https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4737957
First of all, I would like to thank you for your proposal to meet here. This is important for our relations and for deciding how we should move forward, just as our presidents want us to do. I believe that it is clear to everyone why this routine meeting between Russian and US representatives held on the sidelines of the Arctic Council’s meeting has created a sensation and attracted so many people. Our goal is to determine, on the basis of the telephone conversations between our presidents, how we can further develop our relations.
There are serious differences in our views on the international situation and in our approaches to the tasks that need to be addressed to normalise it. Russia’s position is simple: we are ready to discuss all issues without exception if the discussion is honest, with facts on the table and based on mutual respect.
The diplomatic procedure provides for reciprocity, including with regard to unfriendly actions. The main thing is for us to try to use diplomatic options as much as possible. I appreciate your resolve to act in exactly this manner. You can always expect us to reciprocate your efforts.
As you have said, the global situation to a large extent depends on relations between Moscow and Washington. As far as I can see, our presidents, who have had two telephone conversations, agree that we should cooperate on the issues where we have similar interests, when we can reach positive results regarding conflict situations and, most importantly, on issues of strategic stability. In this context, the Korean Peninsula, the situation around Iran’s nuclear programme and Afghanistan are the issues on which our representatives have been collaborating actively. I hope we will be able to review these efforts today.
We are ready to clear away the obstructions we inherited from the previous US administrations as regards the functioning of US diplomatic offices in Russia and Russian diplomatic missions in the United States. Unless we create normal working conditions for our diplomats, we will undermine the very essence of diplomacy, which boils down to creating and maintaining bridges and dialogue.
Thank you for this meeting. I hope it will be a constructive dialogue.
There is nothing new here. Andrei Martyanov has set the context excellently:
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/05/probing-limits.html
YUP! Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should go take a rest or something than time wasted here… send a 3rd or 4th level down rep to deal w the non-agreement capable wanna-be… just for the photo face saving sake.
be well be safe
Excellent reference article.
Amarynth
Maybe something new.
Agreed that Martyanov has illustrated the context, but within this context, it falls to the workers in the field, such as Lavrov, to cultivate collaboration, to build those bridges and that dialog that he cites.
As Andrei says, Russia doesn’t need the US as much as the US now needs Russia, and I believe this is quite true.
But between such powers as the US and Russia there are a myriad of routine details that should always be discussed and negotiated in continual, lesser-channel communications.
This moment in time actually feels like the US is taking advantage of a one-time great excuse, with the “shiny new” US president, for the US to walk back some of its earlier hubris – now that it has made some kind of reappraisal of its relative weakness compared with Russia – and to rebuild some of those channels that were destroyed by its own overreach.
So this kind of diplomacy is going to be very productive, as will the Biden/Putin discussion, I would expect. We should hope for more and more. When the Russians sit down to talk, they never come away with less than they took in.
Precise, polite, straight to the subject – classic Lavrov.
“Unless we create normal working conditions for our diplomats, we will undermine the very essence of diplomacy, which boils down to creating and maintaining bridges and dialogue.”
A red line caveat is necessary to penalise direct interference by Western diplomats in local color revolution psyops, which their embassy staff take as a messianic right in Moscow.
Thanks amarynth I was about to paste the link to Andrei Martyanov’s take on this.
Hmmmm I wonder if that refers to re
-establishment of those embassies closed down and Russian diplomats sent home by USA…that also might undermine all those countries who did similar-ha-….or will Russia continue its legal actions against USA fpr those actions …maybe better to leave things as they are. Russia is shutting down NGO’s and Navalny organisations plus it has some kinda ” leverage ” perhaps against western ****** for Belarus regime change. Perhaps.
Diplomacy is the art of the impossible. There is always odds against a conclusion that is satisfactory.
The US does not practice this art. It relies on hegemony. It demands and coerces.
Of course, Russia can’t be bullied. Those days are gone forever.
But Russia pursues the great good of peaceful resolution of conflicts, global stability, strategic balance. Thus, they pursue quite impossible goals which can become possible with effort. They have some good examples of their work. Syria is the best. Six years of deconfliction with the criminals of CENTCOM is in place and used everyday to keep the US and Russian forces at arms length, sometimes cooperating.
North Korea is kept within rational bounds because of “cooperation” and military-diplomatic ‘signals’ between Moscow and Washington.
I often think that Russia goes through these torturous routines to show the US how behavior should be modeled.
Lavrov the Master. A precious gift from Russia to the world.
Iceland is a start, dubious yet hopeful.
“I often think that Russia goes through these torturous routines to show the US how behavior should be modeled”.
