Kissinger back in Operation ‘Reset’ By Ayano Hodouchi, Anna Arutunyan and Tim Wall
19/03/2009 Henry Kissinger, the arch-practitioner of realpolitik and détente with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, is back in a new role - to reset relations between the new U.S. administration of Barack Obama and Russia. In Moscow, Kissinger is famous as Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser, who negotiated the historic Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He has been involved in talks with every head of state in the Soviet Union and later Russia over the last 40 years. On Friday, he is to have talks with President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow as part of a group of four "wise men" in U.S. foreign policy, according to Kommersant. While Kissinger's role is being billed as an unofficial one, his access to Russian leaders in recent years has been nothing short of phenomenal - gaining several one-on-one meetings with then-President Vladimir Putin during his two terms in office. He also was the first senior U.S. figure to visit President Medvedev after his inauguration last summer, and most recently met with Medvedev in December. Then, sources say, he was acting as an unofficial envoy for Obama's transition team in proposing a revamping of U.S.-Russian relations after the Cold War-style falling out under George W. Bush's administration. The U.S. Embassy said on Thursday it did not have any information about Kissinger's visit. The choice of Kissinger to spearhead talks with Russia appears to be based on his long experience and popularity amongst Russian politicians. The Russians respect him for thinking and talking in concrete, realistic terms, and not about ideology. While Kissinger enjoys wide respect among Russian leaders, he has a controversial reputation internationally - particularly in South America, where he has been accused of involvement in the so-called Operation Condor in the 1970s, when the United States allegedly backed right-wing military dictatorships in Chile, Brazil and elsewhere in killing and repressing left-wing activists. Kissinger has denied any involvement. The Obama administration is seeking to rebuild relations with the Kremlin and win support over Afghanistan, Iran, missile defense and the reduction of nuclear arms. For Obama, U.S.-Russia relations seem to be an issue of considerable importance. This week Obama announced he would nominate Rose Gottemoeller, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre from 2006 to 2008, as Assistant Secretary of State for verification and compliance. If her nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate, Gottemoeller, a leading expert on U.S.-Russian relations and nuclear security, will have the great responsibility of negotiating a follow-up for the START Treaty, the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, which expires in December. The current Under Secretary of State, William Burns, served three years until 2008 as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, and Alexander Vershbow, who preceded Burns as ambassador, was nominated this month by Obama as Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security. With so many old Russia hands nominated to key positions in his administration, Obama has made it clear that he considers cooperation with Moscow one of the most important issues for his presidency. Jeff Mankoff, adjunct fellow for Russia Studies at Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said that the administration of George W. Bush believed the Clinton presidency had paid too much attention to Russia. While Russia at times rose to the top of Bush's inbox - for instance during the war with Georgia last summer - his administration never seemed to have a clear sense of where Russia fitted in the larger U.S. strategic landscape, Mankoff said. "Obama's interest in pressing the reset button seems to me not only about having better relations with Moscow, but also appears motivated by a belief that Russia really matters," Mankoff said. Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, put it even more strongly. In an advance copy of his testimony to the U.S. Congress on Thursday, Cohen said: "Moscow's efforts at carving out a ‘sphere of privileged interests' in Eurasia and rewriting the rules of European security have negative implications for U.S.-Russia relations, international security, and the autonomy of the independent former Soviet states. Russia is and will remain one of the most significant foreign policy challenges facing the Obama administration. Failure to stem Russia's revisionist efforts will lead to a deteriorating security situation in Eurasia and a decline of American influence in Europe and the Middle East." Cohen said that hopes for reaching an agreement on a third anti-ballistic missile base in Europe could be dashed in a few months' time, as Russia's sending of strategic bombers to Cuba and Venezuela, and the rearmament plan announced by Medevedev on Tuesday, clearly do not indicate that Russia is disposed to be amenable to U.S. suggestions. Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said on Thursday that Russia was also eager to clear up "stuff clogging relations between the two countries, thanks to Bush and his team." In particular, Rogozin pointed to the issue of NATO expansion towards Russia's borders as a key stumbling block, but identified weapons control and cooperation in dealing with the financial crisis as potential areas for progress. Gennady Yevstafyev, a security policy analyst and former official in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, expressed skepticism about U.S. hopes that Russia would play an important role in restraining Iranian nuclear ambitions. "I've always said - Iran is a thing in itself, and they will not do anything for another country," Yevstafyev said. "They act only in their own interests. To think that we can influence their decision in the sense that they will listen to us and stop their program - that is mistaken. We can assume certain commitments not to ship offensive military weapons, but we cannot make commitments not to supply defensive-type weapons. Every country has a right to defend itself, and the Americans have never made such concessions themselves." On March 16, a U.S. policy commission on Russia outlined a new approach to U.S.-Russia relations in a report. It was enthusiastically received in Russia, with Kommersant calling it "the most flattering description of Russia [since] the end of the Cold War." The report offers some concessions to Russia, including stopping short of backing NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, cooperation on arms control, and helping Russia's WTO accession. http://www.mnweekly.ru/news/20090319/55371260.html
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