Clinton departs on Europe, Russia tour
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left for Europe and Russia late
Friday to pursue Washington’s drive to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and
rally more support behind its war in Afghanistan. In a frenetic
five-day, six-city tour, Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Zurich on
Saturday to watch Armenia and Turkey sign what aides call a “historic”
Swiss-brokered deal to normalize their relations.She then travels to
London, Dublin, Belfast, Moscow and Russia’s mainly Muslim city of
Kazan.Visiting Ireland and Russia for the first time as chief US
diplomat, she will aim to bolster Northern Ireland’s reconciliation
process and push for a new US-Russia nuclear arms cut deal by a December
5 deadline, aides said.
But since September, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan have taken up
much of the agenda in Washington and the UN General Assembly in New
York, and aides said the countries will be high on the list for
Clinton’s talks in Zurich, London and Moscow.Washington has expressed
some hope of eventually getting Tehran to halt its suspect uranium
enrichment program since Iran met last week in Geneva with the permanent
five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council Britain, China,
France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, also known as the
P5-plus-1 group.Ahead of the trip Clinton sounded upbeat about her talks
next week in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President
Dmitry Medvedev, who have raised hopes Russia might consider tougher
sanctions against Iran if it fails to cooperate.
In Zurich, Clinton will hold informal talks on Iran with both French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and European Union Foreign Policy
Chief Javier Solana, a senior State Department official said on
condition of anonymity.Clinton “will talk with senior UK officials on a
wide range of bilateral and transatlantic issues, including Iran,
Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Philip Gordon, assistant secretary of
state for European and Eurasian affairs.Britain has 9,000 troops in
Afghanistan, the second largest deployment after the United States. -AFP
|
