photo: whitehouse.gov
WASHINGTON, July 12. /TASS/. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he is not ready for a direct conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, adding that he sees no practical reason to do so at the moment.
"I don't have any good reason to talk to Putin right now," he told reporters during a press conference after the NATO summit in Washington. "There's not much he (Putin) is willing to do in terms of being amenable to any change in his behavior."
"There is no world leader with whom I am not ready to negotiate, but the question is whether Putin is ready to negotiate. I'm not prepared to talk to Putin unless Putin is prepared to change his behavior," the US president said.
Shortly afterwards, however, he said he would have spoken to the Russian president if he had initiated the call.
"I think I'm prepared to talk to any leader who wants to talk, including if Putin calls me and wants to talk," Biden said.
"The last time I talked to Putin, I tried to get him to agree to an arms control deal on nuclear weapons in space," the US leader added, without specifying when exactly the conversation took place.
TASS/gnews.cz-jav_07
https://tass.com/world/1816039
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