While Norway focuses on NGOs, human rights and ecology is Russia focusing on Svalbard, NATO and legal framework for trade and economic cooperation.
Reading the press-releases from the two countries foreign ministries gives you a clear impression that there have been two different meetings. The only similarities, proving it was the same meeting, are the place where it happened and the names of the two main actors; Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov and Norway’s State Secretary Torgeir Larsen.
Norway’s resume lists the following topics; Russia should ease its visa-rules, Norway are worried about new laws limiting the freedom for Russian non-governmental organizations to cooperate across the borders, developments on the energy-market, fishery regulations and cooperation, Norway’s frustration that nothing are done to reduce the pollution from the nickel-plant in Pechenga, and finally the humanitarian situation in Syria.
Not one single of this topics are mentioned in the Russian Foreign Ministry’s resume-list from the same meeting.
Russia lists; improvement for legal framework for trade and economic cooperation to strengthen interregional and cross-border ties, the need to angle practical solutions for ensuring Russia’s development of economic and scientific presence on Svalbard, exchanged view on the regional cooperation councils like Arctic, Barents, Baltic and Northern Dimension, and finally key international security issues like NATO-Russian relations and security in Europe.
And no; none of the issues highlighted in the Russian resume are mentioned in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s list from the meeting that took place in Moscow last Thursday.
The two neighbors will, however, get plenty of chances streamline a joint melody for cooperation in the time to come. Several bi-lateral, high-level meetings will take place during the spring.
The two Prime Ministers Dmitri Medvedev and Jens Stoltenberg will meet in Kirkenes, northern Norway, on June 4th to celebrate 20-years of Barents cooperation. The ministers of justice, labor and education will meet before the summer. The same will the two countries foreign Minsters Sergey Lavrov and Espent Barth Eide. Also, a joint meeting will be arranged for the speakers of the two countries’ parliaments.
The meetings will take place in both Russia and Norway.
