President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in Geneva today amid such conditions that the US-Russia tension has increased drastically during the past few months and both sides agreed that the level of White House-Kremlin relations has decreased meaningfully.
Biden and Putin have thus far only had a long meeting that lasted a whole day on March 10, 2011, but of course this time Biden is the US president, and informed diplomats predict that this meeting will last five hours.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the agenda of this meeting includes miscellaneous issues, including strategic relations, issues related to weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the Middle East, and Iran.
Dr. Mohammad Shuri, a analyst and top expert on Russian politics has talked with the IRNA Political Desk correspondent about that meeting.
Pointing out the importance of the meeting amid the prevailing tense conditions of the two countries’ relations, Shuri emphasized that the two leaders will try to lower tension in bilateral ties as much as possible and move the Moscow-Washington relations towards a broader level of cooperation.
The Eurasia affairs expert said that the meetings between the US and Russian presidents at time of increased tension between the two countries have always been of great significance and sensitivity, adding that probably many analyst and politicians around the globe are waiting to see the two presidents’ talks and their effects in realpolitik.
But the truth is that especially during the past few years, including when Ukraine developments took place in 2014, the meetings between the American and Russian leaders did not take place as they used to do, and even during Trump’s four-year tenure, too, although Trump himself claimed and even spent efforts for having meetings with Putin, the only meeting between the two presidents was the one in Helsinki. And that meeting, too, was practically under the shadow of the claims in Russians’ interference in US elections, which was the single topic of that meeting, he said.
Shuri believes the meeting between the two heads of states is going to take place in Geneva, Switzerland, under such conditions that after Biden’s took place, he adopted a tough language in its diplomatic ties with Russia.
Biden had also during the past few months talked to Russia from power stance. Practically, the two countries’ relations are now lower than before. Therefore, this meeting is taking place under such conditions and is important in the future of the US-Russia relations, said the analyst.
Further focusing on the importance of the meeting, especially regarding the Iran issue, the deputy head of IRAS institute reiterated that the US-Russia bilateral talks are usually in regular and ordinary issues, but a major part of the Wednesday talks will be on strategic issues, strategic balance, and the issues of mutual importance for America and Russia, the most important of which is the non-proliferation of WMDs and nuclear balance between the two countries, which previously existed in several bilateral agreements between the two countries.
But the issues related to the international crises, too, are naturally axes that the US and Russian leaders always try to contemplate on and exchange viewpoints about. Iran issue, is one of the topics that will be discussed in Biden-Putin meeting, said Shuri.
He said that after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Iran issue has always been among the topics of the US and Russian leaders’ meetings and now that Russia is among the most important supporters of the Iranian nuclear program in technological field, and the Iran-West nuclear negotiations is still going on, this issue will naturally be among the topics of the two leaders’ talks.
At any rate, the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the return of the United States to that international agreement will definitely be included in Putin-Biden talks agenda, but the effect of their talks on the process of the Iran nuclear negotiations will not be beyond what the two countries’ experts are discussing in Geneva, added the analyst.
He said that what Putin and Biden will say in Geneva in this respect will be mainly their viewpoints on the matter, and it is quite a remote possibility that they will reach any certain agreement in this respect.
On the two countries’ shared stands and opposing stands on Iran and the JCPOA, Shuri said that basically, speaking the Americans and Russians have shared stands on certain issue, among which there is the non-proliferation issue, as neither America nor Russia favors the nuclear weapons club to be further expanded.
That is a red line for both sides, but the details and the type of interpretations on the issue will be the fields in which there will be difference of opinion, and such differences of opinion on issues like Iran and be serious. Naturally, Putin will try to pursue the issues that he has put forth during these years about the JCPOA and the Iranian nuclear program, and it is a very remote possibility that he will go any further than that,” he said.
Shuri said that all the same, Biden will try to involve Russia in talks on regional issues and the Iranian missiles program, and Washington probably also expects Moscow to assist it in those respects.
On Tehran’s expectations from Moscow, the Russian affairs analyst said that Iran’s topmost expectation from Russia is that no move against the national interests of Islamic Republic of Iran or contradictory to it will take place, and as mentioned earlier, the Russians, too, have no interest in doing so, and they can neither reach any agreement contradictory to Iran’s national interests.
In the next place, Iran might expect Russia to contribute to solving the issues in the way that the JCPOA revives and the US returns to it.
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