Obama Expected in Moscow Without Jackson-Vanik

Russian and American experts suggest that the U.S. President should do away with this outdated amendment.

The Kremlin said Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Moscow from July 6th-8th per an invitation by Dmitry Medvedev, but Washington D.C. has not yet confirmed the date. The two leaders are expected to “synchronize their clocks” on the further reduction of the military arsenals of Russia and the U.S., to discuss their future cooperation in the international decision-making and to plan Medvedev’s return visit to the U.S. According to “NG,” that could be planned for December.

The two-day summit program for Medvedev and Obama will be very intense. Both capitals are currently prioritizing the issue of replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which is set to expire this December 5th. According to observers, this issue could be greatly advanced at the summit. Also, the leaders are expected to discuss measures on strengthening the controls for proliferation of WMDs; the Iranian and North Korean nuclear situations, ways to regulate issues in the Middle East as well as the Afghan situation. The presidents should also touch upon the topic of Euro-Atlantic Security, particularly in the context of Medvedev’s 2008 initiative to reach a new agreement on the European Security Treaty. In the course of the dialogue, other questions will be discussed, such as economic and trade relations, and Russia’s process on joining the World Trade Organization.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could not confirm the date of the visit announced by the Kremlin. However, the experts were not concerned. “Back in April, both presidents announced that the visit was planned for the beginning of July, so there is no reason to suspect a change in the schedule,” –stated Alexey Bogaturov, the provost of the Moscow State University of International Relations. “On the other hand, there are a lot of complicated questions on the agenda and the schedule is tight, therefore it can be very tough to prepare for the summit at such short notice. Perhaps this would elicit a response from Washington.”

According to an expert, the Moscow summit should become a beginning of a working process. To facilitate that, Moscow and Washington should come up with a steady mechanism for constant dialogue between the two countries. Bringing back to life the “Gore – Chernomyrdin” Board seems meaningless (today’s version of the board would be “Biden – Putin”). “If the presidents agree on the mechanism of this constant dialogue and actually begin this dialogue, it would already mean success for the summit, even if the major projects on weapon controls are not fully agreed upon,” said Bogaturov.

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, was optimistic upon his return from the States, after meeting with Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to him, the starting positions of Moscow and Washington regarding the strategic offensive armament should become clear in May. As a reminder, the Russian capital will shortly host the first full-fledged round of talks on the future agreement to replace START I. Both sides have expressed their desire to reduce their nuclear arsenals, but they do have certain demands. In particular, Russia is going to discuss the question of strategic offensive armament in tandem with the issue of U.S. plans to develop missile defense systems in Poland and Czech Republic.

“NG” asked Alexey Arbatov, correspondent and member of the Russian Academy of Science and head of the Center of International Security with Institute of World Economy and International Relations if he could elaborate on this issue. “Americans are not giving any explanations regarding their plans for the missile defense program or their opportunities to place weapons systems in space. That is why is it difficult to sign any long-term agreements in such an uncertain environment. Since we are keeping the conditions of mutual nuclear restraint for the foreseeable future, the strategy that we formulated in the 1970’s to limit the offensive and reduce the defensive armament is still being enforced,” the expert said.

Arbatov does not expect that any other issues on the agenda will be significantly resolved. It is unlikely that there will be any progress made on the economic and trade questions at this times of economic crisis. However, he still thinks that the sides could agree on ways to overcome the consequences of the crisis. Besides, mutual trade relations are still impeded by the Jackson-Vanik amendment (the trade restrictions originally applied to the USSR to discourage the country from preventing Jewish immigration). “Russia is not even questioning the amendment – it is simply a historical embarrassment. In Moscow they already talk about renaming Spaso-Peskovkskaya square (the place where the U.S. Ambassador resides) into the Jackson-Vanik square. Of course, if Obama gets rid of the amendment, no one will applaud him just for that, but in Moscow they would say that it should have been done long time ago, and good that it’s been done,” Arbatov remarked. Besides, American experts Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, and Gary Hart, co-chair of CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), have also joined in the request to remove the amendment. Still, Obama would have to convince the Congress that such removal is necessary.

Alexey Arbatov thinks that Afghanistan is the most important topic that should be discussed by Medvedev and Obama. “Increasing co-operation to prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgencies is the most important topic to concentrate on, putting aside the differences that divide us, such as questions on Georgia, Ukraine and NATO expansion.” According to this expert, the second most important question is the one of decreasing the strategic weapons arsenals, and everything else can be listed under this topic: “Miscellaneous,” including Russia’s request to join the WTO. “We can’t expect a breakthrough with the WTO issue, but with the current financial/economic crisis it is unclear if we should worry about the timing,” Arbatov concluded.