THE BRETON/GEROL NEWSLETTER
BIDEN-PUTIN SUMMIT. THE WORKING RELATIONSHIP
Most assessments of the Biden-Trump June 16th Geneva meeting tend to cast it as having been generally positive, but having produced only minor results. The fact that there had not been such a summit for a relatively long while, especially taking into account that Trump-Putin meetings were heavily discounted, somehow inflated expectations. Apart from Trump, Biden is not so different from most of his predecessors, but Vladimir Putin is neither Gorbachev nor Yeltsin. Putin came to this meeting not to achieve a compromise but to advance Russia’s interests in roughly the same manner as US Presidents have traditionally tried to advance US interests. This was not a negotiation to improve the relationship, as may have been the case at the end of the Soviet Union and in the following years.
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| ©President of Russia Website |
The point that Biden made during one of the presidential campaign debates about foreign affairs being all about relationships re-surfaced in his comments after the meeting and was also picked up in some way by Putin. In simple terms the leaders established a working relationship that can serve to prevent further conflicts down the road.. There was agreement for ambassadors to return to their respective embassies. There was also agreement to initiate consultations about the status of diplomatic and consular representations
It was also agreed to resume strategic stability consultations. That specific outcome does not get the media coverage that it deserves or is reduced to the dimension of consultations over nuclear weapons. In the professional diplomatic language, these consultations have a rather broad meaning and may be meant to cover virtually every arms control issue and most regional issues. The Biden-Putin conversation was in itself already very broad covering many regional issues, trade relations and even the Arctic.
To avoid a repetition of the Trump-Putin fiasco in Helsinki in 2018, Biden and Putin held separate press conferences. Since Biden had suggested he would be sending strong messages to Putin about human rights especially the Navalny case and about cybersecurity he needed to stand alone and state how forceful he had been in his conversation with his Russian counterpart.
Nowhere is this more evident than on the issue of cybersecurity. The parties have essentially agreed to work together in addressing the new challenges in this area, very much in the same way as during the last days of the Obama administration. Yet, ever since 2016 when Donald Trump invited Russia to offer whatever dirt it had on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, the matter of Russian interference in US elections has become politically hyper-sensitive. Donald Trump’s attempt to create a joint commission to look into cybersecurity was swiftly taken down by Congress and the foreign policy establishment. The prevailing view is that Russia must be punished and that its offers of cooperation are at best a smoke screen. In order to sweeten the bitter pill of cooperation with Russia Biden presented it as part of an injunction to Russia to stay away from 16 specific crucial areas of US infrastructure, thus making the US look like it is controlling Russian behaviour. This did not prevent Putin from singling out the agreement to cooperate in this area as extremely important. In due course, it could indeed have a major impact on the overall tone of the US-Russia relationship.
Ultimately, strategic stability consultations and cyber-security expert meetings are in the interest of both countries. They would however tend to reflect the Russian agenda and do not coincide with the prevailing US view that the US should be tough and give nothing to Russia. This put Biden on the defensive with his own media. This is why Biden kept insisting that personal dialogue and a working relationship were crucial and that the results of the June 16h decisions would become visible in some months. More symptomatic in the current world situation were the new American sanctions imposed on Russia soon after the summit was over. The sanctions are attached to the Navalny case and even to the companies at Nord Stream 2 despite the previous announcement that those sanctions were cancelled.
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| ©President of Russia Website |
All things considered, the most significant change coming out of the Summit is the confirmation of a return to the traditional pre-Trump diplomatic dialogue. This is more about process than results. There has been no reset of the relationship and the real work remains to be done. The fact that meaningful work can take place nevertheless explains why the Russian side called the meeting constructive.
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AFTER BIDEN-PUTIN: EUROPE AND UKRAINE
In the logic of the conflict with Russia, Ukrainian officials have in the past voiced concern over Canadian diplomatic engagement with Russia. Speaking with the enemy as if nothing happened is perceived as lessening of support for Ukraine and of some forgiveness towards Russia for having absorbed Crimea and fomented revolt in the Donbass. The US President is not held to the same restriction. The June 16th US-Russia Summit was unavoidable. The fact that it produced a statement on strategic stability might not be to Ukraine’s liking as it somehow conveys a sense of return to normal, a return to the situation prior to the current crisis. It looks as though the Summit did not give rise to a detailed discussion over Ukraine and that Biden did not spend a lot of time on it.
