US Secretary of State John Kerry met Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in their first meeting since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine plunged relations with the West to a new low.
There was no major breakthrough at the end of the talks but the discussions were soft and cordial in tone, perhaps signalling a new willingness by both sides to reverse the setbacks that their relationship has gone through.
The two sides discussed Iran’s nuclear programme – an example of how cooperation between Washington and Moscow can produce positive results – as well as the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts – where not enough collaboration between the two has led to a dangerous stalemate in Syria and an uneasy situation in Ukraine.
Kerry’s meeting with Putin in Sochi lasted nearly four hours and followed a separate meeting the Secretary of State had with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
I am certain that US President Barack Obama never wanted to preside over a deterioration in relations with Russia and believe that he fully understands the importance of having good relations with Moscow. Issues such as Iran, the fight against terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation, arms control, the global economy, climate change and the turmoil in the Arab world are best tackled through multilateralism, and strong US-Russian ties are an essential part of this approach.
While acknowledging differences over Syria and Ukraine, Putin and Kerry agreed there must be political solutions to these conflicts. On Syria, Kerry said after his meeting with the Russian President: “From the Geneva communiqué to the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, I would emphasise that we have seen what happens when Russia and the United States work together. It is clearly possible to make real progress and make important things happen.”
Kerry is correct to point out the positive effects of cooperation between Russia and the United States (the removal of chemical weapons in Syria is one example) but his praise of the Geneva communiqué – signed in June 2012 by the UN, Arab League, US, Russia, China, UK and France and which agreed on the need for a “transitional government body with full executive powers” which could include members of the present Syrian government and of the Opposition – is somewhat of an overstatement.
Three years after Geneva, Syria is nowhere near having a transitional government, and the country faces the additional threat of the Islamic State, which controls vast areas of Syrian territory where it carries out mass murder and genocide on a horrendous scale.
The Geneva communiqué was no doubt a step in the right direction, but no effort seems to have been made by either the Russians or the Americans to work towards the establishment of a broad-based transitional government in Damascus. In Kochi last week Kerry reiterated that there could be no solution without a negotiated political transition from President Bashar al-Assad, who is a key ally of Russia. On the other hand Kerry said in an interview with CBS News in March that the West had no choice but to negotiate with the Syrian President.
John Kerry did not utter a word about Crimea
The US and Russia (as well as Iran) can do much more for Syria, which, however, is in a much more difficult situation than it was three years ago. The conflict is extremely complex, there are many different factions fighting each other and there is a lot of outside support for some of the armed groups. The US supports the moderate rebels while Russia and Iran (and Hezbollah) support the Assad regime.
President Assad and his government have without doubt committed a number of terrible war crimes, but the international community, particularly the US and Russia, have to come up with a formula which could lead to a ceasefire between all sides (Islamic State and al-Qaeda will obviously not agree to any truce).
Washington should exert some leverage over the moderate armed groups fighting Assad while Moscow should urge Damascus to be more flexible in negotiating with the moderate Opposition.
The immediate goals in Syria must be a ceasefire, the supply of humanitarian assistance to all those in need, a common front against Islamic State and al-Qaeda and negotiations between Assad and the moderate rebel Opposition. The question of Assad’s removal should not be on the agenda for the moment.
On the situation in Ukraine Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that while there were disagreements between Moscow and the US about the origins of the crisis he and Kerry “were united in the opinion that it should be solved only in a peaceful way”.
At the same time, however, in an embarrassing development for Putin, a Russian Opposition report released during Kerry’s visit claimed Moscow spent billions financing Ukraine’s rebels and sending its own troops to fight across the border. The report, ‘Putin’s War’ was the work of Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in February.
Despite this, nevertheless, the ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine (the second Minsk agreement signed last February) seems to be largely holding (although there have been hundreds of violations). However, some observers believe this lull in the fighting is being used by the rebels to prepare for another offensive.
Others, nevertheless, believe that the mood is changing in Moscow vis-à-vis the conflict in Ukraine. Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think tank and regional affiliate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said recently: “No major offensive [in Ukraine] is possible, absent a Russian nod or Russian acquiescence. And, this I don’t think will be given under the present circumstances.”
The ball is really in Putin’s court regarding Ukraine and I can’t really fault the US and EU over their reaction to the situation there. The Ukrainians did make some mistakes, certainly, since the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych, such as the removal of Russian as an official language (this, however, has not been signed into law) and not clamping down enough on certain right-wing Nationalist Ukrainian groups, but Russia can certainly play a much more constructive role in this conflict instead of being the aggressor.
It was interesting to note that while Kerry said that he was certain US and EU sanctions against Russia would be lifted if the Minsk agreement was fully respected, he did not even utter a word about Crimea. It has become quite clear that the international community is willing to forget about Crimea (annexed illegally by Russia) in return for an end to the conflict in eastern Ukraine and a guarantee of Ukraine’s territorial integrity (minus Crimea). This is simply a matter of realpolitik and in the circumstances make sense.
Kerry and Lavrov began their joint press conference on Tuesday by expressing their respect for those who died in World War II as well as for the wartime alliance between the US and Russia, then part of the Soviet Union.
It must never be forgotten that the Soviet Union lost more than 20 million citizens in the war and played a crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany.
Unfortunately Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine made it impossible for Western leaders to attend the May 9 Victory Day commemorations in Moscow marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, but Kerry and his Russian counterpart jointly laid a wreath during a moving ceremony at a World War II memorial in Sochi.
Hopefully, the importance of the two sides working together on a whole range of issues will spur Washington and Moscow to start afresh and be more flexible in their dealings with each other.