WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th June, 2019) The positive tone of the Osaka talks between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was still unlikely to improve dialogue on disarmament or prevent an arms race especially given the current state of American politics, former diplomat and State Department official Jim Jatras told Sputnik.
Trump and Putin met on the margins of the G20 on Friday where they discussed a range of issues including reviving arms control talks. Both sides earlier this year exited the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
"Slim to none," Jatras said when asked about prospects for US-Russian arms control talks. "Washington blew up the process... Russia cannot afford to crawl in submission to US diktats as a precondition."
Prospects were dim, Jatras explained, because the arms control regime inherited from the Cold War was collapsing, NATO was continuing to expand its footprint on Russia's doorstep, and US domestic media and politicians oppose detente.
Meanwhile, prospects of a US hot war with Iran were all too real and then Russia and China would have no choice but to support Tehran with everything short of direct military action, Jatras predicted.
"The possibility of something horrible happening before any incremental drift towards sanity can bear fruit is all too real," he said.
Following the pattern of the Helsinki Trump-Putin summit, even the muted sidebar meeting between the leaders of the world's two foremost nuclear powers in Osaka had already prompted shrieking outrage among American politicians, Jatras noted.
Jatras observed that several US lawmakers and media were alarmed about Trump's "comic stage admonition" to Putin not to "meddle" in the 2020 US election.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov after the talks on Friday said the discussions between the two leaders were substantial, constructive and positive. Putin's talks with the US president focused on China, Syria, strategic stability and disarmament, according to Peskov.
Putin told the Kommersant newspaper after his meeting with his US counterpart that prospects of extension of the bilateral New START treaty had been addressed but it was too early to discuss the outcome of the talks since there was a "long way" ahead.
