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At an arms control crossroads, Biden and Putin face choices

  • By Robert Burns/AP
FILE - In this March 10, 2011 file photo, then Vice President  Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia.  At a low point in U.S.-Russian relations, President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to agree broadly on at least one thing — their first face-to-face meeting is a chance to set the stage for a new era in arms control.  (RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin/Pool via AP, file)

 RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin / Pool via AP, file

FILE - In this March 10, 2011 file photo, then Vice President Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia. At a low point in U.S.-Russian relations, President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to agree broadly on at least one thing — their first face-to-face meeting is a chance to set the stage for a new era in arms control. (RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin/Pool via AP, file)

(Washington)  —  At a low point in U.S.-Russian relations, President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to agree broadly on at least one thing, and that’s the need to set the stage for a new era in arms control.

Whether that leads to actual arms negotiations is another matter.

The leaders are holding their first face-to-face meeting this Wednesday in Geneva.

The way ahead is complicated by accusations from each side that the other has cheated on past arms treaties.

The fabric of arms control has frayed, and that includes the abandonment in 2019 of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

That treaty had governed a whole class of missiles for more than three decades.

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