Word: primakov
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...Yevgeni Primakov was in high spirits as he pulled a chair up to a horseshoe-shaped table in Geneva's Palace of Nations. Seven years earlier, the Russian Foreign Minister had been hunkered down in a Baghdad bunker with American bombs falling around him after he failed to broker a deal to head off the Gulf War. Now, with two U.S. carrier battle groups and 300 warplanes poised in the Persian Gulf for another major strike against Iraq, the pressure was on Primakov once more. But this time he was sure he could keep the guns silent. "I think...
...when Clinton telephoned Russian President Boris Yeltsin to give him the green light to find a way out of the crisis. Eager to have the U.N. sanctions lifted so that Russia could trade with Iraq, Yeltsin summoned Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to Moscow. Meanwhile, Albright warned Primakov that even though Clinton was also eager to have a solution, Washington wanted nothing less than Saddam's complete capitulation. There could be no deals like Baghdad's previous offer to allow only a few Americans back in as a face-saving gesture, Albright told Primakov. "The Iraqis lost...
...last Tuesday, Primakov had won a tentative agreement from Aziz that all the American inspectors would return to Iraq. In exchange, Russia would vigorously press Baghdad's case in the U.N. for lifting economic sanctions and wrapping up the inspections. Primakov then produced a one-page statement of what would be expected of Iraq, which Aziz took to Baghdad...
...next day, Primakov telephoned Albright, who was in New Delhi as part of a tour of South Asia and the Middle East. Iraq was willing to take back the inspectors with no strings attached, the Russian envoy believed, although he refused to fax Albright a copy of the one-page statement he had drafted because Aziz hadn't yet obtained Baghdad's approval of its terms...
Albright was suspicious. Primakov might have cut side deals with Baghdad that Washington would find unacceptable, so she demanded that the two of them, plus British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, meet to review the Russian statement. The only time the four envoys could fit a meeting into their packed schedules was at the ungodly hour of 2 a.m. the next day. Albright, who had already spent a grueling week shuttling and sleeping most nights on her jet, cut short the New Delhi visit and rushed to Geneva...