Moscow and Washington have every opportunity to make significant progress towards improving not only their relations but improving situations around the world, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said at the Primakov Readings International Forum held in Moscow.
"Tensions between the United States and Russia are not a rare event, they have happened before and they have been overcome often before. Problems between the United States and Russia are needed to be solved by negotiation and by a common vision of the two," Kissinger said.
Kissinger expressed hope that the United States and Russia would improve bilateral relations and jointly contribute to solving international crises.
He said that he believes that there is an opportunity to make significant progress towards improving not only their relations but improving situations around the world by cooperative efforts.
"Issues like Ukraine and Syria in which the United States and Russia can jointly make contribution to healing these [conflicts]," Sputnik cited him as saying.
According to Kissinger, experience gained over the years of diplomatic work convinces him that Russia and the United States will eventually come to the need to act together. "I believe that we can be at the beginning of the next stage in the relations between Russia and the United States," he said.
The deputy dean of the Faculty of Global Economics and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics of the National Research University, Andrei Suzdaltsev, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that Kissinger's words should be taken as a "good wish not to slip into a new Caribbean crisis". "Unfortunately, there are no people in the current US administration who remember the crisis and threats of the Soviet-American destabilization," he stressed.
"There is communication between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, some expert groups are working, but they have not yet made their decisions to practical solutions. In my opinion, there is no readiness for a serious Russian-US dialogue, and in this regard the question arises whether we should put any hopes on the meeting of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Hamburg. I am pessimistic about it," Andrey Suzdaltsev admitted.
The expert explained that Trump's goals in negotiations with the Russian president can be not peaceful. Trump is going to visit Hamburg for success, so we should expect him to press Moscow on some decisions, on which we naturally will not agree. If we start to hesitate, our allies, Including China, will react to our weaknesses. I believe that in this situation the meeting is unlikely to benefit Moscow," the deputy dean of the Faculty of Global Economics and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics of the National Research University expects.
The President of the Minchenko Consulting Communication Group, Yevgeny Minchenko, is also pessimistic. "I do not see much reason for optimism - neither from the economic point of view, nor from the point of view of geopolitics, nor from the point of view of meaningful proposals. Henry Kissinger is a respected analyst, but still he is an unofficial person, and his words do not mean anything concrete. If it's about a big deal between Russia and the United States, I do not understand what could be the subject of this big deal now - no one has designated it so far," he explained.
