Biden-Putin meeting begins in Geneva

Geneva, June 17 The summit between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin officially kicked off here on Wednesday.

Biden and Putin posed for a brief photo-call in front of the 18th century Villa La Grange, the meeting venue, where they were greeted by Swiss President Guy Parmelin who said he hoped the pair would have a "fruitful and productive dialogue, for the benefit of both their countries and the entire world."

Inside the mansion's library, the two heads of state were accompanied by their top diplomats, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, together with the traveling press corps in attendance, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Putin started by thanking his US counterpart for "the initiative to meet" and said he hoped the meeting would be "productive."

Biden suggested they would work on areas of "mutual interest" and that he wanted "predictable" relations with Moscow.