“Businesslike and substantive call” between
the leaders of the US and Russia
November 22, 2017,
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin – blocked by
the US bureaucracy from having a proper meeting with each other at the APEC
summit in Vietnam – have instead had the detailed discussion they wanted with
each other by telephone.
That is the conclusion one must draw from
the unusually detailed summary of this conversation which
has been provided by the Kremlin’s website
As agreed in advance, Vladimir
Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the United
States of America Donald Trump.
Current Syrian issues, in view
of the military operation to destroy terrorists in Syria
which is winding down, were thoroughly discussed. Vladimir Putin stressed
Russia’s willingness to actively facilitate a durable political
settlement in that country on the basis of UN Security
Council Resolution 2254 and in keeping with the agreements
reached as part of the Astana meetings
and the provisions of the Joint Statement approved
by the presidents of Russia and the United States
on November 11 at the APEC Economic
Leaders’ Meeting in Vietnam.
It was noted, in particular, that this statement met with a positive
reaction in the Middle East.
There was discussion of the need
to preserve the sovereignty, independence and territorial
integrity of Syria, and to achieve a political settlement
on the basis of principles that must be worked out
as a result of the broadest possible intra-Syrian
negotiation process. This is precisely the aim of Russia’s initiative
to hold the National Dialogue Conference in Sochi soon.
Vladimir Putin informed Donald Trump about
the main outcomes of the November 20 meeting with
Bashar al-Assad, where
the Syrian leader reaffirmed his commitment to the political
process, constitutional reform, and presidential and parliamentary
elections. In addition, emphasis was placed on the upcoming trilateral
talks in Sochi on November 22 with the participation
of the presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey, during which
steps to further normalise the situation in Syria
and various aspects of the political settlement process are
to be coordinated.
More broadly, the President
of Russia once again spoke in favour of joint antiterrorist
efforts with the United States, noting the practical importance
of coordinating efforts between the special services of both
countries. The US President was supportive of this idea.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump also
exchanged views on the current state of affairs
on the Korean Peninsula, emphasising that it would be advisable
to find a negotiated solution to the problem by diplomatic
means.
Regarding the crisis in southeast
Ukraine, the President of Russia pointed to the lack
of a real alternative to unconditional compliance with
the Minsk agreements of February 12, 2015.
The two leaders touched
on the situation in Afghanistan, which is of concern due
to the growing terrorist and drug trafficking threats.
The situation surrounding
the Iranian nuclear programme was also discussed. Russia’s commitment
to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action was noted, as it is an essential factor in ensuring
regional stability and overcoming the challenge
of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Both sides expressed satisfaction with
the businesslike and substantive conversation.
The Kremlin says the conversation was
“agreed in advance”. One would like to know when and by whom?
My guess is that Trump and Putin agreed it
during one of their short encounters at the APEC summit, when they realised
that a proper summit between them was being blocked. If so then the
conversation is the fruit of their encounters at the APEC summit.
The conversation covered an unusually wide
range of issues:
Syria
This was unquestionably the most important
topic discussed, and the one which would have taken up the most time.
The Russians are very much at the forefront
of the Syrian negotiations, having together with the Iranians effectively won
the war in Syria for President Assad.
That has put the Russians in a position of
great strength, which they could in theory use to dictate the terms of the
settlement at the forthcoming negotiations whilst seeking to exclude the US.
Had positions been reversed, and had the US
found itself in such a position of advantage, it is a certainty that it would
be not be involving the Russians in the negotiations. The US after all
did not involve the Russians in the negotiations which followed the US
“victories” in the 2003 Iraqi war and the 2011 Libyan war.
The Russian approach is the diametric
opposite. Instead of seeking to exclude the US from the negotiations
Putin briefed Trump fully on his discussions with President Assad – someone who
remains persona non grata for the US and for Donald Trump himself – and set out
for Trump the Russian approach to the negotiations.
In doing so Putin followed the classic
Russian approach of carefully setting out for Trump the list of international
agreements the Russians have negotiated and which they are using as the
building blocks of the negotiations.
UN Security Council Resolution 2254
and in keeping with the agreements reached as part
of the Astana meetings and the provisions of the Joint Statement approved
by the presidents of Russia and the United States
on November 11 at the APEC Economic
Leaders’ Meeting in Vietnam.
Of these the most important for Trump is the
Joint Statement he made with Putin at the APEC summit in Vietnam.
Trump was not involved in the earlier
agreements, but will feel that he has ownership of the Joint Statement, and by
agreeing to it at the APEC summit and by referring to it in his telephone
conversation with Trump, Putin is giving Trump a reason to feel that he is an
actual participant in the negotiations and is not just a bystander.
