BanglaBhoot
RETIRED TTA
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2007
- Messages
- 8,839
- Reaction score
- 5
- Country
- Location
A nagging question still bedevils Washington watchers in Moscow: was it really just an accidental mis*translation?
In March, when Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, presented Sergei Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, with a toy reset button, symbolising the US wish to restart relations with Moscow, the translation of reset in English was wrong. Rather than using the Russian word perezagruzka, it was written peregruzka, meaning overload or overstress. I think it was a Freudian slip, at the very least, joked Vladimir Shtol, a Nato specialist at Russias Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, this week.
Two months on, the missing za is only the smallest in a number of nagging doubts, mixed signals and sources of mistrust that have crept into the much-hyped thaw in relations, which have started to freeze over because of a spying row and tension over Georgia.
A visit to Washington by Mr Lavrov this week was an attempt by both sides to avert a more serious row that could threaten arms control talks, scheduled for this month, to replace the strategic arms reduction treaty (Start), which is set to expire in December.
Barack Obama, the US president, said on Thursday that his meeting in the Oval office with Mr Lavrov was excellent, while Dmitry Rogozin, Russias ambassador to Nato, declared on Friday that the talks in Washington gave hope that the process of thawing relations was not broken.
However, events of the last two weeks have given new ammunition to hardliners on both sides who are opposed to a thaw in the US-Russia relationship. The result is that only a month after a successful first meeting between Mr Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, Russias president, Moscow and Washington are already staring flinty-eyed at each other.
Relations have gone awry for two reasons. First, Russia expelled two Canadian diplomats from Natos mission in Moscow this week. The expulsions were a tit-for-tat retaliation against Natos expulsion of two Russian envoys after a spying scandal in which Nato secrets were passed to Moscow. There have also been heated words between the Kremlin and Nato this week as the alliance went ahead with a long-planned military exercise in Georgia, which Moscow deeply resented as another interference in its own sphere of influence.
Our side sees these actions by the United States either as a blatant provocation or at the very least as a sign they are not serious, said Mr Shtol.
Dmitri Trenin, head of Moscow Carnegie Center, the think-tank, said Natos decision to expel the two Russian diplomats in the first place was ill-judged. It is one thing to expel a foreign spy, and another thing to do it at a very sensitive time in a very public way, he said.
In the US and Europe, there is equal puzzlement at Moscows tough stance, especially over the Nato exercises in Georgia. Nato insists the exercises were planned long before the Georgian war last August and could hardly be deemed a provocation to Russia or any other state in the region.
US and western officials admit they are confused by the double-headed leadership in Moscow, where Mr Medvedev has the constitutional authority while Vladimir Putin, prime minister, has the real power. We still dont know how to read the Russians, and they are not sure themselves how to read Obama yet, said a senior British official.
At Nato there is a strong impression that Russia is employing a dual strategy. On the one hand, Russia wants to deal seriously with the US on the major bilateral issues on their agenda, especially arms control, says a senior diplomat. Meanwhile, Russia believes it can treat Nato as a political football, something it can kick around without cost to vent its anger, especially over any attempt by the west to strengthen ties with the former Soviet states.
Still, there are those who argue that this week may present a pause in the thaw rather than an end to it.
Certainly the Nato spy scandals and the flap over the exercises in Georgia dont help said Andrew Kuchins, head of the Russia programme at CSIS, the Washington-based think-tank. But theyre not gamechangers.
FT.com / US & Canada - Icy winds threaten US-Russia thaw
In March, when Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, presented Sergei Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, with a toy reset button, symbolising the US wish to restart relations with Moscow, the translation of reset in English was wrong. Rather than using the Russian word perezagruzka, it was written peregruzka, meaning overload or overstress. I think it was a Freudian slip, at the very least, joked Vladimir Shtol, a Nato specialist at Russias Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, this week.
Two months on, the missing za is only the smallest in a number of nagging doubts, mixed signals and sources of mistrust that have crept into the much-hyped thaw in relations, which have started to freeze over because of a spying row and tension over Georgia.
A visit to Washington by Mr Lavrov this week was an attempt by both sides to avert a more serious row that could threaten arms control talks, scheduled for this month, to replace the strategic arms reduction treaty (Start), which is set to expire in December.
Barack Obama, the US president, said on Thursday that his meeting in the Oval office with Mr Lavrov was excellent, while Dmitry Rogozin, Russias ambassador to Nato, declared on Friday that the talks in Washington gave hope that the process of thawing relations was not broken.
However, events of the last two weeks have given new ammunition to hardliners on both sides who are opposed to a thaw in the US-Russia relationship. The result is that only a month after a successful first meeting between Mr Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, Russias president, Moscow and Washington are already staring flinty-eyed at each other.
Relations have gone awry for two reasons. First, Russia expelled two Canadian diplomats from Natos mission in Moscow this week. The expulsions were a tit-for-tat retaliation against Natos expulsion of two Russian envoys after a spying scandal in which Nato secrets were passed to Moscow. There have also been heated words between the Kremlin and Nato this week as the alliance went ahead with a long-planned military exercise in Georgia, which Moscow deeply resented as another interference in its own sphere of influence.
Our side sees these actions by the United States either as a blatant provocation or at the very least as a sign they are not serious, said Mr Shtol.
Dmitri Trenin, head of Moscow Carnegie Center, the think-tank, said Natos decision to expel the two Russian diplomats in the first place was ill-judged. It is one thing to expel a foreign spy, and another thing to do it at a very sensitive time in a very public way, he said.
In the US and Europe, there is equal puzzlement at Moscows tough stance, especially over the Nato exercises in Georgia. Nato insists the exercises were planned long before the Georgian war last August and could hardly be deemed a provocation to Russia or any other state in the region.
US and western officials admit they are confused by the double-headed leadership in Moscow, where Mr Medvedev has the constitutional authority while Vladimir Putin, prime minister, has the real power. We still dont know how to read the Russians, and they are not sure themselves how to read Obama yet, said a senior British official.
At Nato there is a strong impression that Russia is employing a dual strategy. On the one hand, Russia wants to deal seriously with the US on the major bilateral issues on their agenda, especially arms control, says a senior diplomat. Meanwhile, Russia believes it can treat Nato as a political football, something it can kick around without cost to vent its anger, especially over any attempt by the west to strengthen ties with the former Soviet states.
Still, there are those who argue that this week may present a pause in the thaw rather than an end to it.
Certainly the Nato spy scandals and the flap over the exercises in Georgia dont help said Andrew Kuchins, head of the Russia programme at CSIS, the Washington-based think-tank. But theyre not gamechangers.
FT.com / US & Canada - Icy winds threaten US-Russia thaw
