U.S. and Russian Security Advisors Bolton and Patrushev Hold Five-Hour Meeting in Geneva

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

U.S. and Russian Security Advisors Bolton and Patrushev Hold Five-Hour Meeting in Geneva

Aug. 23, 2018 (EIRNS)—Although no details are known of what transpired at the closed-door meeting between U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva today, Patrushev said that “no accusations against us were voiced, and the work was constructive,” TASS reported. The talks, held on the premises of the United States mission to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, lasted for more than five hours.

TASS quoted Patrushev on the topics discussed:

“Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technologies, generally as well as in respect to the D.P.R.K. (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and Iran, problems related to Iran. Ensuring strategic stability and issues of arms control.”

He also said: “We agreed that we will hold the next meeting. I invited them to Moscow or another city in Russia. The dates have not been agreed yet.”

Bolton, who spoke to the Associated Press at the lunch-break in the midst of the talks, referring to the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, said: “There won’t be any new sanctions if there’s no further interference,” before specifying that “how we resolve the interference in the past remains to be seen.”

Also, Bolton told AP he had expressed to Patrushev the U.S. “priority of getting all Iranian forces out of Syria,” and said that President Putin had told Bolton in a recent meeting that the Russians “would like to see the Iranians go home as well; we (the Russians) are just not sure we alone can accomplish it.” Bolton said he and Patrushev had discussed “a number of ideas” about how to do that, but “We’re not going to solve Syria here.”