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PREVIEW: NATO and Russia, ever squabbling, aim to make up on Corfu

By Dieter Ebeling Jun 26, 2009, 2:08 GMT

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Greg SomervilleJun 26th, 2009 - 05:03:36

The meeting of the NATO-Russia committee is important and our Secretary of State's elbow fracture may not rise to the level of show-stopper in regard to her rumored no-show on Corfu, certainly it ought not to do so. The Russians have lately made a number of proposals and bruited a number of initiatives, including a Moscow conference before year's end on Middle East peace. This is not the time for the U.S. to risk appearing either deaf to, or uninterested in, these flurries of Russian activity. OSCE auspices are undoubtedly going to prove chillier to our interests after Kazakhstan takes over the chair from Greece, especially in light of the customs union which the Kremlin just announced in connection with WTO accession talks, ongoing for sixteen years. Russia now plans to enter on WTO membership with Kazakhstan and Belarus all acceeding at once. And our Secretary of State has a history with Kazakhstan, of Senate speeches opposing OSCE chairmanship for so clearly backward and oppressed a polity. The time for clear U.S. signals of vigorous engagement with Russia in rapprochement over NATO's expansion overreach is now.

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