THE VISIT BY THE RUSSIAN SECURITY COUNCIL SECRETARY IS A PROLOGUE IN MOSCOW-WASHINGTON RELATIONS








WASHINGTON, March 14. /RIA Novosti correspondent Arkady Orlov/. The negotiations of Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov in Washington will be "a kind of prologue" in Russia's relations with the new American administration, said Sergei Ivanov who has started his visit to the United States. 


	He said that in the course of his coming meetings with the US President's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell they will discuss "a broad  range of international security issues." Sergei Ivanov expressed the hope that these negotiations "will make it possible for the sides to build Russian-American relations, which are  distinguished for their spirit of pragmatism and predictability, taking into account the interests of each other and those issues which are meant under the term of international security."  Sergei Ivanov said that he had arrived in Washington at the invitation of Condoleezza Rice and that an agreement had been achieved with her from the very beginning that there would be "no strict agenda." However, it is expected, said the Russian  Security Council Secretary, that the questions he will discuss with Rice and Powell will include problems of strategic  stability, non-proliferation, regional conflicts and bilateral relations. 


	"These will not be negotiations, strictly speaking, the  sides will try to clear up the positions of each other, including personal positions," pointed out Sergei Ivanov. He added that his meeting with Condoleezza Rice will make it possible to specify the parameters of the Russian-American dialogue, taking into  account that the Democrats have left the White House and the  Republican administration of George Bush moved in. As was pointed out by the Russian Security Council Secretary, the coming  meetings will make it possible for the two sides also "to cast a glance into the past" and to assess "what has been done together with the Democrats, what can be continued and even multiplied,  and what should be built on a new basis." -O- (kos/ter)  14/03/01    11:47