The German Chancellor or the French President are also exempt from the prohibition of speaking to Vladimir Putin. They are in any event expected to play a key role in the attempt to find a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
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| ©EU Website |
In the days after the Biden-Putin Summit Chancellor Merkel and President Macron went further and suggested that the EU should follow with its own summit with Putin in order to somehow normalize regular contacts with Moscow. The proposal was met with categorical and sharp rebuke from Poland and the Baltic states. Merkel and Macron would certainly have known that they could not achieve in a few days the required unanimity in favour of such a decision. What may have looked like a setback served to expose the point that opposition to reinstating the formal EU-Russia dialogue is preventing the EU from keeping up with the US. The stage is set for further discussion in coming months especially if US-Russia discussions show some result.
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| ©EU Website |
Merkel and Macron’s move was enough for them to be accused of “a great betrayal” and “a disgusting act of treachery” on the front page of the Ukrainian capital’s English-language daily, the Kyiv Times. The unusually strong language may look extreme, but reflects Ukrainian sensitivity on this matter. Merkel and Macron have been regular interlocutors of Vladimir Putin and were convenient targets. Merkel as the supporter of Nord Stream 2, the sea floor pipeline that will allow to bypass Ukraine pipelines for the delivery of gas to Europe, was even more suspect. The US or Biden have been spared such harsh criticism. Yet, it is the US that may have been the cause of greater anger and frustration in Kyiv. During Secretary of State Blinken’s May visit to Ukraine, it was made clear that the road to NATO membership would go through a major eradication of corruption. To many in Ukraine that would mean postponing NATO accession to the next generation, at least. Biden also contradicted Zelenskyy after the latter had claimed that NATO had confirmed Ukraine's NATO membership path. Biden's response was essentially: “it remains to be seen”. In addition, Washington, though it keeps expressing its opposition to Nord Stream 2, has essentially given up trying to prevent its completion. It is trying to engage Germany to find a way to compensate Ukraine for its financial losses from no longer being a lucrative gas transit corridor.
In this difficult context, President Biden finally invited President Zelenskyy to Washington, but not before his meeting with Putin, as Zelenskyy had hoped. The visit is to be scheduled in July and has the feel of a consolation prize.
The fundamental elements of the Ukraine-Russia conflict have not changed. The contours of the military and political support Ukraine can expect from its allies against Russia have, however, been clarified. At the same time, the Euro-Atlantic diplomatic isolation of Russia was challenged by a businesslike US-Russia Summit and by the above-noted diplomatic push from the two major EU countries. It also made clear that Ukraine joining NATO, a Moscow “red line” is not for the near future. It confirmed that it is unlikely that outside pressure will have a significant bearing on breaking the current deadlock in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
As virtually the only one with an interest in resolving the conflict, President Zelenskyy has been carrying the burden for creating the circumstances that could lead to change and, eventually, to resolution of the conflict. It is now the case even more than before. It has become more evident that change will not come from the outside. Changes are also highly unlikely in Ukrainian public opinion or in the dispositions of the rebel regions (not to mention Crimea) towards Kyiv. The stalemate was illustrated by the recent statement of former President Kravchuk, the head of Kyiv’s delegation to the Minsk talks. Kravchuk said in a television interview that Donbass is Ukraine’s “cancerous tumor” that must be removed to allow “development of an independent state”.
The seven-year old conflict looks more and more like a Cyprus-type frozen conflict. It also seems more broadly accepted as such by France and Germany. Recent Russia-engineered changes in the oligarchic management of the rebel regions of Eastern Ukraine also suggest that Russia is sharing this view and is preparing for a long-term virtual protectorate role in these regions. As a result it is installing a management that will take a more sustainable approach to regional economic development.
