15 March 2001 00:00
RUSSIAN SECURITY COUNCIL SECRETARY SERGEI IVANOV'S STAY IN UNITED STATES
2001-03-14-2001
Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Ivanov, who has arrived in the United States for a visit, has reported that he intends to explain to his interlocutors in Washington the stand of Russia on cooperation with Iran. He so told reporters immediately on arrival in the American capital, replying to questions about the statements of U.S. officials on the White House "concern" over possible supplies of Russian conventional arms to Iran.
In the words of the Russian Security Council Secretary, to speak of a "resumption" of military technological cooperation between Russia and Iran is incorrect, because such cooperation "was never discontinued." As to the supplies, this, Ivanov said, is not a new decision, but one "of the year before last or last year, at a minimum." He recalled that he had previously discussed this question in Washington with President Bill Clinton's national security adviser Samuel Berger, and then stressed that he was ready to discuss this theme with George Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"We will also discuss these questions, and I will report on the agreements that were reached during Iranian President Khatami's visit to Moscow," said Ivanov, and specified that at Russian President Vladimir Putin's summit with Mohammad Khatami "military technological cooperation was not discussed at all."
According to Ivanov, the talks in Washington will be a "kind of prologue" in Russia's relations with the new U.S. administration. He announced that "a wide range of international security issues" would be discussed in the course of the upcoming meetings with the U.S. President's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Ivanov expressed hope that these talks "will help come up to ensuring that Russian-American relations in the spirit of their inherent pragmatism and predictability are based on the consideration of the interests of each other, and with regard for the questions which form the concept of international security."
Ivanov reported that he had arrived in Washington at the invitation of Condoleezza Rice, and that with her from the very beginning it had been arranged that "there will be no clear-cut agenda." It is expected, however, the Russian Security Council Secretary noted, that among the issues he is going to discuss with both Rice and Powell will be the problems of strategic stability, nonproliferation, regional conflicts as well as bilateral relations.
"This will not be talks, it will be, strictly speaking, a clarification of the stands of each other, including personal attitudes," Sergei Ivanov stressed, noting that his meeting with Condoleezza Rice would help specify the parameters of the Russian-American dialogue taking into account the departure from the White House of the Democrats and the coming of the Republican administration of George Bush. As the Russian Security Council Secretary noted, the upcoming meetings will help the two sides also cast "a glance back," thus assessing "what has been done by the Democrats and what can be continued and even multiplied, and what will need to be constructed on a new basis."
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