What is now seeable?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and American President Donald Trump sat down for a conference in Finland on 16th July 2018 to talk about a broad range of topics and bilateral ties, a meeting Trump entered after bashing previous US policy toward Russia. Presidents Trump and Putin respect each other and they get along well," the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"There is no clear agenda. It will be determined by the heads of state themselves as they go along." The lack of a stated agenda, along with insistence by the US on giving Putin and Trump time alone, has worried many pundits in the US who harbor suspicions about Trump's ties to Russia. But both the leaders met with high expectations for improved relations between the two countries.

"I think we have great opportunities together," Trump, seated next to Putin, told reporters before a 90-minute closed-door meeting between the leaders. "And frankly we have not been getting along very well in the last number of years. It's getting close to two years." But he added: "I think we will have an extraordinary relationship. I really think the world wants to see us get along."

Trump's power and legitimacy in America rest on two pillars i.e. mobilization at home and perceived fear abroad. Russians see themselves fighting two wars against the United States-one in Ukraine and one in Syria. The ongoing economic pressure exerted by sanctions serves as a constant reminder that Russians need to stick together in the face of a powerful enemy.

That Putin has been able to bring the enemy to the negotiating table testifies to the Russian President's power of politics. Before the Putin-Trump summit took place in Helsinki, many international observers and political analysts thought that such a summit would never happen. But Shakespeare's words have again proved aright, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

One of the questions raised ahead of the Putin-Trump meeting has been, "Why Helsinki?" The location was not chosen at random - the country took a neutral stance at the height of the Cold War and has been the host of a number of important meetings between the US and the then-Soviet Union.

Finland is not a NATO member and is considered neutral, which the Finns themselves do not see; after all, they are an EU country. The powerful neighbor Russia has seen the state as an important buffer against the West for decades. This sets the scene for the meeting: America and Russia are rivals, as they were in the Cold War era, and summits can only took place in this state, if at all, on a neutral basis.

Speaking of rivalry, the sense of competition between Trump and Putin is not seen as a bad thing in either camp. Last week, Trump said he saw Putin as a "competitor" rather than an enemy. Remarking on Trump's comment ahead of the summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state broadcaster Russia Today that, "Competition is a positive phenomenon, I would say. Competition helps the world to develop. But there is a 'but.' Competition has to be fair. We need fair competition in politics, in the economy. This helps all the global processes develop."

In the "exclusive interview" published on the summit day, Peskov promoted Trump and Putin's like-minded attitudes. "Any head of state, when talking to their foreign counterparts, has to take care of the interests of their state. And our president is quite pragmatic, quite consistent, and quite practical.

He always says that he cares about the national interests of Russia, above everything else. That's why he understands the reciprocal beliefs of Donald Trump, as applied to his country," Peskov said. "As leaders of two major powers, Putin and Trump obviously respect each other and get along well." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a master of diplomat has summed up the results of the Helsinki summit in just three exuberant words: "better than super."

The business daily Vedomosti was more cautious, using the headline "Dialogue without guarantees." "They're not cracking open the champagne in the Kremlin but are getting ready for long, hard work," said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst. "They didn't plan to close any deals or move ahead on any issues.

They wanted to legitimize dialogue - to bring it back." "Putin will be cautious and observe what happens with the fallout from this summit," said analyst Gabuev. "If he discovers that Trump can absorb the damage, he will move very carefully toward a next meeting, but probably not in the US."

The mere fact of the meeting, followed by a joint press conference with the American President, would be a demonstration of power for Putin. He needed to deliver nothing else. If, however, he is also able to nudge Trump toward a verbal acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Russia's interests in its old sphere of influence something that Putin would almost certainly bring up in conversation, making Trump likely to parrot an attitude he instinctively understands Russians will perceive it as Putin restoring Russia's superpower status.

Putin might have also suggested a deal whereby the United States pulls out of Syria. Being able to make such an announcement would make Trump feel like the dealmaker he longs to be. To Russians, it would look like they had won the war. If any deal has happened, though, it would be merely an accidental substantive bonus attached to a performance designed to be empty.

Putin's Washington visit may still be a ways off and depends on the political situation in the United States. If the Republicans have a strong showing in the November midterm elections and Trump gets a mandate to stay the course, Gabuev said, the two presidents will be able to start planning their next summit.