In reality the most important of the
agreements Putin referred to during the conversation is UN Security Council
Resolution 2254, which was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council on
18th December 2015 following lengthy negotiations between Russian Foreign
Minister Lavrov and US Secretary of State Kerry.
The full text of UN Security Council
Resolution 2254 can be found here.
Why is it so important to Putin and the
Russians to involve Trump in the negotiations? The clue to that can be
found in the topics which were discussed. For example Putin used the
conversation to reaffirm to Trump
the need to preserve
the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria
(bold italics added)
This language is taken directly from the
preamble of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which reads as follow
Reaffirming
[the UN Security Council’s] strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence,
unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab
Republic
(bold italics added)
What lies behind this is Russian concern
about what I recently called the US’s Plan C:
the attempt by some in the US to maintain US influence in Syria by carving out
a quasi independent Kurdish statelet in northern Syria.
Plan C is already in serious trouble as
a result of the defeat of the Kurds in Kirkuk by the Iraqi army. However Putin
used the telephone conversation to remind Trump that Plan C – because it
threatens Syria’s territorial integrity – is incompatible with the commitments
the US previously took on itself when it negotiated and voted for UN Security
Council Resolution 2254.
Putin also used the conversation with Trump
to remind Trump of his longstanding proposal – made most famously in his September 2015 UN General Assembly
Speech – for a joint struggle by the US and Russia
against Jihadi terrorism.
Trump has been consistently receptive to
this idea – the Kremlin’s summary says he was “supportive of this idea” – but
it has been consistently blocked by the US bureaucracy including especially the
Pentagon.
For Putin the attraction of this proposal is
not just that such a joint struggle will facilitate the global struggle against
terrorism – something Putin cares about as much as Trump does – but because
such a joint struggle might provide a tie between the US and Russia which might
reverse the downward spiral in US-Russian relations.
Whilst Trump is “supportive of the idea” it
remains to be seen whether the resistance to in Washington can be overcome.
In summary, Putin is keeping Trump informed
of Russia’s Syrian diplomacy in order to limit as far as possible the danger of
the US acting as a spoiler. The idea is to get Trump to think that the US
has some ownership over the eventual outcome, so that it does not act to wreck
it.
At the same time Putin hopes to use this as
a bridge towards improving relations.
Whether given the pathological hostility to
Russia in the US these efforts can be successful is another matter.
However Putin doubtless feels that by trying he is doing his job.
Korea
The Kremlin’s summary tells us little about
the discussion on the Korean issue, which suggests that this part of the
conversation may have been brief.
It is quite likely that it was Trump who
initiated this part of the conversation since he has made achieving a
settlement of the North Korean issue the central focus of his foreign policy.
Putin will no doubt have sought an
explanation from Trump of Trump’s recent decision to put North Korea back on
the list of states sponsoring terrorism, and he will also have sought
reassurances from Trump that the recent US fleet and troop movements near North
Korea are not intended to set the scene for US military action.
Putin will also have briefed Trump about
Russia’s recent negotiations with
the North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui, and he will no doubt have reminded Trump
of the Chinese-Russian proposal for a double-freeze.
Trump for his part will no doubt have sought
– and received – reassurances from Putin that Russia will enforce the sanctions
the UN Security Council has recently imposed on North Korea following that
country’s intercontinental ballistic missile and hydrogen bomb tests.
Ukraine
Donald Trump hinted during the 2016 election
campaign that for him the conflict in Ukraine came close to the bottom of his
list of foreign policy priorities. However he has encountered fierce
resistance from his bureaucracy, which continues to be committed to Ukraine,
and which continues to use the conflict there to mobilise opposition to Russia
in Europe.
Recently hardliners in the US have been
floating proposals to send weapons – notably Javelin anti-tank missiles – to
Ukraine, whilst an article in
the Wall Street Journal suggested that some US officials were trying to
pressure the Russians into agreeing to a force of 20,000 “peacekeepers” to
restore the Donbass to Ukrainian control.
Needless to say the Russians have
emphatically rejected both proposals, and Putin followed this up by taking the
unprecedented step of telephoning Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky – the leaders of
the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – and having details of this call posted on the
Kremlin’s website in what was clearly intended as a show
of support.
The proposals to flood the Donbass with
‘peacekeepers’ and to send arms to Ukraine are actually inconsistent with the
February 2015 Minsk Agreement as the Russians never tire of pointing out, and
the Kremlin’s summary of Putin’s conversation with Trump shows that Putin used
the opportunity provided by the call to point this out to him
Regarding the crisis in southeast
Ukraine, the President of Russia pointed to the lack
of a real alternative to unconditional compliance with
the Minsk agreements of February 12, 2015.
My impression is that Trump is not
interested in the conflict in Ukraine, in which he rightly sees no national or
security interest for the US. Left to himself he would probably gladly
walk away from it, as would many of those who supported him in the 2016
election.
