Russia's Lavrov, US's Clinton kick-started the new Start Treaty talks in March 2009 in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The US Senate has ratified a treatycovering US-Russian nuclear arms and handed the Obama adminstration one of the few foreign policy triumphs in almost two years. The vote 22 December was 71-26 and included 13 Republican senators who joined the entire Democratic caucus.
The treaty governs strategic nuclear weapons between the former Cold War foes and reduces each side to 1,550 nuclear warheads as well as providing verification procedures.
The new treaty replaces one that expired in December 2009 and is the result of a series of talks sparked by a March 2009 Geneva meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Hillary Clinton. The talks in Geneva in December 2009 were shrouded in secrecy, prompting much media speculation about the likelihood they would indeed result in a treaty.
The ratification of the Start treaty has been portrayed as being much more important in its symbolism than its actual content, say some observers, because it sends a strong signal to other countries that the USA can be relied on. The two countries still have 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton, Geneva, March 2009
Update 16:12 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State and Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, have said after meeting in Moscow that the two countries are very close to an agreement on the Start talks. Clinton was in Moscow for a meeting of the Middle East Quartet.
The announcement by the pair comes just after the publication of a lengthy interview of Clinton by New Times, a Russian magazine, where she says the US and Russia are “close” to an agreement on reducing their arsenals of nuclear weapons. “I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to complete this agreement soon.”
Clinton and Lavrov agreed in Geneva in March 2009 to seek a new Start treaty by the end of 2009, and while both sides said in December that good progress had been made, the year-end goal was not achieved. Few details of the talks have escaped the total news blackout which both sides have respected.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss Foreign Affairs ministry late Friday 9 October confirmed officially that Turkey and Armenia will sign two Protocols, normalizing relations between the two countries, Saturday morning 10 October, in Zurich. Heads of foreign affairs from the US, Russia, France, Slovenia will be attending, as well as the EU’s secretary-general, underscoring the significance of the event.
Official statement confirming Zurich event
The official statement from Bern:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An empty desk in Geneva is receiving more than normal attention: that of the US ambassador, whose unwieldy title is US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations. The post has been empty since January 2009 when Warren Tichenor left. Tichenor, a Texan and George W Bush appointment, may not have been a household name, but the new US ambassador could well quickly become one, thanks to sharper interest in how the US will work with other countries on several issues, many of them through international organizations based in Geneva.
This is the era of the Obama administration, with its promise of new relationships, and the period of Hillary Clinton at the helm of the US State Department, re-booting the Start talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva in March 2009. Obama told a group of ambassadors in Washington Wednesday 29 July that “I came into office with a strong commitment to renew American diplomacy, and to start a new era of engagement with the world. This must be a moment when we engage on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect, so that we can build new partnerships for progress.”
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)
One name being bandied about for the Geneva ambassador’s job is that of Obama fundraiser Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe. Le Temps wrote some weeks ago that she will be named, basing the information on “sources close” to President Obama, and IP Watch, an intellectual property industry newsletter, named her as the likely candidate in a 29 July article.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Russians and US teams met for five rounds of talks from 1-3 June, the followup to an agreement in 9 March 2009 in Geneva between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to re-open the START (strategic arms reduction treaty) talks. A spokesperson for the US Mission to the UN in Geneva would comment only that “The current 3-day round of talks on an agreement to replace the START treaty has concluded in Geneva,” adding that the US was represented at the talks “by an interagency team lead by Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Part of the good-natured banter between the Hillary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov in Geneva Friday night centred around the “reset” button that Clinton offered Lavrov as a gift. Read more…
The next step?
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Friday 6 March meeting in Geneva between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could well enter the records as a key encounter, if US hopes for the meeting are realized. The United States and Russia have a long history of meeting on neutral territory in Geneva to discuss the state of the world and their own complex relationship. “There have been letters between the leaders, between the foreign ministers, outlining a way forward and a positive agenda, and it is on that that we want to build, but with our eyes open about some of the differences we have,” a State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid, told a White House press briefing Friday 26 February.
