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.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The unfinished business of arms control is being taken up this week in two separate sets of talks in Geneva. Negotiations resume on the Russia-US Start treaty update and, separately, the UN’s Conference on Disarmament.
Russia and the USA begin negotiations again 22 January to agree on a treaty to replace the 1990s-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) which officially expired 5 December 2008.
The aim of the negotiations is to further reduce each country’s nuclear arsenal below levels agreed to in 1991.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The nuclear arms reduction talks (Start) between the US and Russia will continue in January, the two countries have announced, with both sides saying they believe good progress has been made. “This is a much different environment that we exist in today,” PJ Crowley, US State Department spokesperson said in a briefing Wednesday 22 December in Washington.
Geneva, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Kremlin announced late Saturday 12 December that the Russian and US presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, discussed by phone Saturday the progress made in Geneva with talks to replace the Start I treaty. The Russian government had said Friday that it will be meeting with US this coming week, in Geneva. The talks have been shrouded in secrecy, with a virtual news blackout, but reports have emerged that differences are linked to verification procedures.
The Kremlin issued a statement Saturday that “the heads of state agreed to give the order to continue active work and not to reduce the high level and tempo of cooperation, with the aim of securing decisive agreements on all issues,” according to Reuters. Ria Novosti in Moscow quoted the Kremlin as stating that the two men “noted with satisfaction that the work of the two countries’ delegations in Geneva is intensive and targeted, which allows [us] to speak of considerable progress in the talks.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Russia and the US are close to signing a new treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expires Saturday 5 December, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reports late Friday, although it is unlikely the pact will be signed before the end of the year. The agency sites Russian military sources and says the two sides will meet again Saturday in Geneva. According to Ria Novosti, “The chief of the Russian General Staff said earlier that the ongoing talks had run into disagreements on inspection and verification procedures.”
Photo: World Trade Organizaion 2 December 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - In a highly publicized event, its opening marred by street violence, the Seventh Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has brought together government officials from 153 countries in Geneva for three days to discuss trade.
On the other side of town, delegations of experts on foreign policy, military affairs and arms control from Russia and the US are meeting to hammer out the details of a treaty that will reduce their countries’ nuclear arsenals.
For a world with more trade
Trade ministers from the WTO’s 153 member countries have been meeting in Geneva for their biennial conference amidst the worst recession in 80 years, with trade volumes down more than 10 percent in 2009 compared to last year, according to WTO figures.
No end yet to Start talks in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US President Barack Obama met Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev on the fringes of the Apec meeting in Singapore 14 November, to discuss the resumption of the Start talks on reducing both countries’ nuclear arsenals. Obama hailed the “excellent progress over the last few months”repors the Moscow Times. The Start talks resume in Geneva Monday 16 November.
The current treaty expires 5 December, and though hopeful that a new treaty will be hammered out before the end of the year, Obama’s team suggests a bridging agreement may be necessary because the treaty is unlikely to be signed and ratified in time, reports Fox News.
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.
Update 9 March (transcript from US Mission in Geneva) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - “Nothing was off the table,” said a clearly pleased US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had the first words at a press conference with her counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. She characterized their wide-ranging meeting as “a very productive meeting of minds.”
It all happened over what Clinton described as an “excellent dinner” with, on the table, vegetable soup, grilled turbot fillet with carrots and turnips, chocolate molleux with wine, coffee and tea.
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.
