The German government has welcomed the meeting of Russian and US leaders Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in Geneva, said Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German cabinet
The meeting between Russian and US leaders was held on Wednesday at Geneva’s Villa La Grange. It is the first US-Russia summit since Putin’s talks with Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, in Helsinki in 2018.
“Federal Chancellor (Germany’s Angela Merkel) said even before the meeting that she welcomed the meeting, that she thought it was right that there was room for dialogue even where there were many differences of opinion, on confrontational topics. We welcome that the two presidents met in Geneva and that they have agreed to continue this dialogue, to deepen it, including on important topics such as arms control, cyber security, that the two ambassadors will return to Moscow and Washington, this is a signal that both sides are ready to build up their dialogue more intensively”, – he said at a briefing on Friday.
Also, he said, the summit showed that “known divergences of positions remain”. He did not, however, answer questions about expectations in the context of the Geneva summit from Merkel’s bilateral meeting with Biden, which is planned for mid-July.
“I cannot say how the meeting of the federal chancellor with the American president on these topics (arms control, strategic stability – ed.) will go. This meeting was certainly a good start”, – Seibert added.