with Washington and with the European Union, Putin insisted he also could not be blamed for the near-fatal poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, one of the few remaining major opposition figures in Russia.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign affairs adviser, told journalists in Moscow that the US-Russian relationship was "at an impasse".
There is "not much" ground for optimism, he added.
Biden's team likewise expects no "big set of deliverables", the senior Biden official said.
