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What Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin should agree on in Helsinki

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Trump has said he hopes for an “extraordinary relationship” with Russia ahead of a summit with Putin. Their talks will cover several tricky topics, but there’s one uncontroversial issue where real progress is possible.

In a briefing for reporters last week, Washington’s ambassador to Moscow clearly was trying to manage expectations for the upcoming high-stakes summit between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki.

Asked whether he expected any concrete commitments or agreements to come out of the summit, Jon Huntsman said: “I think the fact that we’re having a summit at this level, at this time in history, is a deliverable in itself.”

He then cited the recent meeting between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore as a possible blueprint for the upcoming talks between the US and Russian leaders.

While the Trump administration argues that what it calls the “change in atmosphere” after the Trump-Kim meeting has led to the possibility of reduced tension with Pyongyang and that this should be viewed as a success, many outsider observers disagree with that interpretation.

Self-made crisis

They note that Trump himself, with his bellicose rhetoric, ratcheted up the tensions with North Korea only to then arrange a summit to defuse a crisis of his own making. They also argue that the much-hyped summit produced little more than a vague statement devoid of any specifics regarding the Trump administration’s touted goal of North Korea’s complete denuclearization, and that Pyongyang since then has stonewalled clear commitments to that end.

Considering its meager track record, the Trump administration’s signaling that the Singapore summit could serve as a blueprint for Putin and Trump’s Monday Helsinki get-together is underwhelming for such a high-profile meeting, said Christine Wormuth, the former undersecretary of defense policy for President Barack Obama. “I don’t think it’s too much to expect that there would be more concrete outcomes to such a meeting than just the meeting itself.”

But because the Trump-Putin summit faces even higher hurdles — some of Trump’s own making — than his meeting with the North Korean leader, progress or tangible results could prove even more elusive in Helsinki than they were in Singapore.

Acrimonious NATO summit

The most immediate obstacle for the Trump-Putin meeting is the US president just coming from a deeply acrimonious NATO summit, where he repeatedly lashed out against America’s traditional allies only days before he is to meet Russia’s leader, whom he has repeatedly praised. That makes for an awkward setting.

“It would not be helpful at this point to have a very warm meeting where President Trump and President Putin are mutually sharing grievances about NATO countries for example,” said Wormuth. “I think the timing of this summit is less than ideal, particularly coming quickly on the heels of the NATO summit, where the atmospherics were quite bad.”

But aside from the astonishing fact that it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that a US president might have a friendlier meeting with the leader of Russia than with the leaders of the US’ European allies, numerous thorny issues make progress between Moscow and Washington appear difficult, if not impossible. Chief among them is Russian meddling in the US election, its role in Syria, its illegal annexation of Crimea and its intervention in Ukraine.

Trump’s impulses

To be sure, Trump’s impulse on all of these issues is to accommodate Russia or strike what he views as some sort of grand bargain with the Kremlin in order to establish better ties with the country and Putin personally. This has been one of only a few central and consistent patterns of his political framework since the beginning of his presidential campaign.

And one can certainly never exclude Trump — particularly during the Helsinki session during which he and Putin are to meet privately with only interpreters present — making major concessions, such as accepting the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. And this is precisely what many Trump and Kremlin watchers in the US and Europe fear.

But since Russia is arguably the one area in which the Republican-led Congress has taken seriously its role to act as a check on the administration, Trump’s opportunity to swiftly and unilaterally change key US foreign policy stances appears to be constrained.

Will Helsinki be Trump the art of the deal ending Syrian war?

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When US President Donald Trump meets his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki on July 16, a deal on Syria could be closed in good order, to the benefit of both countries, and most importantly, the people of Syria, who are thirsting for an end to the war. In this score, Trump can win by building on Putin’s diplomatic table setting between Israel, Iran and other key regional players.

