The White House said Friday (March 19) that President Joe Biden will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the appropriate Time.
“The president will meet with President Putin when the time is right,” Karine Jean-Pierre, chief deputy press secretary in the Biden Administration, told reporters aboard Air Force One (AF1).
Recently, Biden and Putin made fiery statements to each other.
The war of words began when George Stephanopoulos, an ABC news anchor and aide to former Democratic President Bill Clinton, asked Biden if he agreed that Putin was a “killer.
Biden replied, “Yes, I agree.”
Biden also vowed that Putin would “pay the price” for his alleged interference in the 2020 election.
Putin then challenged Biden to a public live debate in the near future.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday (March 18) that the debate would not happen.
Jean-Pierre added on Friday that Biden “was asked a straightforward question, he gave a straightforward answer, he will not back down, he will be very frank and very open about the relationship between the two countries, especially when he is asked a straightforward question.
She said Biden and Putin have different views on their respective countries, but there are areas where they agree and they “will continue to look for ways to work together.” She was referring to the nuclear weapons control treaty in the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty was blocked during the early days of the Biden administration.
But Biden will not stand idly by when he sees Russia committing crimes, such as the attempted murder of opposition candidate Alexei Navalny, she continued.
“From the very first call with President Putin, President Biden made clear that the United States would also respond to some of Russia’s destabilizing actions,” she said. “When (we) announced a number of actions against Russia for the use of chemical weapons and the attempted murder of Navalny, for the first time you saw such a response. As the president said, Russia will pay the price for its actions.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Friday that Putin offered to speak with Biden by phone to avoid a complete collapse of bilateral relations over Biden’s “killer” comments, according to the Associated Press.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, revealed that Putin said, “It makes sense to have a dialogue, not to sneer at each other, in order to preserve Russian-American relations.” He wants to make the dialogue public to help calm down after Biden’s “very bad comments.
“I’m sure we’ll have talks at some point,” Biden told reporters Friday before leaving Washington for Georgia.
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