SAN FRANCISCO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th October, 2018) Russians and Americans need to engage in more track two or unofficial dialogue because they can jumpstart official discussions to improve bilateral relations, former Defense Secretary William Perry told Sputnik.
Perry's comments came on the sidelines of the Fort Ross Dialogue in San Francisco, California, which brought together US and Russian officials - including Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and California Governor Jerry Brown - along with experts and businesses.
"US-Russian relations are bad and in need of improvement, and they will improve only through more dialogue," Perry said on Monday. "I was discussing with Ambassador [Anatoly] Antonov ways of improving the kind of unofficial or track two dialogue... because it can stimulate official dialogue."
Perry said, for example, the US and Russian governments should right now be discussing how to reduce the nuclear threat and extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Yet some type of action needs to be taken to jumpstart such talks, he added.
"Non-governmental people, however, we can stimulate those actions through unofficial actions and that's what we are doing," Perry said. "We are trying to promote track two dialogue, unofficial Russians and unofficial Americans talking in hopes that they will... stimulate their governments to act."
The Fort Ross Dialogue, sponsored by Transneft, Chevron and Sovcomflot, is a biannual independent forum that has been held since 2012. The Fort Ross complex, located some 90 miles north of San Francisco, was built by Russian pioneers in the 19th century and is part of a state park registered as a US national historic landmark.
Relations between the United States and Russia worsened following their disagreement over the crisis in Ukraine. The United States imposed several round of sanctions against Russia after Crimea held a referendum in 2014 in which a vast majority of residents decided to reunify with Russia. Washington also accused Moscow of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and has imposed additional rounds of sanctions. Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations.
