This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/europe/kerry-lavrov-ties-grow-despite-us-russia-spats.html
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| U.S.-Russian Diplomacy, With a Personal Touch | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| WASHINGTON — When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, clashed over Syria last year with Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, he called her hysterical, the sort of impolitic remark that showed just how sour their relationship had become. | WASHINGTON — When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, clashed over Syria last year with Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, he called her hysterical, the sort of impolitic remark that showed just how sour their relationship had become. |
| The hardened positions of Russia and the United States over Syria and other issues have not changed significantly since then, but with John Kerry replacing Mrs. Clinton, the tone at least has. | The hardened positions of Russia and the United States over Syria and other issues have not changed significantly since then, but with John Kerry replacing Mrs. Clinton, the tone at least has. |
| Despite fight after fight in recent months over everything from new sanctions targeting Russian officials for rights abuses to the detention of an American Embassy official this week on charges of espionage, the two diplomats seem to have found common purpose on one of the most intractable disputes between the United States and Russia: Syria’s civil war. | Despite fight after fight in recent months over everything from new sanctions targeting Russian officials for rights abuses to the detention of an American Embassy official this week on charges of espionage, the two diplomats seem to have found common purpose on one of the most intractable disputes between the United States and Russia: Syria’s civil war. |
| They have revived the prospect of a negotiated settlement in Syria that was first proposed a year ago but then abandoned as the death toll from the war grimly mounted — although much remains uncertain. They have done so with greater comity than Mr. Lavrov ever showed toward Mrs. Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice. Both women had famously frosty relationships with Mr. Lavrov and Russia’s leader, President Vladimir V. Putin, shaped in no small part by the Russians’ perception that the United States relentlessly meddles in their country’s internal affairs. | |
| Mr. Lavrov ended hours of talks with Mr. Kerry in Moscow last week with a post-midnight dinner at the Foreign Ministry’s guesthouse and a toast to the American B-50B bomber that made the world’s first nonstop flight around the world in 1949 — with a wine of that year’s vintage. When asked in Sweden this week about the espionage scandal, Mr. Lavrov passed on the chance to excoriate his counterpart while officials in Moscow were ridiculing the Central Intelligence Agency as an organization trapped in cold war habits. | Mr. Lavrov ended hours of talks with Mr. Kerry in Moscow last week with a post-midnight dinner at the Foreign Ministry’s guesthouse and a toast to the American B-50B bomber that made the world’s first nonstop flight around the world in 1949 — with a wine of that year’s vintage. When asked in Sweden this week about the espionage scandal, Mr. Lavrov passed on the chance to excoriate his counterpart while officials in Moscow were ridiculing the Central Intelligence Agency as an organization trapped in cold war habits. |
| Since then, they have managed to corral growing support for a meeting to try to negotiate a Syria settlement — most likely to be held in Geneva in June — even as relations between the United States and Russia continue to lurch between cooperation and confrontation. The latest dispute came over new American intelligence warnings that Russia was shipping new anti-ship missiles to Syria, which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin E. Dempsey, said Friday was “ill-timed and very unfortunate.” | Since then, they have managed to corral growing support for a meeting to try to negotiate a Syria settlement — most likely to be held in Geneva in June — even as relations between the United States and Russia continue to lurch between cooperation and confrontation. The latest dispute came over new American intelligence warnings that Russia was shipping new anti-ship missiles to Syria, which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin E. Dempsey, said Friday was “ill-timed and very unfortunate.” |
| “It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” he said. | “It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” he said. |
| The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, met on Friday with Mr. Putin and expressed support for the work accomplished so far by the two diplomats. “We should not lose this momentum generated by Minister Lavrov and Secretary Kerry,” Mr. Ban said in Sochi, the Black Sea city where the Winter Olympics will be held in February. | The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, met on Friday with Mr. Putin and expressed support for the work accomplished so far by the two diplomats. “We should not lose this momentum generated by Minister Lavrov and Secretary Kerry,” Mr. Ban said in Sochi, the Black Sea city where the Winter Olympics will be held in February. |
| Although he did not announce a date for convening peace talks, he added, “There is high expectation that this meeting should be held as soon as possible.” | Although he did not announce a date for convening peace talks, he added, “There is high expectation that this meeting should be held as soon as possible.” |
| The conspicuous shift on Syria has benefits for both countries. | The conspicuous shift on Syria has benefits for both countries. |
| It has given Russia the opportunity to reassert its view of geopolitics, arguing against international efforts to remove undesirable governments from power, as the United States and its allies did in Libya. It has also allowed the Obama administration to defer, for now, calls for the United States to act more forcefully to intervene in the Syrian conflict. | It has given Russia the opportunity to reassert its view of geopolitics, arguing against international efforts to remove undesirable governments from power, as the United States and its allies did in Libya. It has also allowed the Obama administration to defer, for now, calls for the United States to act more forcefully to intervene in the Syrian conflict. |
