The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y A

President Trump had a pre-
election plan to show he had
gotten something out of his mys-
teriously friendly relationship
with President Vladimir V. Putin
of Russia.
In the weeks before the elec-
tion, the two men would an-
nounce that they had reached an
agreement in principle to extend
New START, the last remaining
major arms control agreement
between the two countries. It
expires on Feb. 5, two weeks
after the next presidential inau-
guration.
Mr. Trump has long refused to
sign off on a clean five-year
extension of the agreement, a
step both leaders could take
without Senate approval. He has
described the Obama-era treaty
as deeply flawed — the same
thing he said about the North
American Free Trade Agreement
and the Iran nuclear accord —
because it did not cover all of
Russia’s nuclear arms, or any of
China’s.
But if Mr. Putin is really root-
ing for Mr. Trump to be re-
elected, he is not acting like it.
On Tuesday, Marshall
Billingslea, Mr. Trump’s lead
negotiator, announced that the
two leaders had an “agreement
in principle, at the highest levels
of our two governments, to ex-
tend the treaty.” Mr. Billingslea
described an added “gentleman’s
agreement” to cap each coun-

try’s stockpile of weapons not

currently deployed on missiles,

submarines or bombers. Details

needed to be worked out, he

cautioned, including the tricky

work of verifying compliance.

It sounded like a promising

solution, for a few hours.

Then the Russian deputy for-

eign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov,

shot back that this was a figment

of someone’s election-season

imagination. “Washington is

describing what is desired, not

what is real,” he said in a state-

ment. For example, he said,

Moscow would not freeze the

number of tactical weapons it

possesses.

With less than three weeks to

Election Day, it seems no agree-

ment is in the offing, and Trump

administration officials are say-

ing that, after the election, the

price will go up. Former Vice

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.,

the Democratic nominee who

was involved in the negotiation

of the original agreement in 2010,

has indicated that, if elected, he

will agree to a straightforward,

immediate extension of the ac-

cord for five years, the maximum

allowed under the current terms,

and then work to expand its

scope.

As a result, Mr. Putin, looking

at the polls, may be calculating

that there is no reason to agree

to any additional limits. But it

also suggests that despite the

C.I.A.’s conclusion that the Rus-

sian leader has a preference for

Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin may also

be hedging his bets — or betting

that Mr. Trump will be a private

citizen by the time the treaty

runs out.

On Wednesday, Secretary of

State Mike Pompeo tried to put

the best face on the Russian

rejection. “I am hopeful that the

Russians will find a way to agree

to an outcome that, frankly, I

think is in their best interest,” he

said at a news conference at the

State Department.

But Russia’s foreign minister,

Sergey V. Lavrov, joined the

Kremlin’s dismissal of prospects

for an agreement before the

election, saying the Trump ad-

ministration’s one-sided an-

nouncement of a nuclear limita-

tion deal was an “unclean” diplo-

matic maneuver.

“I personally don’t see such a

possibility,” he said in an inter-

view with state radio, when

asked about a deal on New

START. “My colleagues, who

work in an interagency format

and meet with the American

delegation, also don’t see such a

possibility.”

The Russian pushback echoed

across the government. The

Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S.

Peskov, said the “position of the

Russian side is well known and

consistent. And for now, we can’t

speak of any concrete agree-

ments.” Then the Russian Infor-

mation Agency, a state news

outlet, ran an article saying the

Russian foreign ministry “called

the American announcement of a

New START agreement with

Russia nonsense and a setup.”

It was not the first time Mr.

Putin, who worked so hard on

Mr. Trump’s behalf in 2016, has

shown possible signs of backing

away from the president.

Earlier this month, he hinted

in an interview with state televi-

sion at an effort to reach out to

Democrats. While his goals were

unclear, and with American

officials cautioning that Russian

disinformation may be at work,

Mr. Putin spoke warmly of the

Democratic Party and suggested

that he could work with Mr.

Biden on arms control.

