MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. The Monday’s summit of the Russian and US presidents, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, may put an end to a diplomatic row and launch a constructive dialogue at lower levels, the chairman of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrei Kortunov, told a roundtable looking into the results of the summit.

"Maybe, we will manage to stop a diplomatic war to see the embassies and consulates functioning the way they are supposed to," the expert said. According to him, the summit will help launch cooperation at a lower level as well. "Russian-American relations traditionally develop from top downward - the presidents meet, reach agreements and then gear-wheels of huge bureaucratic machines start moving - officials, diplomats, military and intelligence officers step in," he explained.

Trajectories of joint work

Kortunov said bilateral cooperation will first of all be aimed at the Syrian settlement and nuclear disarmament. "Evidently, we will shortly see the result, let us say in Syria. It is already now clear in which direction we are moving - this concerns southwestern Syria, disengagement of Iran and Israel. This will possibly also concern the north of Syria - possibilities for agreements also exist there," the expert believes.

"I think work will start towards strategic stability. This also concerns the INF Treaty and the START II treaty and maybe some more general dialogue on this issue," he added.

Success with reservations

According to Kortunov, the very fact of the summit can be seen as a positive result, but many in the US don’t see it as a success, and criticize Trump for his not tough enough position. Besides, the expert thinks that part of the US establishment will be trying to derail the agreements.

"We must keep it in mind that there will always be forces, first of all in the US, that will be seeking to reduce to minimum the positive results of the meeting," the expert said.

"This [mending of ties] will always be a difficult and slow process, and unfortunately, quick positive results from this summit cannot be expected," the expert believes. "However, without it even modest results would hardly be possible, that is why we are in the right to say that this meeting is a success for the Russian and the US diplomacy," he added.

Diplomatic standoff

In late 2016, the then US President Barack Obama administration expelled 35 Russia diplomats and seized two Russian compounds in the States of New York and Maryland over Russia’s alleged meddling with the US elections. At that moment, Moscow refrained from immediate tit-for-tat measures, but in July 2017, the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested the US side to coordinate the number of diplomatic and technical staffers at the US Embassy in Moscow and consulates in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg and the number of Russian diplomats in the US. This was done amid a new tightening of US sanctions against Russia.

On September 2, 2017, the United States’ authorities closed Russia’s consulate general in San Francisco, the trade mission in Washington and its office in New York. The former two facilities are Russia’s government property. The buildings in San Francisco and Washington were searched in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

In late March, the US administration announced it was expelling 48 Russian diplomats and 12 diplomats from Russia’s permanent mission to the UN in New York. It also closed the Russian consulate in Seattle.

The move came in the wake of the March 4 poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, 66, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for the UK, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia. In a tit-for-tat move the Russian side declared 60 US diplomats personae non gratae demanded the closure of the US consulate in St. Petersburg.