| Mr. Kerry’s focus on Russia and its role in Syria reflects a decision by the White House to pull relations with Russia back from the brink in President Obama’s second term. The first term included a honeymoon that Mrs. Clinton called a reset, which led to reductions in nuclear weapons and Russia’s ascension to the World Trade Organization, among other things. | Mr. Kerry’s focus on Russia and its role in Syria reflects a decision by the White House to pull relations with Russia back from the brink in President Obama’s second term. The first term included a honeymoon that Mrs. Clinton called a reset, which led to reductions in nuclear weapons and Russia’s ascension to the World Trade Organization, among other things. |
| Tensions erupted, though, over the Arab spring, the overthrow of Libya’s dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and ultimately Mr. Putin’s own return to the presidency in elections widely denounced as undemocratic. | Tensions erupted, though, over the Arab spring, the overthrow of Libya’s dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and ultimately Mr. Putin’s own return to the presidency in elections widely denounced as undemocratic. |
| Mr. Putin, as a candidate and as president once again, adopted stridently anti-American views. After the disputed parliamentary elections of 2011, he accused Mrs. Clinton of personally instigating large protests in Moscow. Russia subsequently ended more than two decades of collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development, labeled legally defined nongovernment organizations receiving American assistance as “foreign agents”; and after the United States imposed sanctions on Russian officials under new legislation named after a lawyer who died in prison, Sergei Magnitsky, it barred adoptions of Russian children by American parents. | |
| All of those actions have made Mr. Kerry’s personal outreach to Mr. Lavrov even more striking. Since being sworn in, Mr. Kerry has met with Mr. Lavrov five times — in Berlin, London, Brussels, Moscow and Kiruna, Sweden, where they talked one-on-one for an hour on the sidelines of a meeting of the Arctic Council this week to work out details of the coming negotiations over Syria. The five meetings are the most Mr. Kerry has had with any foreign diplomat, exceeding his four with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. | |
| Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov, according to one official familiar with their exchanges, have developed a rapport. In Moscow, they bantered about “their mutual love for hockey and the grace of the older school style.” The two men left their delegations inside the Foreign Ministry’s guesthouse and strolled through the mansion’s gardens, engaging in a lengthy — at times animated — discussion over the exact wording of the statement they announced later that night. | Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov, according to one official familiar with their exchanges, have developed a rapport. In Moscow, they bantered about “their mutual love for hockey and the grace of the older school style.” The two men left their delegations inside the Foreign Ministry’s guesthouse and strolled through the mansion’s gardens, engaging in a lengthy — at times animated — discussion over the exact wording of the statement they announced later that night. |
| Mikhail V. Margelov, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, said that Russia’s position on Syria had been consistent and that Mr. Kerry had finally accepted it. | Mikhail V. Margelov, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, said that Russia’s position on Syria had been consistent and that Mr. Kerry had finally accepted it. |
| Mr. Kerry’s arrival, he said, had helped the relationship between the two countries, but the ability to move past the spy case had a parallel in a mutual expulsion of diplomats after an espionage scandal in 2001. That was followed by Mr. Putin’s cooperation with President George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11. | Mr. Kerry’s arrival, he said, had helped the relationship between the two countries, but the ability to move past the spy case had a parallel in a mutual expulsion of diplomats after an espionage scandal in 2001. That was followed by Mr. Putin’s cooperation with President George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11. |
| “The world has changed,” Mr. Margelov said. “It’s not a bipolar world anymore. We are facing many threats, and many of the same threats. We are made to cooperate.” | “The world has changed,” Mr. Margelov said. “It’s not a bipolar world anymore. We are facing many threats, and many of the same threats. We are made to cooperate.” |
| Mr. Kerry’s tactics have political risks at home, where many lawmakers have called for the administration to act far more forcefully on Syria. Senator John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican who is chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, criticized Mr. Kerry’s “hat-in-hand” trip to Moscow. “Asking Russia to support U.S. interests in Syria is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse,” the statement said. | |
| It remains to be seen whether either country can get the warring parties to the table in Geneva, let alone to agree on a transition government that would replace Mr. Assad’s, but officials and analysts in Washington and Moscow said the joint effort was a genuine attempt to resolve an increasingly intractable crisis. | It remains to be seen whether either country can get the warring parties to the table in Geneva, let alone to agree on a transition government that would replace Mr. Assad’s, but officials and analysts in Washington and Moscow said the joint effort was a genuine attempt to resolve an increasingly intractable crisis. |
| “It’s not simply another diplomatic engagement just to show the world they are pursuing a settlement,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who closely scrutinizes American-Russia relations, said of the Kerry-Lavrov effort. “I think they mean to achieve a result.” | “It’s not simply another diplomatic engagement just to show the world they are pursuing a settlement,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who closely scrutinizes American-Russia relations, said of the Kerry-Lavrov effort. “I think they mean to achieve a result.” |
Steven Lee Myers reported from Washington, and David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington. | Steven Lee Myers reported from Washington, and David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington. |