US aims to soften Russia on Kosovo
BERLIN - The United States is prepared to offer concessions to Russia over the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty to try to persuade Moscow to soften its positions on Kosovo and Iran, diplomats said yesterday.
The concessions are part of a complex package Washington is pursuing as it tries to overcome Russian opposition to independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo and to gain support for new sanctions against Tehran that the Bush administration announced last week.
With time running out for a deal on Kosovo - the deadline for an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanians expires Dec. 10 - and with the United States trying to win support for further sanctions against Iran, the administration is pressing to bring Russia on board.
Haunting the United States and the Europeans is Russia's threat to withdraw from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which has been considered a cornerstone of European security since the end of the Cold War. President Vladimir Putin made the threat in response to US plans to deploy an antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic that Washington says would protect against attacks from Iran.
"The Baltic states and the countries of Eastern Europe are desperately afraid of the US trying to do a grand bargain with Putin," said Tomas Valesek, director of foreign policy and defense issues at the Center for European Reform in London.
"These countries fear that once you go down this road, Putin's appetite will become even bigger," Valesek said. And a senior NATO diplomat who requested anonymity said: "The US is desperately finding incentives so as to win Russian support for Kosovo and Iran, but also in a way that would save the conventional arms treaty. The question is whether Russia but also some of the smaller NATO countries will buy into the compromise."
The Bush administration suggested to Russia two weeks ago that it could cooperate in the missile shield and that a similar Russian system in Azerbaijan could be linked to the US project. Putin turned down the offer.
If Moscow refuses to yield on Kosovo, the United States and most European Union countries might recognize its independence anyway. That move could further destabilize the Balkans, worsen relations with Moscow, and lead to a Chinese-Russian veto in the United Nations Security Council to block new sanctions on Iran, diplomats said.
Putin has threatened to pull out of the treaty on Dec. 12 unless the treaty's 56 signatories ratify amendments that were negotiated in 1999.
The 56 include the United States, Canada, and countries across Europe and Central Asia that belong to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which negotiated the treaty.
Daniel Fried, the US assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, told NATO ambassadors that the Bush administration "had put some new ideas on the table" when Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Moscow two weeks ago.
Fried said the ideas involved breaking "the impasse which has blocked ratification of the adapted CFE Treaty" but he would not give details. "We hope for some intensive diplomacy and movement before Dec. 12."
Zygimantas Pavilionis, under secretary of state at the Latvian Foreign Ministry, said: "It is of course very important that we have this dialogue with Russia on the treaty.
"But with all respect to the dialogue, it would be good if our American friends and the EU as a bloc would pay a bit more attention to what is happening in Russia's neighborhood in the coming months. Global issues that dominate the agenda could be a distraction for real Russian interests in its neighborhood."