As for Zelenskky, he can only hope that the pageantry and prestige that will accompany his upcoming visit to Washington can boost his flagging popular support.--o--
ARMENIA
Acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has cemented his position with a landslide election victory called to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan last year and ceded territory in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian’s democratic credentials would seem to have allowed him to defeat a challenge from old-guard politicians that tend to be associated with the so-called Karabakh faction that used to dominate Armenian politics.
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| From PM Pashinian's Facebook page |
Preliminary results showed that Pashinian's Civil Contract party won 53.9 percent of the vote. The results, if correct, mean Pashinian's party will control an even greater percentage of seats than the 50 percent needed to rule, since the votes of the 22 election contenders that did not clear the threshold will be distributed among those that enter parliament.
Civil Contract is expected to have about 71 seats in the 107-member assembly, while the Armenia Alliance should have 29 and I Have The Honour, 7.
International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote was "competitive and generally well-managed."
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NORTH KOREA SLIDES INTO MASS HUNGER AMID INCREASED POLITICAL CRACKDOWNS
To have a real idea of what real systemic oppression, injustice, poverty, corruption and mismanagement really mean just look closely at the reality of today’s North Korea (or as it is officially called: Democratic People's Republic of Korea). This is an example of what an authoritarian regime can do to its people. For those who love George Orwell parallels, this is the closest country on the planet to the dystopian Oceania from the 1984 novel.
Six children were recently dragged into a North Korean court in shackles and had clearly been harshly interrogated since their arrest, a source from within the country told South Korea’s NK News. The public trial for the three boys and four teenage girls in Nampo was perfunctory, with the state prosecutor detailing the reasons why they were before the court, which he insisted were "serious crimes." The children were sentenced to five years at one of North Korea's notorious re-education camps.The children were found guilty of watching South Korean films and television series over the past year and sharing them with classmates, reported NK News, which employs a network of contacts within the North to obtain news for one of the most respected dissident media outlets.
Further crackdowns include banning certain types of haircuts and western style clothing like jeans. There are also reports of increased number of public executions and forced slave child labour masqueraded as "youth volunteers from orphanages". The children as young as 12 are being dispatched to work in coal mines and agricultural sectors. The Pyongyang Times reported them to be 17 years of age and claimed they "chose to give back one millionth of love given to them by the Party back".
Aside from the ongoing and daily political terror, North Korea is once again sliding into starvation. This is by now a well-known problem, and the government is at least admitting it this time. When North Korea last experienced a similar economic meltdown—in the late 1990s—then leader Kim Jong-il refused to admit it, as around one million people starved to death around him. Current leader Kim Jong-un is admitting reality. This may mean, though nothing is certain in that socialist paradise, he seems to care about the state of the economy more than his reclusive, disinterested father.
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| Kim Jong-un, prior to recent weight loss |
Officially the food shortages are blamed on the weather. The same excuse was used twenty-five years ago. Somehow weather variations do not provoke famine alerts in neighbouring South Korea. The real reasons are simple: staggering misgovernment and corruption. Sanctions imposed on North Korea mainly concern the communist elites and their luxury goods or industrial items, agriculture is not covered by sanctions.
The West, especially South Korea, is willing to assist but the communist regime rejects any accountability for foreign aid because it controls everything that comes into the country. If Kim is a reformer, as some say, he then he will recognize that outside assistance is not simply a blank check. There needs to be some mechanism to ensure its proper use.
Another problem is the closure of the border with China due to the coronavirus. It is not unlikely that thousands of North Koreans will try to cross the border in desperation during the famine.
The only conceivable threat to the regime is people's revolt. So is the regime in danger? Will another food crisis in North Korea finally bring popular pushback? Probably not. North Koreans may actually believe in the Kim cult, or perhaps the sheer harshness of the state against dissent has deterred North Koreans these many years. There has never been a revolt in North Korea in its seventy-five-year history. Just like in Orwell's Oceania the people are no longer capable of revolting: they are too weak, too brainwashed and the oppressive apparatus is too sophisticated and brutal.
The DPRK has at least 100 nuclear warheads and if there was a regime in the world that will have no qualms using you are looking at it. The only country that can control and influence the North is China. However China, as seen through its geopolitical stance of late, will most likely use the crisis to blackmail the West with the situation at the Peninsula. This may not end well.