With the Russiagate affair still ongoing,
that is politically impossible.
What that means in practical terms is that
Trump will have listened to what Putin had to say and will have taken note of
it, but this will have no immediate effect on US policy.
If Trump is one day able to put Russiagate
behind him and consolidate his position in Washington that may change.
However that is not the situation now.
Afghanistan
The last few months have witnessed a
drumbeat of accusations in the US that the Russians are covertly assisting the
Taliban by sending arms and economic aid to them. The Russians
categorically deny these accusations, though they admit to holding talks with
the Taliban who they are gradually coming to see as a bulwark against the
spread of ISIS to Afghanistan.
The Kremlin’s summary suggests that the part
of the telephone conversation between Trump and Putin which touched on
Afghanistan was brief, and that these accusations were not discussed in any
detail if they were discussed at all
The two leaders touched
on the situation in Afghanistan, which is of concern due
to the growing terrorist and drug trafficking threats.
The reference to “drug trafficking threats”
possibly refers to the longstanding Russian complaint that the US is not doing
enough to suppress heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan. A
large part of this heroin is transported across Russia to Europe, causing a
serious heroin problem in Russia, and the Russians have been placing the blame
for this on the blind eye that they say that the US has been turning to heroin
production in Afghanistan.
It is quite likely that Putin raised this
issue with Trump whilst repeating Russia’s concern that ISIS, as it is being
driven out of Syria and Iraq, is now starting to gain a foothold in
Afghanistan.
Though these are concerns Trump is known to
share, the terse part of the Kremlin’s summary of this section of their
conversation makes it impossible to say what his reaction was.
It is not impossible that the reason this
part of the summary is so terse is because there were disagreements, which the
Kremlin does not want to publicise.
Iran
On the subject of Iran, Trump and Putin have
diametrically opposite views.
Trump sees Iran as a hotbed of terrorism;
Putin sees Iran as Russia’s strategic partner and ally in the struggle against
terrorism.
Trump considers the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (“JCPOA”) which placed limits on Iran’s nuclear programme a “bad
deal”, and has recently decertified Iran because of its supposed breaches of
it.
Putin unequivocally supports the JCPOA and
denies that Iran has committed any breaches of it.
The Kremlin’s summary makes no effort to
hide the disagreement
Russia’s commitment to full
implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was
noted, as it is an essential factor in ensuring regional
stability and overcoming the challenge of non-proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.
No word is said here of what opinions Trump
expressed, though it is a certainty they were the opposite of the ones held by
Putin and Russia. Doubtless Trump and Putin had a forthright exchange of
opinions on this issue.
General
Unusually, the Kremlin website tells us
something of the atmosphere of the call.
Both sides expressed satisfaction with
the businesslike and substantive conversation.
It is a commonplace in the US and Europe
that Donald Trump is terrible at diplomacy.
In reality his interactions with world
leaders during his recent Asia tour and his conversations with Vladimir Putin
and Xi Jinping tell a different story.
Though Trump is extremely inexperienced and
many of his ideas about foreign policy are frankly amateur, he nonetheless
comes across as warm and approachable in a way that his cold and aloof
predecessor Barack Obama never did.
The result is that other world leaders –
especially those outside Europe – like him in a way that they never liked
Barack Obama, and are prepared to cut him slack, even when they disagree with
him.
That suggests that if the US bureaucracy was
prepared to work with Trump and not against him, and instead of seeking to
undermine him at every turn sought to help him gain the experience and
understanding of world affairs he needs to do his job, then he could in time
become an extremely effective foreign policy President.
Trump’s interactions with Xi Jinping and
Putin are cases in point. As the leaders of the two other Great Powers
they are the two most important individuals in the world with whom the US and
its President must deal.
Trump seems to understand this, and despite
a catalogue of misunderstandings he seems to be gradually edging towards a
better understanding of the Chinese leader. As for Putin, Trump’s few
interactions with him at a personal level have always gone well. The
“businesslike and substantive” telephone conversation he has just had with
Putin is a case in point.
As for Putin, his conversation with Trump
was just part of a day’s work. That day was extremely busy. As well
as the conversation with Trump, Putin had meetings with President Assad of Syria
and President Zeman of the Czech Republic, and also had telephone conversations
with President Sisi of Egypt, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister
Netanyahu of Israel. Today (22nd November 2017) he will be meeting
President Erdogan of Turkey and President Rouhani of Iran.
It will take many years of hard learning and
hard work before Donald Trump can conduct diplomacy at that sort of pace.
/https://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2021/09/25/huawei-executive-meng-wanzhou-receives-warm-welcome-upon-return-to-china/_1_meng_wanzhou_2.jpg)
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