The Executive Director of the McCain Institute, former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker is one of the potential candidates for the position of assistant Secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia. Comments about this site, “Today,” said the Director of the Institute of world policy Alyona Hetmanczuk, discussing today’s article in the Washington Post about the White house plans to reassess its approach to negotiations with Russia in the Donbass.
“The signals that come, clearly demonstrate that the new Administration, if it will move more actively in the settlement of the conflict in the Donbass, it will be still in the logic of the Minsk process. That is, today we are not talking about any other format. Most likely, also is not in question, despite claims about it (the head of the Ukrainian foreign Ministry Pavel Klimkin – Ed.) about the full U.S. participation in the “Normandy format”. I think that after the meeting with Merkel and those statements that made trump in Brussels towards Germany (25 may at the NATO summit in Brussels – Ed.) it will be even harder. Therefore, we can say today high on some kind of parallel U.S.-Russian track, which is, as they say, the Americans, the facilitator of the negotiation process as a whole”, – said the “Today” Alain Getmanchuk.
To intensify this process needs a new assistant Secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia. This position was previously occupied by Victoria Nuland, which is quite often met with Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. He is called the architect of annexation of Crimea, separatism and the subsequent Russian intervention in the Donbass.
“Successor Nuland is looked already, probably, if not since the inauguration, then perhaps for a couple of months. Even called the potential candidates. One of them is Kurt Volker, Executive Director of the McCain Institute, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, a highly experienced diplomat. There are other contenders, there were discussions of how it should be or a diplomat or a political figure. So I think that special novelty can be found only in the level of engagement of the United States, the new Administration in the settlement process”, – said Hetmanczuk.
Earlier in the presidential Administration of Ukraine, unofficially, said that Russia refuses to meet in the “Normandy format” to their presidential elections, which are scheduled for March 2018, not to mention some progress in the implementation of Minsk. Extending and even strengthening of the sanctions, about the recent rumor in Congress, according to the Director of the world policy Institute, may force the Kremlin to fulfill its part of obligations.
“But the important question of how President trump sees itself on a mission to take a certain personal, political and reputational responsibility for resolving this conflict. For example, President Obama not seen such a mission, he believed that this question cannot be resolved until the end of his presidential term, so not worth it to invest its own political capital and he did not see how this could make a political success story. I wonder, does the President trump, what can he do with this success story and that he is prepared to invest his own political capital? While these are serious signals I do not see. Let’s not forget that we are dealing with a rather inconsistent policy of the Administration trump. Even if today they are willing to be actively involved – this does not mean that, say, after the talks in Hamburg with Putin (at the G20 summit – Ed.) they will change their minds. We need to attract those people in the new Administration who share our vision of settlement (first, security and only then – political settlement), to work with these people. At the same time, we should not be excessive expectations that the new Administration will contribute to the settlement of the conflict as we would like,” concluded Alain Getmanchuk.
We will remind, today in the Washington Post has published an original article about how the White house plans to reconsider the negotiations with Russia over Ukraine, giving them a new impetus. According to the newspaper, between Russia and the United States at the level of departments is built a new strategy for the resumption of relations with the assistance of the office of the Vice President of the United States Michael Pence. It is reported that Tillerson wants to appoint a special envoy from the state Department to manage new efforts in Ukraine. The purpose of this special envoy will be to support diplomatic channel with the Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov.
