Today the Minister of foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov meets with U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry. According to the Director of the Institute for strategic assessments Sergey Oznobishchev, the format of the visit of John Kerry is unusual.
MOSCOW, Dec 15. This year’s second visit of the U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry to Moscow demonstrates that Moscow and Washington are aware of the need of interaction in the current conditions in the international arena, experts say.
The Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday met with U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry. As expected, the negotiations will be, first of all, Syria. On the eve of Kerry’s visit to Moscow declared that the US position on the Syrian crisis and counter-terrorism also raises questions of the Russian side hopes to receive answers. After the meeting of foreign Ministers will be the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.
The unusual format
According to the Director of the Institute for strategic assessments Sergey Oznobishchev the parties have an understanding about the need for interaction on key issues. “Understanding that Russia and the U.S. should not just cooperate and interact, it does exist,” said Sergei Oznobishchev.
The expert noted that the format of the visit of John Kerry is unusual. “The format of the visit is unusual, it could be said that unprecedented, if not for Sochi meeting. Altogether this is an unusual format: to the foreign Minister (US Secretary of state Kerry – ed.) has met regularly with the leader of the state (the President of Russia Putin – ed.)”, — said Sergey Oznobishchev.
According to the expert, similar to the format of the visit means that “and Kerry have something to say to Putin, and Putin has got to give Obama”. “We are in fact talking about a certain forerunner and the desire of both sides to come to some format of high-level contacts”, — said the Agency interlocutor. Sergey Oznobishchev believes that Obama can’t directly do this because largely limited to the actions of the us Congress.
Also according to Sergey Oznobishev, the Ukrainian crisis and the situation with terrorism in the world leads to the fact that Moscow and Washington begin to cooperate more closely.
“The development of further events (in Ukraine) and the barbaric terrorism that we see, naturally we (USA and Russia) encourages close interaction. And we, in the end, it will leave”, — said the Director of the Institute for strategic assessments. He also added that for Russia the goal is moving, the return of the “dialogue with the West to new conditions, and, primarily, with the United States”.
New terms, according to the expert, is that with Moscow “was considered to be perceived as equals to the US perceived Russia as an equal by weight of a world power, and took our concerns with security and treated them very carefully.”
“Will it be possible to implement these goals? It takes time, but the first steps in this extraordinary format is already the second visit of Kerry being made”, — concluded the expert.
Security guarantees
Lavrov and Kerry should take this opportunity to discuss additional measures to prevent incidents in Syria, says associate Professor of international security at the faculty of world politics of Moscow state University Alexei Fenenko. “Of course, we are going to talk about confidence-building measures in Syria. The events surrounding the Russian plane shot down by Turkey, showed that our Memorandum with the Americans on conflict prevention, which we signed on October 12, clearly insufficient,” — said the expert.
“We need guarantees from the United States not only for themselves, but also their allies” — said Fenenko.
“In addition, the parties will attempt to agree on the formation of a future Syrian government,” — said the expert, who noted that tangible results in this area from the meeting Lavrov and Kerry still should not wait.
“The main thing is that we even began to discuss it”, — said Fenenko.
