Political Scientist Arkady Dubnov Believes Putin and Trump Should Meet in Astana

As Arkady Dubnov notes, Vladimir Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan seemed to be an attempt to establish a new quality of relations between Moscow and Astana.

The broad, if not more impressive, friendliness of the hosts, the excellent reception they gave to the Russian guest, should have shown that today’s Kazakhstan emphatically values ​​relations with Russia, striving to leave in the past the misunderstandings generated by the populist escapades of a number of 'talking heads' on both sides, the political scientist wrote.

Arkady Dubnov believes Kazakhstan's elite understands the importance of relations with Russia. They are key balancers in the system of checks and balances that guarantee the stability of the country's sovereignty. 

In conditions when international institutions, primarily the UN, are losing their ability to stabilize the 'peace field' that is going haywire, it turns out that problems have to be solved by agreements between the 'big-wigs.' And no matter how much they talk about the 'unshakable nature' of some of them, they remain in the game. Moreover, due to fear of their unpredictability, they occupy winning positions in the game we have known since childhood called 'king of the mountain,' the political scientist believes.

Arkady Dubnov discusses how Trump's return to the White House in just 50 days makes it inevitable that he will meet with the Russian president in the coming months, after January 20 next year.

Where should they meet? Putin, under the sword of Damocles of the ICC arrest warrant, is banned from traveling to almost the entire Western Hemisphere. The East remains, and not the Near or Far East, but our own, Eurasian. And name another city more suitable for such a meeting than the capital of Kazakhstan, which has hosted OSCE and CICA summits in different years, providing a platform for the Syrian settlement and peacekeeping in the South Caucasus,
writes the expert. 

What does Putin's visit to Astana have to do with this:

The Kremlin has become convinced of Aqorda's trusting alliance, despite the fact that it has its own idea of ​​a reasonable world order, while maintaining non-hostile and constructive relations with the United States and the West in general. In other words, Putin will more than obviously find a meeting with Trump in Astana acceptable.

Original Author: Oksana Matvienko