WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2021) US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to lay the groundwork for the normalization of relations at their upcoming summit in Geneva, former US State Department senior Foreign Service Officer and former UN Director of Counterterrorism Howard Stoffer told Sputnik.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that the two leaders would hold a summit in Geneva on June 16, in what will be their first in-person meeting since Biden took office.
"I think, you know, Russians, and Americans generally get along. But it's just we got to sort out all these issues now. And that's what I think this summit is going to be, the beginning step to do that," Stoffer, who is now an Associate Professor at the University of New Haven, told Sputnik.
He said he expected the Russian-US relations to get better and recalled the good relationship he had with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador in Washington Sergei Kislyak.
"I think fundamentally from all the years that I've worked with, you know, I worked with Lavrov and I've worked with Sergei Kislyak. I mean, I know all these people because when I knew them, they weren't where they are now. We all got along well. We basically liked each other," Stoffer said.
He told Sputnik that the upcoming Geneva summit is yet another chance for Washington and Moscow to pinpoint areas where some common ground can be found. This process was already initiated by Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at their first in-person meeting on the sidelines of the 12th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Iceland's Reykjavik this month.
Commenting on the location choice for the Putin-Biden summit, Stoffer cautioned against putting too much into it.
"What's important is that they are meeting and they're not meeting in a place that would be prejudiced to one or other. They are not meeting in Paris and they are not meeting in Minsk, you know, they are meeting in a place that's sort of neutral and that's what's important," he told Sputnik.
The Kremlin expects that Putin and Biden will discuss issues such as strategic stability and the US-Russia relationship itself at the upcoming Geneva talks. The White House said that Ukraine, Belarus, the New START and Iran would be on the agenda.
"The purpose of these meetings is to just understand each other and see how much we can agree on and then make some breakthroughs," Stoffer told Sputnik, adding that "we're not moving to confrontation. And that's the most important thing in a world where nuclear weapons can still kill everybody."
Earlier this month, Lavrov praised Blinken's constructive approach at the recent negotiations in Reykjavik and said that Russia and the United States, as the two largest nuclear powers, have a special responsibility for maintaining strategic stability and international security. Without a full-fledged Russian-US dialogue, it would be very difficult for the global community to face cross-border challenges and threats, and to settle regional conflicts, Lavrov said.
Asked about the prospects for future top-level Russia-US meetings, Stoffer said that he expected Putin and Biden to meet at the G20 and sometime in early 2022.
"... it might be that they agree to meet again outside of the G20, you know, to meet again in six months or in a year and let their foreign ministers work that out or maybe meet in New York in September, if the General Assembly can have a general meeting of heads of state in mid-September, then maybe that would be an opportunity for them to meet briefly again in New York and follow up on whatever they're talking about now in June. And then maybe say, well, we'll leave open bilateral meetings," Stoffer told Sputnik.
He said that if some kind of momentum towards cooperation and reducing tensions is achieved following the Geneva summit, "then it may be possible for Russia to rejoin the G7 and become the G8 again."
Stoffer emphasized that top-level meetings between Russia and the US are essential because expert and mid-level talks, or even meetings between foreign ministers or defense ministers, cannot cover everything.
"And that's one thing that the presidents of the two countries, they could discuss everything and anything. And because they are in touch with other leaders, it's possible that there's an understanding that they can reach some kind of accommodation and some kind of desire for reducing tensions. Then the whole world will be better off," Stoffer told Sputnik.
He emphasized that there is a difference between Washington's approach toward Russia now, in comparison to the former administration of Donald Trump.
"We go back to a normal kind of discussion. Trump was not an expert in diplomatic exchanges. And I think Biden has been around a long time. Putin has been around a long time. They understand each other. They're not brand new. And it's important for them to just see each other again as the leaders," Stoffer said.
Earlier this month, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said that Biden believed that a meeting with Putin would be a positive step forward in the US-Russia bilateral relations to both ease tensions and have more stable ties.
