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Jonathan Paris, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, appeared on France 24 to discuss Russia's support for the Assad regime and what it means for a possible UN resolution against Syria.
Damon Wilson US Senate Testimony: Ukraine at a Crossroads
On February 1, Atlantic Council executive vice president Damon Wilson testified at a hearing of the US Senate Committe on Foreign Relations on the topic: "Ukraine at a Crossroads: What's at Stake for the US and Europe?"
Michele Dunne on US-Egypt Relations for NPR's Morning Edition
Relations between the US and Egypt have taken a downturn since Egyptian authorities raided the offices of seventeen nongovernmental organizations in December - three of them US-funded. Michele Dunne, director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, spoke on NPR's Morning Edition about the situation and what it means for US aid to Egypt.
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The South Asia Center receives guidance and support from many experts throughout the world. Our senior fellows, guest-speakers, Center patrons, and visitors contribute heavily to the Center’s mission to “wage peace,” and engage the international community in the region. The Center asked our contributors the simple, but key question, “What you do expect in 2012?”
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NATO Agrees to "Graduated Re-Engagement" with Russia
Peter Cassata | December 03, 2008Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's Secretary General, said after a two day meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels that NATO had agreed to "conditional and graduated re-engagement" with Russia. Deutsche Welle:
NATO should open informal diplomatic talks with Russia after it broke off formal ties following August's Russian invasion of Georgia, alliance foreign ministers agreed Tuesday. And while Georgia and Ukraine can be certain of joining the alliance at an unspecified point in the future, they will not get a fast track to membership by sidestepping the formal procedure of the Membership Action Plan (MAP), the meeting in Brussels agreed.
At the meeting, NATO members "agreed on what I'd qualify as a conditional and graduated re-engagement with Russia," said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "I have been mandated as I see fit … to see what political contacts can be possible. This doesn't mean that we now suddenly agree with the Russians on their disproportionate use of force in August," Scheffer added. "We fundamentally disagree, but we'll try to re-engage."
Scheffer stressed that the resumed meetings of the NATO-Russia Council were informal, and that the Council is still technically suspended as a response to Russia's invasion of Georgia in August. The alliance also repeated the promise of eventual membership for Georgia and Ukraine first offered last April at the Bucharest summit, noting that both countries have made progress toward membership requirements. According to RFE/RL, Scheffer stated:
"This graduated re-engagement [with Russia] does certainly not mean that we do now suddenly agree with the Russians on the disproportionate use of force in August in the Caucasus [or] on the recognition – illegal recognition – of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
All elements – I repeat, all elements – of the decisions regarding Ukraine and Georgia taken by the NATO heads of state and government in Bucharest still stand. All elements. And that includes, very much, that they will one day be members, if they so wish, of course. And important to add, when they meet NATO's standards."
Condoleezza Rice said that Russia is still paying a diplomatic price for its conflict with Georgia, noting, "Russia's invasion of Georgia cut off what had been a highly articulated program of engagement. So, no, it is not business as usual." Yet, even "conditional" ties with Russia would seem to be another sign (in addition to resumed economic partnership talks with the EU) that relations between Moscow and the West are gradually thawing after the Georgia war.