He continued, "This is an indication that when it comes to two important countries like Russia and a global spoiler like America, language is important, and being precise is important." Off-the-cuff diplomacy made it difficult to work out what was agreed but some details have emerged in wake of meetings though those details do not speak for any solidified outcomes.

No communiqué was issued following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, underlining the off-the-cuff informal diplomacy in which Donald Trump specializes. The absence of an agreed statement leaves secret the status and extent of any practical agreements reached either between the Russian President and his American counterpart or in the later wider meeting between officials. But in the two leaders' joint press conference and subsequent interviews and briefings, the outlines of some agreements emerged, with little sign that Russia has given ground in return for Vladimir Putin being brought in from the cold.

Putin, in his Fox interview, argued Russia was too large a country to be sanctioned and isolated, but Trump was not asked in the press conference about the future status of sanctions. Putin appears to be banking on a working party consisting of captains of industry to open a dialogue on future economic relations, pointing out US trade into the Russian market is minuscule in comparison with European trade. Putin is hopeful that business voices will call for sanctions to be lifted.

The 16 July meeting between Putin and Trump is aimed at warming ties with Moscow, at a time when Russia's relations with the West languish at levels not seen for decades. As a result, it has served as neutral ground for meetings between US and Soviet or Russian leaders. "Finland was an in-between country in the Cold War era.... It wanted to form this bridge and stressed its neutrality in its relations with the superpowers," Teija Tiilikainen, director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told AFP.

Finland's role as a facilitator in peace negotiations also follows in the Nordic tradition. The choice is, in many ways, not surprising. Helsinki has a history of hosting summits between Russian and American leaders that stretches from the Cold War and has a long tradition of acting as a bridge between the super-powers. Since the Cold War ended, Helsinki has retained its role as a mediator internationally, recently playing host to discussions around North Korea, as well as between high-level contacts between Russian and US military officials.

The most significant Soviet-US summit hosted by the city was in 1975. During this time, President Gerald Ford met with the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev for talks that produced the "Helsinki Accords" when Soviet Union and the US gathered 35 nations to forge a new Cold War understanding in which the countries committed to respecting post-World War II borders and the USSR was pushed into signing onto human rights conventions.

In 1990, Helsinki hosted a Soviet- US summit, this time between President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The two met at a markedly different time to the present era -- the Soviet Union was collapsing, Russia and the US were embracing one another as the Cold War ended. The last major summit between a Russian and U.S. president in Helsinki was in 1997 between President Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet president.

Trump said in the CBS interview that he had given no thought to asking Putin to extradite the dozen Russian military intelligence officers indicted this past week in on charges related to the hacking of Democratic targets. But after being asked about that by his interviewer, Trump said "certainly I'll be asking about it" although extradition is highly unlikely. The US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Moscow and can't force the Russians to hand over citizens. Russia's constitution also prohibits turning over citizens to foreign governments.

Putin is likely to strongly reaffirm his denial of any meddling and cast the US charges as unfounded. The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected last week's indictment as part of a shameful comedy staged by those in the US who try to prevent the normalization of Russia-US ties, arguing that it doesn't contain evidence to back the accusations. While both Putin and Trump spoke about the need to discuss arms control issues, they were unlikely to make any quick deals. They might have underlined the importance of continuing the discussions, setting the stage for discussions on expert level.

Donald Who? Trump wasn't on Russia's radar, Putin says. In a feisty 30-minute interview with Mr. Wallace on Fox News, Mr. Putin denied that his nation interfered with American elections, dismissed concerns about the deaths of his political opponents and said he had no compromising materials on President Trump. The former businessman, he said, "was of no interest for us" before he ran for president.

"There are plenty of rich persons in the United States," Putin told Wallace during an interview taped on 16th July 2018 in Helsinki. "He was in the construction business. He organized the beauty pageants. But no, it would never occur to anyone that he would think of running for president."

"First of all," Putin said, "all of us have plenty of political rivals. I'm pretty sure President Trump has plenty of political rivals." He further added, "All of us have our own set of domestic problems." When Wallace asked about a video released by Putin's government showing a nuclear missile hitting an area of Florida close to Trump's estate, Mar-a-Lago, Putin simply denied the claim.

The Helsinki Summit or the Putin-Trump Summit is over without guarantees. Let's wait and see what a global spoiler like America acts in the near future and what comes out of its bag of tricks. What is now seeable? Beware!


The writer is a political
commentator and an author