New York Times - 10.19.2001

 

New York Times

Russia and U.S. Optimistic on Defense Issues

By Patrick E. Tyler

HANGHAI, Oct. 18 — Russia and the United States signaled tonight that they were near a breakthrough on the key strategic issues that had divided the two countries since President Bush came into office, in particular Washington's plans to build missile defenses and Russia's troubled relations with an expanding NATO alliance.

The progress was reported tonight after a meeting here between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov.

A Russian diplomat said the meeting had created "favorable conditions" for "forming a new framework for strategic relations" between Moscow and Washington when Mr. Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin meet here on Sunday on the sidelines of a summit meeting of Asian and Pacific leaders.

The diplomat, quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency in a dispatch from Shanghai, said the meeting of the two leaders, to be followed by talks next month in Crawford, Tex., at President Bush's home, "would be of exceptional significance in this sense."

The momentum in the strategic arms negotiations, stalemated for months after the two leaders opened them this summer at their first meetings in Slovenia and Italy, follows Mr. Putin's announcement last month that he was opening Russian air space to the American airlift of military and relief cargoes to Central Asian republics for deployment on Afghanistan's northern frontier.

Along with its support for the American military campaign in Afghanistan, Russia is offering its oil fields as a secure alternative to dependence on the turbulent Persian Gulf.

"Not only is the cold war over," Secretary Powell said, "the post- cold-war period is also over."

Washington and Moscow now regard the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States as a watershed event in international relations, a number of experts say, that has offered opportunities for Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush to battle a common enemy.

This could generate a level of cooperation that allows Mr. Putin to overcome the objections of domestic critics who grumble that he is compromising Russian security by making concessions to Washington. Mr. Putin's strong support for American intervention in Central Asia allows Mr. Bush to promote a greater role for Russia in Western security.

Neither side made public the details of any prospective agreement. But in recent days Secretary Powell has underscored that Washington is now prepared to make the kind of cuts in its nuclear arsenal that Moscow has been seeking as a possible trade-off for amending the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Russia might also choose not to object to a testing program for missile defenses that might otherwise be construed as a violation of that 1972 accord.

The Bush administration's determination to build a missile defense shield has been a source of tension with Russia because such a shield violates the ABM treaty, regarded by Russia as the basis of all strategic arms control.

A senior State Department official traveling with Secretary Powell said tonight that he would not go so far as to predict that Mr. Putin was ready to accept American proposals to modify the ABM treaty to allow extensive testing. But the official emphasized an "across the board" change in attitude by the Russian leadership toward cooperation on everything from strategic issues to fighting terrorism and closer relations between Russia and NATO.

The American official said Russia's decisions this week to abandon a Soviet-era electronic eavesdropping base in Cuba and give up its lease on the Cam Ranh Bay naval base in Vietnam signified a change of thinking that went beyond the financial savings that both steps would yield for the Russian military.

"Clearly the Russians, in making these decisions for financial or whatever other reasons, do see this as a new opportunity in a changed time," the official said, "and it comes up again when we talk about NATO- Russian cooperation."

The official said NATO and Russian officials had stepped up their consultations in recent weeks to expand their cooperation, but he would not elaborate beyond saying that the cooperation did not include joint military action.

Mr. Powell met Mr. Ivanov after a day of meetings with the foreign and trade ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The ministers completed a statement condemning terrorism, though efforts by the United States to get a specific pledge of support for its military operations in Afghanistan foundered after Indonesia and Malaysia raised objections. Both have large Muslim populations. Secretary Powell declared that he was satisfied with the statement.

"I got a resounding signal of support from all the members present," he said.

Mr. Bush arrived this evening, and he and the secretary will meet Mr. Putin on Sunday after his talks with President Jiang Zemin on Friday.

Mr. Putin's decision to align Russia with the fight against the bases of Al Qaeda, the network led by Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban government in Afghanistan has been hailed as a significant turn in Russia's post- cold-war policy toward the West. It has secured one immediate benefit for Russia: greater Western acceptance of the military campaign Mr. Putin is waging in the rebellious territory of Chechnya.

The Russian leader characterizes the Chechnya campaign as Moscow's battle against terrorism by Islamic militants, some trained in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration abruptly shifted its policy to acknowledge that terrorist groups had exploited the Chechnya conflict, the White House and State Department continue to admonish Mr. Putin to seek a political settlement there, and to hold accountable Russian military commanders who had presided over atrocities. Since last summer, Bush administration officials have been pressing Moscow not to put Washington in the position of withdrawing from or violating the ABM accord. Such a step would probably incite renewed concerns in Europe and the Middle East that Mr. Bush was still pursuing a unilateralist course in foreign policy, and could undermine his coalition-building against terrorists.

For his part, Secretary Powell said the terrorist attacks on the United States and its commitment to build a worldwide coalition against terrorist groups had ended any pretense of American unilateralism.

"Nobody's calling us unilateral anymore," he said in remarks to American businessmen here. "We're so multilateral it keeps me up 24 hours a day checking on everybody."

The secretary applauded Russia's decision to abandon the bases in Cuba and Vietnam, which were hallmarks of America-Soviet rivalry.