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Russian FM Hails "Constructive" Talks, US Envoy Says no Deadline
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov hailed the "constructive dialogue" between Moscow and Washington Friday after a US envoy said Washington had set "no deadline" for Russia to assent to US plans to withdraw from a key arms control agreement.
Contacts between the Russian and US presidents, Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, have given a "positive momentum" to relations between the two capitals, Ivanov said in a statement, making no comment on Bush's declaration Thursday that he planned to drop the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
Ivanov described his meeting with US Under Secretary of State John Bolton as "useful" and said he hoped the two sides could reach a "mutual understanding in the fields of offensive and defensive strategic weapons, which as the two presidents have agreed must be considered as indissociably linked."
In a meeting with Putin at the Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy last month Bush agreed to linking the two categories of weapons, but his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later insisted that they were quite distinct.
Moscow "notes with satisfaction the activation of a constructive dialogue, turned towards extending cooperation and Russian-American interaction in all areas of our relationship," Ivanov added.
Bolton told reporters he had assured Ivanov that Washington had set "no deadline" for Russia to agree with the US plan to withdraw from the treaty, under which Washington is barred from building a missile defence system.
"There weren't any deadlines on Tuesday, and there aren't any deadlines today," he told reporters after his 50-minute meeting, referring to an interview he gave Moscow Echo radio earlier this week which sparked media reports that he had set Russia an ultimatum.
Washington officials and Bolton himself were obliged Wednesday to make clear that no deadline had been set.
Bolton said he had informed Ivanov of "the consultations that (his) delegation had in Moscow" from Monday to Wednesday, aiming to persuade them of the need to accept Washington's missile defence plan.
Initially due to leave Moscow on Wednesday, Bolton extended his stay in order to meet Ivanov who returned from holiday on Thursday.
Washington says missile defence is needed to ward off the threat of so-called "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran.
Moscow and China are opposed to the US project, the ABM a cornerstone of global strategic stability.
Bolton, the third senior US envoy to visit Moscow to discuss strategic security in less than a month, said his talks with Ivanov had been mainly devoted to preparing further meetings between the US and Russian presidents and top diplomats.
"We discussed most significantly the preparations for the meeting that Foreign Minister Ivanov will have during his trip to Washington with Secretary of State Powell on September 19 and further preparations that they will need for the meeting of the two presidents (George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin) first in Shanghai and then in Crawford, Texas."
Bush and Putin are to meet in Shanghai in October and in the United States at Bush's Texas ranch in November.
The United States favors a joint withdrawal with Russia from the ABM treaty but has made clear it will if necessary exercise its right to pull out unilaterally.
US-Russian strategic talks are set to continue in the coming weeks, with Ivanov confirming he is to meet his US counterpart Colin Powell in Washington on September 19 in what would be the eighth official meeting between the two top diplomats.
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