Key Regions & Countries

The conference was held in the aftermath of the Georgia conflict which, inevitably, dominated much of the event Despite shock waves created by the clash, there was clear agreement that, on some issues at least, the US, Europe and Russia have to co-operate. The global financial crisis, coming so soon after the Georgian fracas, had thrown this into clear relief. Such co-operation might take place on an ad-hoc basis. But the resumption of dialogue between NATO and Russia and of talks on an economic co-operation agreement between Russia and the EU illustrate a point frequently made that Russia and ’the West’ could not, indeed dared not, stand back to back for long. Speakers included Grigory Karasin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, David Merkel, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the State Department Washington D.C., Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations in the Patriarchate of Moscow, Anatol Lieven, Chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College, London and Senior Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC, Bobo Lo, Director of Russia and China Programmes at the Centre for European Reform, London and Michael Davenport, Director of the Russia, South Caucasus and Central Asia Directorate in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.

Download the conference programme
(PDF 240Kb approx) - published 13/11/2008

Download the report of this conference
(PDF 47Kb approx) - published 13/11/2008