Are US and Russia Prone to Cooperate

• 11.13.2017, 18:25
•  EEU,  America,  World

kremlin.ru

Recently both the US and Russia expressed their commitment to cooperate on the highest level. For example, the US president Donald Trump during one of his recent interviews noted: "We want Putin's help on North Korea," BBC reports. After the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin,  commenting on the continuous crisis in the relations of Russia and US said: "We often stated that we are ready to turn the page, go forward and loo at the future," РЕН TV reports. 

However, despite the initial statements both from the US and Russia that an official meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump was going to happen during a summit in Vietnam, the leaders managed to meet only on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and only to agree on a joint statement supporting a political solution for the Syrian conflict. To note the document had been drafted by the two countries’ experts and coordinated by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In the statement the proposed political solution includes "constitutional reform and free and fair elections under UN supervision, held to the highest international standards of transparency, with all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, eligible to participate."

In addition the statement highlights "the successful US-Russia enhanced de-confliction efforts between US and Russian military professionals" and the agreements "to maintain open military channels of communication between military professionals to help ensure the safety of both US and Russian forces."

Commenting on the failure to organize an official meeting for the leaders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted: "Unfortunately the American side did not offer any alternatives despite all efforts of our Russian colleagues. There was only one time offered that was convenient for the American side, and only one place offered, which had already been rented by the Americans," РИА Новости reports.

Still the commitment  to cooperate by the two leaders was more than obvious: during the whole summit the sides seemed not to lose an opportunity to communicate. The photos from the summit pictured Trump walking up to Putin as he was sitting at the summit table and patting him on the back. The two lean in to speak to each other and clasp each other briefly as they exchange a few words. In another poto, the two leaders are seen chatting and waking together to the position where the traditional APEC summit photo was to be taken, the Jerusalem Post reports.

What refers to the failure of the sides to organize an official meeting, one can assume that it is mainly conditioned by the ambitions of the sides "to dictate their own rules of the game," which is quite natural taking into consideration the ongoing competition between the sides on the number of issues for many years.