U.S. WILL TRY TO PERSUADE MOSCOW TO SOFTEN POSITIONS ON CFE, KOSOVO AND IRAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.11.2007 15:47 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ 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 Monday.

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 on
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 U.S. plans to deploy an antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech
Republic that Washington says would protect against attacks from Iran.

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 U.S. 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.

Daniel Fried, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European
affairs, told NATO ambassadors this month 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. "The Russians had acknowledged that these were quite
interesting and they said they wanted to work from them. We hope for
some intensive diplomacy and movement before Dec.

12th," Fried said, the International Herald Tribune reports.