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ISRAEL'S NEW GOVERNMENT
The fall of Benjamin Netanyahu proved once again the correctness of Mark Twain's assertion that "ruling politicians have to be changed as often as diapers and for the same reason".
The broad coalition headed by Naftali Bennet, right wing leader of the Zionist Yamina party managed to get everyone on board, from an Islamist Arab party to the left wing Meretz with secular Russian Avigdor Liberman in the middle, united by one major goal: get rid of the longest serving Israeli PM. He was there for 12 years and in the last several years it was unclear if Bibi (as he is called in Israel) served the interests of the state of Israel or the other way around. He betrayed and conspired against every major political figure around him and managed to push away even his closest allies and supporters. In spite of Netanyahu's incredible political achievements (in some ways unprecedented in the Israeli history) his personality and unethical conduct brought him down.
Israel's economy boomed during his reign, Donald Trump was the most pro-Israeli president in history who moved American embassy to Jerusalem and accepted the 1982 Israeli annexation of the Golan heights. Netanyahu can be credited with influencing American withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, a very potent military stance against Iran in Syria, personal amicable relations with Putin, Modi and other powerful leaders around the world and diplomatic relations with several key Arab states through the Abraham accords. It was under this PM Israel conducted an incredibly clean and technologically sophisticated operation against Hamas which fired 4.500 rockets against Israel (most of them intercepted) losing only one soldier and having several rooftops damaged. On the other hand in 11 days Hamas was dealt an extensive damage and civilian deaths were kept to minimum (for the large operation such as this). And finally there was this incredible success of the vaccination. And still the country rejected Netanyahu because most people knew that he had to go.
The new Israeli government faces multitude of hurdles and tasks but none is more important, even ahead of Iranian problem or the relations with Biden, than how to deal with the Palestinian question.
Israel also has to reform its broken political system, not the democratic spirit of it, but from the technical point of view something has to be done with the multitudes of the religious parties and never ending political deadlocks. Otherwise its business as usual for the only democracy, yes, problematic one, but still the only democracy in the Middle East.
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PERSON OF THE MONTH: YAIR LAPID
Born in Tel Aviv in 1963, Yair Lapid followed in the footsteps of his father, Tommy, another famous journalist-turned-politician who escaped from Hungary to Israel after World War II.
In 2003, Tommy achieved an electoral breakthrough for the staunchly secular, liberal Shinui (Change) Party, when it became the third-largest party and joined then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition. The partnership did not last and Shinui was dropped two years later.
Like his father, Yair began his career in the media, as a military correspondent for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), before becoming editor of a local Tel Aviv newspaper and later a columnist for the centre-right Maariv daily.
His journalistic skills and talent as an effective communicator drew him into television, and from the mid-1990s he established himself as a popular TV personality, and a talk show host. Yari Lapid became a household name in 2012 when he turned to politics with the new centrist party, Yesh Atid.
In May 2021 Lapid and his party pulled off what many had thought was impossible, cobbling together a coalition of bitter ideological rivals, ranging from right-wing religious nationalists to conservative Muslim Arab lawmakers.
That achievement was all the more remarkable given recent intercommunal clashes between Jewish and Arab citizens, sparked by the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The coalition deal he brokered will now see Lapid assume the premiership only after a two-year stint at the top by his main coalition ally, nationalist hardliner Naftali Bennett.
This coalition would have been impossible without Lapid's ability to compromise and bring such diverse partners together. He is currently Israel's foreign minister.
If the government survives for 2 years (a tall order for any Israeli government especially in its current form), Lapid will be the first Israeli PM from the entertainment and media sector and one of the very few without any background in military or security establishments.
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BRIEFLY NOTED
RUSSIA
Russian President Vladimir Putin has marked the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the USSR by hailing the sacrifices made by the Soviets during the war while claiming that European security has been "dramatically degraded" amid "escalating tensions."Putin also reiterated his previous statements, saying that his country "will never allow the distortion of the truth" about World War II.
In recent years, Putin frequently accused European countries of what he called the diminishing of the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the stressing of atrocities committed by Soviet forces, like the mass murder of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940 or the mass rapes of German women.