That, and to demonstrate to the rest of the world that the Soviet Union is history and that Russia is trustworthy, non-aggressive, and “agreement capable.”
From your tone, i assume you must be an American looking at the issue of geopolitics through an American prism. You might note that VVP actually ‘regrets’ that the Soviet Union disintegrated and recognizes that the collapse allowed the US entry into the Soviet world as pure predators. i lived through the Cold War years and i cannot view the Soviet Union as “Aggressive” – it defended socialism… yes…but it was only aggressive in the eyes of the Capitalist West which wanted to maintain the Western Feudal System. From a purely moral perspective, the Soviet Union was no evil empire towards the world but the USA has always been a predatory empire. Looking at the one major event which brought both powers close to a major conflict – the Cuban Missile crisis – the USSR was morally in the right, to station weapons in Cuba, considering that the US had stationed weapons in Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. One of the chief US negotiators at that time, took 70 years before confessing that the USSR had been morally in the right, all along, to demand Parity. Looking at the letter that Kruschev wrote to Kennedy, i would trust the Russians to keep their word, far more than i could ever trust the US leadership. Situations like the Krasnodar Radar Array broke a SALT agreement but these were for passive defence, as already then, the Russians did not trust the US to keep to their side of the agreements, even if the US position was that it allowed Russia an advantage.
So to me, speaking as a European, Russia is simply continuing along the same geopolitical path as the Soviet Union but without the repressive internal totalitarian system. The’ lack of trust in the USSR’ is pure but highly successful propaganda spin from Langley…as i see it … through my European prism…
I would say that the Soviets definitely followed an aggressive policy when they were trying to take the province of Gilan from Iran.
“It has been suggested also that the change of policy on the Soviet side regarding pursuing global revolution (as advocated by Trotsky) versus establishing and protecting the Soviet Union was the main reason for them to withdraw support from the Gilan Republic. The second option got more support and therefore Soviets signed the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement with the British in London (1921) which required them to retreat from Northern Iran. Correspondence between Theodore Rothstein, the Soviet ambassador in Tehran, and Mirza Koochak Khan clearly supports this view.”
So, they were arming rebels in Iran, trying to capture territory, but the British made them stop.
And on an unrelated note, the Soviet ambassador to Iran at the time was Theodore Rothstein the Jew.
What are the odds, that out of millions of ethnic Russians, a Jew is chosen to lead such an important embassy as the Persian Empire.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_famine_of_1942%E2%80%931943 — I would also call the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941 an aggressive act. The famine that ensued killed millions of Iranians.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1908_bombardment_of_the_Majlis — Another remarkably aggressive action by the Russians.
These are some of the reasons why Russians are not trusted by Iranians today.
Thank you for this most informative and fascinating reply.
I read the history of the 1941 Anglo-Russian incursion into Iran – organised by none other than General Normal Schwartzkopfs father who had been a New Jersey policeman in his earlier career. Unfortunately for Iran, its territory was strategically important for the Allies in their execution of a WW2 victory over the Nazis. My understanding was that the route northward through Iran was a vital shortcut to assisting the Soviet Union with deliveries of heavy war material including locomotives. Such material had been delivered through the Bosphorus using Liberty Ships, as witnessed by my own mother when she was stationed in Istanbul at that time but the pressure from the approaching Front in Romania and Bulgaria made the supply line to Crimea precarious and necessitated a different route. Schwartzkopf Senior, was brought in to ensure that marauding gangs of Iranians did not attack the convoys going northward to the Soviet Union. At that time, Iran was not as organised and civil as it is today.
Unfortunately for Iran, the training of Iranian security forces by the Americans at that time, created what was later the repressive SAVAK secret police…As a student in the 1970s i met many Iranians who were given funds by the Shah to study in the UK but some came back from summer breaks battered and bruised from beatings by SAVAK. These students were mostly idealistic communists….ironic really, considering your comments.
The period under Trotsky has to be seen in the context that Trotsky was a jew who had received finance from western jewish banker / investors….the latter pulled the strings. I would conclude that the Russia of that period cannot be compared to the Russia of today… so Iranians should feel more secure today when dealing with Russia – but certainly nothing has changed in the Square Mile of the City of London…
@Analyst It also shows how a country can shift from one side to the other. Fascist to Islamic to Democratic to Nazism to Neo-liberal whatsoever.
Russia from Tsar Regime to Communism to Orthodox Democratic, and US from a Slave nation to Libertarian free market to Unipolar hegemon to Gangster regime are quite remarkable shifts. Prepare for tomorrow.
