Monday, March 9, 2009 1:35 PM

WH Works To Warm Relations With Russia

By ALINA SELYUKH

(Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday hailed "a fresh start" in U.S. relations with Russia after a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Coming on the heels of revelations about President Obama's early overtures to President Dmitry Medvedev, last week's meeting is part of a larger push by the White House to reset a relationship that has deteriorated over the past eight years.

It's a change many say is long overdue. "The war in Georgia made clear that U.S. policy toward Russia requires a fundamental reassessment and a new direction," wrote Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a joint March 2009 Russia Policy Brief. Both experts call the current conditions "a new post-Soviet nadir," the lowest point since the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in 1986. They attributed the cooling in large part to the Bush administration's lack of a clear policy on Russia.

Friday's meeting didn't yield any immediate progress on sore subjects like missile defense or Kosovo, but the change in approach from the previous adminsitration was apparent. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struck a harsher tone on her way to meeting Lavrov for the first time in early 2005, urging Russia to "make clear to the world" its commitment to "the basics of democracy," specifically the independent judiciary, strong rule of law and free press.

In a press conference after his meeting with Clinton, Lavrov cited "open and friendly atmosphere" of the talks, according to the Russian Interfax news agency. Another Russian agency, RIA Novosti, reported his plea that the two countries continue to partner in the "fight against global challenges and threats, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."

Lavrov has characterized the talks as an important step in laying the groundwork for when Obama and Medvedev meet at the G20 summit in early April. Clinton, for her part, told BBC News that NATO's agreement to resume talks with Russia, especially about the coalition's mission in Afghanistan, proved a willingness to shift its attitude towards a former enemy. That message was similar to the one sent by Vice President Joe Biden at the Munich Security Conference in February, when he said it was time for the U.S. and Russia "to revisit the many areas where we can and should work together."

In the meantime, a recent Atlantic Council poll showed that Europeans are more optimistic about a possible warning than Americans themselves are. While the Europeans' opinion on the potential improvement was almost split, more than 68 percent of Americans expected the effort to "prove largely futile."