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This week, President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders' call was highly anticipated, not least because of the bizarre ongoing saga over Russia hacking its way through the U.S. presidential campaign to get Trump elected.
The official White House and Kremlin readouts from the call are vague, but what's not in them is arguably as important as what is in them.
What they said they talked about:
Syria: The White House readout of the call said Trump and Putin agreed "suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long." Trump and Putin reportedly discussed establishing "safe" or "de-escalation zones" in the country to relieve the embattled civilian population. The White House also announced it would send a representative to the next round of Syrian peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, this week. Russia, Iran, and Turkey sponsor the talks. The Kremlin readout says that the emphasis of the talks was indeed on Russia and the United States working together in the "fight with international terrorism in the context of the Syrian crisis."
North Korea: The biggest geopolitical flashpoint in Trump's first hundred days. North Korea is stubbornly pursuing a nuclear weapons program and launching missile tests despite a new volley of ominous warnings from Trump. The Russian readout emphasizes that the Kremlin called for restraint and stressed the importance of a diplomatic solution. The White House readout referenced North Korea with but one line: "Finally, they spoke about how best to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea." North Korea's main political lifeline to the outside world is China, though it maintains economic ties with Russia, which it listed as its friendliest ally earlier this year.
A face-to-face in July in Hamburg: The U.S. readout didn't mention this, but its Russian counterpart did. The two evidently agreed to continue chatting by phone, but also spoke of having a personal meeting around the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany (to the disappointment of whoever was pinning hopes on those Russian reports that their first face to face meeting would take place in May).
What they didn't say they talked about:
Ukraine: Ukraine was conspicuously absent from both the White House and the Kremlin readouts of the call. Russia's incursion into east Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea, which spurred U.S. and European sanctions against Moscow, is a huge sore spot in West-Russia relations. That the White House readout didn't mention Ukraine once could mean several things. Trump might see Syria and North Korea as bigger issues in the bilateral relationship, or the administration (which has continually cast doubts on U.S. commitment to Ukraine) could be eager to sideline the issue so as to gain more cooperation from Moscow.
Anything related to human rights: Other seemingly big issues that were conspicuous by their absence: Russian electoral interference, the alleged abduction and killing of gay men in Chechnya, the crackdown on protests in St. Petersburg in defense of gay rights, the right to freedom of assembly, and the crackdown on civil society. On these, the Trump administration appeared completely silent.
But not to worry. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, eager to carry the defense of Western values that until January was Washington's calling card, brought up all of the above in her meeting with Putin in Sochi earlier on Tuesday.