Last week it was blacker than in 30 years between Russia and the West, and the recent Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt is the first Sergei Lavrov meets since it turned black almost completely. How should it go?
IN PLACE: Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt will soon meet diplomat Magnus Carlsen, his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov. Photo: NTB view more
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The trip no longer goes than to Tromsø when Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt goes on her first trip as Norway’s leading diplomat. In return, this afternoon she meets the man who, above anyone else, will define her job. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is the face of the Putin regime.
SMALL: The meeting between German Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not go exactly according to plan. Video: AP. view more
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Polite and sociable he can turn around with inclusive jokes, such as that he spent more time with the then Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre than he did with his wife. And he can strike a chord and sarcastically retaliate against those who criticize Russia for aggression in Ukraine, human rights abuses, and the treatment of domestic political opposition.
Lavrov is it the increasingly brutal outwardly civilized face of the Putin state. Knowledgeable, and always well prepared, Lavrov is widely recognized as perhaps the most competent player in international diplomacy, despite the fact that many believe he has bad cases to defend. Nevertheless, he has been able to live well on numerous American foreign policy failures. Regardless, Huitfeldt meets diplomat Magnus Carlsen.
When Huitfeldt meets Lavrov has been a long time since he spent more time with Norway’s new prime minister than he did with his wife. It is now admittedly stated in the new government platform that Norway will “further develop bilateral cooperation with Russia in the north”. But there is no reason to believe that the two foreign ministers will go door to door, even if a Labor-led government would hardly stop all meetings at ministerial level for several years, as the Solberg government unwise did, after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Huitfeldt is it the first foreign minister in a NATO country that Lavrov meets after Russia withdrew all its diplomats from the organization a week ago. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that it was right that relations between NATO and Russia were thus at their coldest since the time of the Cold War.
There is a meeting in The Barents Council, which is the occasion for Huitfeldt and Lavrov to meet for the first time. And if we are to believe the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, then the Russian Foreign Minister will come to Tromsø with the best intentions. “The Barents Council is perhaps the most successful multilateral format for cooperation in northern Europe, because it demonstrates that it is immune to changing political conditions.” In other words, Barents co-operation is up and running, even though most of the co-operation between Russia and the West has been frozen.
It is about cooperation about fish and rescue at sea, and this applies to the important “people to people” cooperation in the north. Although it is also on a different level than before. One reason is that Norwegian intelligence in a senseless way used one of the most active representatives of this collaboration, Frode Berg, as a spy. Another reason is that Russia has branded several organizations that were part of the cooperation as “foreign agents”. These include human rights organizations, LGBT activists, environmental organizations, and indigenous peoples’ organizations.
The big picture in relation to our big neighbor in the north is thus black as night, but with a glimmer of sun occasionally. It is a demanding debut that Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt gets when she meets the diplomat Magnus Carlsen this afternoon.
