MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th August, 2018) Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev held a meeting on Thursday with US National Security Adviser John Bolton in Geneva, which resulted in an arrangement to continue security cooperation and resume suspended bilateral contacts across several ministries and departments, however, both officials noted the existence of disagreements in certain areas.
The sides also discussed a number of pressing international issues, including Syria, Ukraine, sanctions and arms control treaties, as well as prospects for Russian-US security interaction.
The meeting was a follow-up to the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump held in Helsinki in July.
Commenting on the arrangement to resume the inter-ministerial contacts, Patrushev said that that it was particularly vital to continue defense contacts with the United States, including on the Syrian crisis.
"A wide range of issues has been discussed. An agreement has been reached to continue cooperation via the security councils. We also agreed to resume cooperation via the channels which had been suspended - the defense ministries, the defense ministers, heads of general staff and several working groups. Also, that the foreign ministries will resume contacts as well," Patrushev said.
Partushev also said that during his meeting with Bolton the sides had agreed to make contacts of the two states' security services regular.
Bolton, on his part, said that a considerable progress on certain issues was achieved during his negotiations with Patrushev.
"I think we made a lot of progress, we identified certain areas where lines of communication could be restored and more work done by the affected agencies - State Department, Defense Department, other agencies as well," Bolton said after the meeting.
The US official added there were also some areas where disagreements between him and Patrushev remained and they did not see "much utility in resuming discussion" on these issues.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the eve of the talks that Patrushev and Bolton should try to find topics, on which Washington has at least some willingness to engage in dialogue.
NON-PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL
The two officials, in particular discussed the whole range of issues that the two countries have on non-proliferation and arms control.
Bolton said that the United States and Russia are at a very early stage of considering what to do with new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
"We didnt set a date for the discussion about what to do about START � We are very, very early in the process of considering what we are going to do with new START or the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty," Bolton said.
Patrushev confirmed the discussion of these issues, including non-proliferation related to Iran and North Korea, however provided no further details.
Under New START, which came into effect in 2011, both the United States and Russia agreed to arms reduction objectives including reducing the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, nuclear armed bombers and nuclear warheads.
In late July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that Washington had no position with regard to extending the treaty beyond 2021.
Prior to the meeting, a source in one of the delegations told Sputnik that Bolton and Patrushev were not expected to adopt any official paper on the results of their one-day talks in Geneva as it was rather expected to be "an exchange of views."
However, after the meeting, Patrushev said that the final communique was not signed due to the US position.
"We planned to sign a joint statement after the meeting, but didn't sign it, because the Americans wanted it to contain [a phrase] that we interfered in their election, in their opinion, while we deny this," Patrushev said.
He said Russia proposed in response to include in the document a provision on the inadmissibility of US interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
"We said that if there is such a phrase, we need to include in the document [the provision] that the Americans should not interfere in internal affairs [of other countries]. Then they said that they would not sign such a statement at all," Patrushev said.
A the same time, the Russian security chief noted that no accusations against Moscow were voiced at the meeting.
"Work was proceeding in a constructive way. We naturally had different points of view on a number of issues, but we worked out proposals. We handed these proposals, which we formulated on each issue, to the US side. They agreed to work on our proposals," Patrushev said.
Patrushev has also invited his US colleagues to hold a new meeting in Moscow or any other city in Russia. He stressed that the issue of the timing of the new meeting was not discussed, but new negotiations should be fruitful.