Sr. Lavrov ! No vale la pena ! Perder el tiempo en atender las demandas de estos descerebrados matones ! Blinken no esta a su nivel , no existe la diplomacia estadounidense, en lugar se amenaza , se sanciona, se hostiga y se despotrica ! No son diplomaticos, son como decia Soleimani…unos mafiosos de bar de quinta. Enviele a su secretario ni el 4 ! El que le saca las copias en el departamento de relaciones exteriores en Moscú, sin duda sabra mas de diplomacia y de historia que Blinken ! Recierde la reunion en Alaska con los chinos ! No vale la pena, solo con la fuerza entiende el ignorante y el capo !
——————
Google-translate from mod:-
“Mr. Lavrov! Not worth it ! Losing time in attending the demands of these bullshors! Blinken is not at your level, there is no US diplomacy, instead it is threatened, it is sanctioned, hosting and deprived! They are not diplomatics, they are like Soleimani said … Fifth bar mafiosus. Send your secretary or 4! The one that takes the copies in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, will undoubtedly know more about diplomacy and history than Blinken! Receive the meeting in Alaska with the Chinese! It’s not worth it, only with force understands the ignorant and the capo!”
US, Russia at odds over military activity in the Arctic
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/05/20/us-russia-at-odds-over-military-activity-in-the-arctic/
REYKJAVIK. Iceland — The Biden administration is leading a campaign against Russian attempts to assert authority over Arctic shipping and reintroduce a military dimension to discussions over international activity in the area.
As Russia assumed the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council on Thursday, the US rallied other members to oppose Moscow’s plans to set maritime rules in the Northern Sea Route, which runs from Norway to Alaska, and its desire to resume high-level military talks within the eight-nation bloc.
Those talks were suspended in 2014 over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Blinken stressed the importance of upholding “effective governance and the rule of law” to ensure that the “Arctic remains a region free of conflict where countries act responsibly.”
He had previously questioned the legality of the proposed Russian maritime rules and expressed deep reservations about Russia’s military activity in the far North.
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Russia’s northernmost base projects its power across Arctic
…
§§§[In 2015] Russia submitted a revised bid for vast territories in the Arctic to the United Nations, claiming 1.2 million square kilometers (over 463,000 square miles) of Arctic sea shelf, extending more than 350 nautical miles (650 kilometers) from shore.
While the UN pondered that claim and those from other nations, Russia has said it sees the Northern Sea Route as its “historically developed national transport corridor,” requiring authorization from Moscow for foreign vessels to navigate along it.
The US has dismissed Russia’s claims of jurisdiction on parts of the route as illegitimate.
Moscow has declared its intention to introduce procedures for foreign ships and assign Russian pilots for guidance along the route, which runs from Norway to Alaska.
As part of that effort, Russia has rebuilt and expanded facilities across the polar region, deploying surveillance and defensive assets.
A base in the similar trefoil shape and patriotic colors to the one in Nagurskoye is on Kotelny Island, between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea on eastern end of the shipping route, also with missiles and radar.
§§§
Adm. Alexander Moiseyev, chief of Russia’s Northern Fleet, said last week that Moscow has the right to set navigation rules along the shipping lane.
“Practically the entire Northern Sea Route goes through Russia’s territorial waters or the country’s economic zone,” Moiseyev told reporters aboard the Peter the Great missile cruiser.
“The complex ice conditions make it necessary to organize safe shipping, so Russia insists on a special regime of its use.”
NATO is increasingly worried about the growing Russian military footprint in the Arctic, and Washington sent B-1 bombers to Norway this year.
“Increased Russian presence, more Russian bases in the High North, has also triggered the need for more NATO presence, and we have increased our presence there with more naval capabilities, presence in the air, and not least, the importance of protecting transatlantic undersea cables transmitting a lot of data,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Moiseyev fretted about the US military assets in Norway, saying it has led to an “increase of the conflict potential in the Arctic.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry last week fumed at a US nuclear submarine calling at a Norwegian port, saying it reflected what it described as “Oslo’s course for the militarization of the Arctic.”
§§§
Blinken has pointed out that with the Arctic warming at twice the rate of the rest of the global average, Russia has moved to increase its presence in the region.
“Russia is exploiting this change to try to exert control over new spaces,” he said last month. “It is modernizing its bases in the Arctic and building new ones.”
Blinken ………
also took Lavrov to task for comments earlier this week in which the Russian diplomat dismissed such criticism because the Arctic “is our territory, our land.”
“We have to proceed all of us, including