Fyodor Lukyanov explained that “Trump would be willing to say that there’s no threat to Israel from Syria and that Putin will help drive Iran away from the Israeli border. This is what his electorate should hear. And it can be achieved thanks to long efforts to marry the security interests of Iran and Israel in Syria, with neither Trump nor other US representatives being the main protagonists. On the contrary, the key players include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Putin — who have a high level of trust between them — as well as representatives of the Syrian government and top Iranian officials. Contacts are apparently indirect and delicate, with no formal arrangements possible.”

Al-Monitor has explained how Putin has become the go-to mediator between Israel and Iran, while navigating the often conflicting interests of the other regional powers. “The combination of military force with subtle and proactive multilateral diplomacy paves the way for strengthening the central authorities in Syria. Russia is showing uncharacteristic flexibility and taking into account the security interests of the key players — Turkey, Israel and Iran,” wrote Lukyanov. “It is also prodding the intra-Syrian groups into interacting quite insistently, even if not always successfully. … Russia … aims to engage all the regional stakeholders since, in its opinion, Damascus can oversee the process of rebuilding Syria only on the condition that all the internal and external forces agree — or at least remain neutral.

(Moscow sees the survival of the Syrian regime as the only way to preserve Syrian statehood.) Both consent and neutrality come as a product of arduous and sometimes fruitless work. But the goal can only be achieved through an ‘inclusive approach,’ as Russian diplomats like to call it.”

Not surprisingly, Putin has been fully engaged in the week leading up to the summit, meeting with Netanyahu on one day and Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the next, in Moscow last week.

In his meeting with Putin on July 11, “Netanyahu sought to emphasize that Israel has no contradictions with Russia and that they are working together on Syria,” Marianna Belenkaya reported. “He felt it was important to stress that Russia still gives Israel the needed leeway on Syrian territory. … Shortly after the talks in the Kremlin, Israel followed up with its own strikes on Syria, which Russia didn’t prevent.”

“Moscow allows Israel to behave the way it wants to in Syria under two conditions: If the Israelis strike Syrian positions only in retaliation to Syria’s own offenses, or when Israelis attack non-Syrian forces,” wrote Belenkaya. “In all other instances Russia responds with severe criticism, summoning the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, something that also doesn’t really prevent Israelis from doing as they please. At the official level, however, no one would confirm this pattern. On the contrary, in all public statements Russian politicians stress the importance and strength of ties with Iran and its indispensable role in the Syrian settlement.”

“As for the departure of pro-Iranian militias, this fits into the trilateral Russia-US-Jordan agreement on the southwestern de-escalation zone. Russian diplomats have emphasized on multiple occasions that there should be no ‘non-Syrian forces’ in the area. Based on observers’ accounts, pro-Iranian militias do not — at least officially — take part in the Syrian army offensive in the south. To a large degree, this is to the credit of the Russian military, but it also occurred, to some degree, over concerns of new Israeli strikes,” Belenkaya added.

Iran is feeling the heat because of the reimposition of US sanctions, which increases Putin’s leverage, although not to the extent those hoping for a turnaround in the Russian-Iranian relationship might fantasize. The relationship is as rock solid as ever, and that could also work to Trump’s advantage, if he seeks to reduce the US military footprint in Syria and the Middle East, as he has said time and again.

Hamidreza Azizi reported that “the Iranian press has been quick to speculate that Russia is about to ‘betray’ Iran once again and to use Tehran as a bargaining chip to reach a deal with the United States. Moscow’s reaction to speculation along those lines, however, has been quite unexpected. For instance, Russia has backtracked from its previous position that all foreign forces, including Iranians, must leave Syria. Instead, Russian officials have started to vehemently emphasize the lawful nature of Iran’s presence in Syria.”

“It’s important to bear in mind the core objectives that led Iran to get involved in the Syrian crisis in the first place. As a longtime ally of the Syrian government, Iran’s primary goal since day one has been to preserve the rule of Assad and to help him regain full control over all of Syria. Against this backdrop, Tehran has long seen the strong foreign — and especially American — support for the armed rebel groups as a serious obstacle to the realization of this critical aim. Therefore, if any possible deal between Trump and Putin entails a US agreement to withdraw from Syria and accept Assad staying in power, the Islamic Republic would definitely consider it a gift,” added Azizi.