BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she is hopeful that her first discussion with her Russian counterpart will open a new page in U.S.-Russian relations without raising questions about American support for European allies.
The planned meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva will pose perhaps the toughest test of Clinton’s diplomatic skills since she took office. And it will provide an early test of the Obama administration’s hopes for a new direction in U.S. foreign policy.
Clinton’s session with Lavrov is aimed at advancing Obama’s effort to put U.S.-Russian relations on a more positive track by presenting Moscow with a package of proposals including accelerated arms control talks and an appeal for help in stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
The full scope of the U.S. approach to Russia has not been worked out, but the Geneva session is a chance to set the stage for improved relations on numerous fronts after years of friction and only modest diplomatic progress during the Bush administration.
In a question-and-answer session Friday with a crowd of several hundred young professionals at the European Parliament, Clinton was asked about U.S.-Russian relations. She emphasized her hope for improved ties, but also noted that disagreements are inevitable. She cited, for example Washington’s condemnation of Moscow’s decision last August to invade neighboring Georgia.
“We also are very troubled by using energy as a tool of intimidation,” she added, alluding to a Russian cutoff of natural gas supplies to Ukraine over the winter.
And she said, “We don’t want there to be any misunderstanding” among Europeans that the U.S. will remain a dependable ally regardless of the direction of relations with Moscow.
The Geneva meeting will tee up President Barack Obama’s first meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, at an economic summit in England in early April.
Obama has exchanged private letters with Medvedev outlining his intentions for improving and broadening relations and stirring speculation that he would be willing to scrap U.S. plans to build missile defense bases in eastern Europe if Moscow were willing and able to help the U.S. pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear program. Russia has voiced loud protests over the missile shield plan and threatened to build its own system of defensive missiles.
To a large degree, the emerging Obama approach to Russia is similar to his predecessor’s, with the significant exception of arms control. Last year Moscow and Washington agreed on a framework for pursing areas of cooperation on terrorism, drug trafficking and in others areas.
But a prominent sticking point — then and now — is the proposed missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Although the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, says the main reason for putting a missile shield in Europe is the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and missile capable of reaching Europe, Clinton on Thursday suggested that even if the Iranian threat disappeared the need for missile defense in Europe would remain.
“We actually think that missile defense is a very important tool in our defensive arsenal for the future,” she said. She likened it to the concept of a defensive NATO posture against a potential Soviet land invasion of Europe during the Cold War.
Lavrov, who had generally frosty relations with Clinton’s predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, has said he expects the Geneva session to focus in large part of Russia’s arms control priorities. The Russians were irritated by the Bush administration’s reluctant to launch a new round of nuclear arms negotiations to produce a treaty replacing one that expires at the end of this year.
Obama has said he is willing to engage Moscow in talks on reducing the number of strategic nuclear weapons below the 1,700-to-2,200 limit that was set in a deal signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Clinton said at her Senate confirmation hearing in January that she intended to name a negotiating team early, but that has yet to happen. It appeared possible that the Geneva talks could produce at least an informal agreement on a timeline for starting the negotiations.
At the same time, Clinton is expected to highlight areas of continuing disagreement and urge Moscow to change course, particularly with regard to what the Obama administration sees as heavy-handed Russian efforts to intimidate some of its neighbors in the aftermath of last year’s military incursion into Georgia.
Clinton told reporters Thursday after a NATO foreign ministers meeting that it was important for the United States and its allies to find ways to “manage our differences with Russia where they persist,” while building on areas of mutual interest, like fighting global terrorism.
“We have areas where we believe we not only can but must cooperate with Russia,” she said. “There are equally serious matters” of disagreement between the U.S. and Russian and between NATO and Russia “that we need to not stop talking to Russia about.”
“I don’t think we punish Russia by stopping conversations with them,” she added. Rather, the West should be willing to “vigorously press the differences that we have (with Russia) while seeking common ground wherever possible. That’s what we intend to do.”
Clinton spoke after NATO ministers agreed to restore normal relations with Russia after freezing ties in response to Moscow’s invasion of Georgia last summer. Russian officials welcomed the move, sounding a positive note in advance of the Clinton-Lavrov talks.
Although the Clinton-Lavrov session has been billed as her first major session with the Russian, Clinton had an initial, brief encounter with Lavrov at an international donors conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt earlier this week.
——Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]