In an article published on June 22 in the German weekly Die Zeit, Putin emphasized that "despite attempts to rewrite the pages of the past that are being made today, the truth is that Soviet soldiers came to Germany not to take revenge on the Germans, but with a noble and great mission of liberation."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Putin on June 22 to "express empathy with the unmeasurable woes and suffering brought by the war that was launched by the Nazi regime," the Kremlin said.
"Both parties underlined the importance of preserving the historic memory of those tragic events" and noted that "overcoming mutual enmity and reconciliation of the Russian and German peoples had key importance for the destinies of postwar Europe and It was emphasized that preserving security on the continent now is also possible only through joint efforts," the Kremlin added.
CENTRAL ASIA
The World Bank says that Europe and Central Asia continue to grapple with containing the coronavirus pandemic, which is clouding the economic outlook for the region.
The Washington-based institution stated in its latest Global Economic Prospects report, released in early June that economic growth for the countries of the region is projected to reach 3.9 percent in 2021.
The World Bank warned, however, that the outlook remains “uncertain,” with uneven vaccine roll-outs and the withdrawal of domestic macroeconomic support measures weighing on the regional recovery.
The World Bank also noted that recent currency depreciations have put further upward pressure on prices, a growing concern for some economies that are still trying to shake off the effects of decades of Soviet-era planning.
“As a result of inflationary pressures, policy interest rates have been raised in one-third of the region’s economies thus far in 2021,” the bank said, pointing to Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Ukraine.
BELARUS
The United States, the European Union, Britain, and Canada have slapped a fresh round of coordinated sanctions on Belarus in response to the regime of Alexander Lukashenko's mounting repression against the political opposition and the free media.
"These coordinated designations demonstrate the steadfast transatlantic commitment to supporting the Belarusian people's democratic aspirations," Secretary of State Blinken said in a statement on June 21st, as the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and five entities. The Treasury said the move was coordinated with the US' international partners and was meant to hold to account Lukashenko's regime for its ongoing abuses and violations of international norms, including its forced diversion of a commercial Ryanair flight and arrest of journalist Raman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega last month.
Among the entities blacklisted by the Treasury were the main Belarusian security service, the KGB, the Internal Troops of the Interior Ministry, and the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption, known as the GUBOPIK, who were all involved in the post-election repression.
Other individuals covered by sanctions include members of Lukashenko’s entourage as well as lawmakers, prosecutors, judges, and other officials who are in the case of the latter regarded as "responsible for serious human rights violations and for seriously undermining the rule of law, as well as for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition”.
AZERBAIJAN
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed speculation that Turkey could build a military base in Azerbaijan as "rumours."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a visit to Baku on June 15th that he has not ruled out the possibility Ankara could build a military base in Azerbaijan. The so-called Shusha Declation on Allied Relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey was signed during the visit. It calls for stepped-up cooperation between Ankara and Baku in the military sphere.
Such a move by NATO-member Turkey could require Russia to take steps to ensure its own security and interests.
BULGARIA/NORTH MACEDONIA
Bulgaria's leaders have expressed their strong support for North Macedonia's road to joining the European Union, a departure from Sofia's earlier objections to North Macedonia starting talks to join the bloc.
The start of North Macedonia's accession talks was blocked by EU member Bulgaria in 2020 due to disputes over history, national identity, and language. Bulgaria wants North Macedonia to formally recognize that its language has Bulgarian roots, while Skopje has said any question of its identity and language are not negotiable.
CUBA
Cuba announced on June 21st that its three-shot Abdala vaccine against the coronavirus had proved around 93% effective in last-stage clinical trials. Another Cuba vaccine Soberana 2 has 62% efficacy with two of its 3 shots. The announcement came from state-run biopharmaceutical corporation BioCubaFarma, the producer of both vaccines which are expected to be granted emergency authority by local regulators any day.
Since the US imposed sanctions on Cuba in 1962, the country has developed strong pharmaceutical and bio-engineering industries.The communist-run country has opted not to import foreign vaccines but to rely on its own. Some experts said it was a risky bet but it appears to have paid off.
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THE AUTHORS
