Edit Content
Malik Ayub Sumbal is Senior Broadcaster, Political Commentator, and Media Consultant. Malik has been associated with world-leading media outlets and news channels. He has more than 18 years of experience while working on key editorial positions. Malik was President at the Consortium for Press Freedom (CPF), a leading organization working for the Press Freedom and Free Speech around the world.

Arctic Summit: Iceland talks colder than Ice

Ice starts melting between the former two cold war foes as both sides desire to work together with a commitment to mutual respect and interests.

The recent meeting between United States Secretary of States Antony Blinken and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Iceland following a very tense environment and diplomatic tension when tough sanctions have been slapped by the US on Russia, the two sides’ first meet up could possibly prove more than photo showoff to reduce differences of the former cold war rivals.

Top dignitaries from the Biden administration and Russia in their first in-person interaction, which held on the sidelines of a meeting of the Arctic Council Rekjavik pointed out that both sides have serious differences in perspectives of world affairs but moved towards a positive tone of talks with objectives to find ways to work together.

Mostly the outcome of such kinds of summits on the poles is dead cold apparently but diplomacy always keeps searching for some greasy phrases for an optimist approach to herald intimacy at some level.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hinted at possible cooperation in the area where there is an expected collision of interests between the United States and Russia.

However, Antony Blinken sees cooperation in areas specifically on confronting challenges of the global pandemic, climate change, DPRK, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Climate change is actually becoming a very fast tool of foreign policy parameters and even to malign the other countries for respective outcomes.

A series of accusations including cybersecurity is the subject of discussion where the United States has a lot of accusations towards Russia. The Ukraine issue also remained under consideration.

This very first interaction of both leaders can also make a way toward the upcoming expected Presidential Summit between Russia and United States that would be expected in June later this year.

How things move forward till June 2021 if there may not be any unexpected tension alarm between the United States and Russian relations but this first in-person discussion is going to prove a platform to discuss almost a lot on all existing hot issues between Russia and United States.

Actually, the Arctic Summit is to align the future agenda and positioning of both the countries that how they will respond for the very interests of both the countries relating conventional world affairs. Both the leaders tried to check their pulse of patience and impatience on the sensitive and high-hitting issues.

In other words, Arctic Summit is actually an attempt by both former cold war foes how to reduce the differences and to get benefit more from the existing confrontations prevalent in the world. The United States and Russia are more likely heading towards a ‘Divide and Rule’ policy without overlapping of respective interests.

The Summit also a chance to define the next five-year Biden presidency priorities towards its allies and foes and also an opportunity to know the bottom lines on existing confrontations.

On the other side, senior US State Department officials on the recent move said there were no breakthroughs in the meeting, but the meeting is being termed as a “good start” to work on relations between the two countries in “weeks, months and years to come.”

Ahead of this meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had made it very clear that Russia’s position in relations to the US is a very simple statement, “Russia is willing and committed to discuss all the issues without exception but discussions should be honest, with the facts on the table with basic mutual respect”.

Malik Ayub Sumbal is an Award-Winning journalist, Geopolitical Analyst, Commentator & Moderator. He is the author of his newly published book Tovuz to Karabakh, A Comprehensive Analysis of War in South-Caucasus. He tweet @ayubsumbal