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No agreement reached on Putin-Biden press conference following summit, Kremlin aide says

Yuri Ushakov reiterated that Biden also didn’t have a joint press conference following recent talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. No agreement on holding a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Joe Biden following the Geneva summit has been reached, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists.

"During preparations, the agreement to conduct a joint press conference was not reached. And this is how the current meeting differs from others. You remember that in Helsinki there was a press conference with Donald Trump, a rather memorable one, with a ball (Putin presented Trump with a football — TASS) and so on," he said.

The presidential aide also noted that "earlier, the American side was the first to support joint press conferences more actively than Moscow, even since the Soviet period." "This time an understanding was reached that each party would organize separate media events," he added.

The Kremlin representative reiterated that Biden also didn’t have a joint press conference following recent talks with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "Maybe, this is just the way that the new American president interacts with the media, we don’t know," he said. According to the presidential aide, the coordination of a press conference is a technical issue. "We haven’t agreed on it, so it won’t happen. If there had been an agreement, we would have done it. We were not against it," he explained.

The Kremlin aide reiterated that the meeting will take place at the Villa La Grange, "this is a wonderful place on the shore of Lake Geneva, good conditions for talks." According to him, there a tent was set up as well for Putin’s press conference following the summit.

The presidential aide added that Putin will be greeted by Swiss President Guy Parmelin at the villa. "Then Biden arrives and there is a traditional ceremony of joint photographs. Then Parmelin will say […] a few words, will greet the summit’s participants, and will wish them success. And then our president and the US president will proceed to the library on the first floor, and the talks begin," the Kremlin aide explained.