Once again Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) will have to convince his stateside counterpart Condoleezza Rice that Russian and American economic goals are not quite as different as they seem.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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U.S. and Russia Ready to Make Concessions
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday to discuss Russia’s upcoming accession to the WTO. Russia strives to secure America’s promise to scrap the Jackson-Vanik amendment which has been restricting the U.S-Russian trade for three decades. In return, Moscow is willing to make concessions on uranium exports, continue cutting on subsidies to Belarus and lift curbs from trade with Georgia.
After morning talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Russian Foreign Minister is expected to meet U.S. President George W. Bush.
Kommersant sources close to the Russian minister have unveiled some issues on the agenda. The talks are likely to focus on plans to lift the Jackson-Vanik amendment which was imposed against the Soviet Union in 1974, curbing a large part of U.S-Russian hi-tech trade. The amendment may be thrown away in the view of Russia’s upcoming accession to the World Trade Organization, which makes this regulation absurd.
Russia is likely to secure the membership in the WTO by mid-2007. According to a source of Kommersant , Sergey Lavrov is going to inform Condoleezza Rice that Russia intends to lift all curbs from trade with Georgia which were introduced in the heat of the row last summer.
In return to a possible abolition of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Sergey Lavrov may offer his American counterparts a compromise on uranium exports to the United States under the 1993 HEU-LEU agreement, a program of converting highly enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear power stations. The Russian state-owned Tekhsnabeksport company, which insists on the liberalization of the U.S. uranium market, is ready to cut on its supplies from 2010.
On another note, Mr. Lavrov is expected use Belarus as another trump at the meeting with the U.S President. Sources of Kommersant report that Russia is eager to show that it is curtailing covert budget subsidizing of Minsk and supports market reforms in the country.
The Russian Foreign Minister is also expected to express concern over the discrimination of Russian businessmen in the United States, including Oleg Deripaska, head of Basic Elements, whose requests for a U.S. visa have been turned down for almost ten years.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 02, 2007
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