Analysts in Russia saw in the

rejection of a pre-election nuclear

deal the Kremlin preparing the

ground in case Mr. Trump loses.

“As the chances of a Trump

re-election are increasingly re-

mote,” Pavel Felgenhauer, a

military commentator for the

independent Novaya Gazeta

newspaper, said in a telephone

interview, “why should we bend

over backward?”

Mr. Putin’s position all year

has been that the New START

agreement, which limits both

countries to 1,550 deployed nu-

clear weapons, should be ex-

tended for five years. But there

are no limits on stockpiled weap-

ons, which are essentially in

storage. And that is why fears of

a resumed arms race have

arisen, as the United States and

Russia move to improve their

arsenals with new, more sophis-

ticated weapons.

Mr. Putin has taken pride in

developing new weapons, some

of which have apparently run

into trouble in testing, leading to

a major accident in the summer

of 2019. The current New START

does not limit such work — or

put limits on tactical weapons.

Mr. Trump has pulled out of a

series of arms control treaties,

including the 1987 Intermediate-

Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,

widely known as the I.N.F. And

now Russia has no incentive to

negotiate on tactical warheads,

which it has preserved and ex-

panded in recent decades while

the U.S. abolished most of its

arsenal, save for small numbers

stored around Europe.

“Russia has an advantage in

tactical weapons,” Mr. Felgen-

hauer said. “It doesn’t make any

sense for Russia to negotiate.”

There is little question that

Russia had been cheating on the

I.N.F. treaty’s limits, and placing

medium-range missiles, which

appear to be armed with the

tactical weapons, on its borders

with Europe. The Obama admin-

istration considered abandoning

the I.N.F., before deciding

against it. Mr. Trump went

ahead, arguing that the treaty’s

restrictions were keeping Wash-

ington from countering on simi-

lar weaponry that China was

deploying in the Pacific.

China was not a party to either

New START or the I.N.F., and Mr.
Trump has argued that the
treaties need to be updated to
account for Beijing’s arms build-
up. But the Chinese counter that
they have around 300 nuclear
weapons deployed — a fifth of
the number Russia and the
United States are limited to
under the treaty — and that they
would have no interest in any
restrictions. Some Chinese offi-
cials, somewhat facetiously, have
suggested that Mr. Trump’s
initiative could lead them to
quintuple their arsenal and then
enter into arms control talks.
On Beijing entering into nucle-
ar arms talks, Mr. Pompeo ex-
pressed hopes on Wednesday
“that the Chinese Communist
Party will come to see that this is
how mature nations deal with
these issues,” but he acknowl-
edged that Chinese leaders have
“refused to join the conversa-
tion.”
Mr. Biden’s advisers say noth-
ing is wrong with the idea of
bringing China into arms control
agreements. But they have said
that abandoning New START in
a failing effort to accomplish that
goal would only destroy the last
remaining significant limits on
deployed nuclear weapons.
If Mr. Biden wins, it is possible
Russia could get what it wants, a
straightforward extension before
the February expiration, in a
quick deal immediately after a
Biden inauguration.
“If we don’t take Trump’s
proposal now, it doesn’t mean we
lose New START,” Mr. Felgen-
Lara Jakes contributed reporting. hauer said.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Trump’s False START: Russia Denies Claim Nuclear Deal Is Near

By DAVID E. SANGER

and ANDREW E. KRAMER

Moscow accuses the

U.S. of ‘nonsense

and a setup.’

The Great Barrier Reef, one of
the earth’s most precious habitats,
lost half of its coral populations in
the last quarter-century, a decline
that researchers in Australia said
would continue unless drastic ac-
tion is taken to mitigate the effects
of climate change.
Researchers studied coral colo-
nies along the length of the reef
between 1995 and 2017 and found
that almost every coral species
had declined.
Colony sizes were smaller;
there were fewer “big mamas,” or
older large corals that produce
baby corals; and there were fewer
of those babies, which are vital to
the reef’s future ability to breed.
“Our results show the ability of
the Great Barrier Reef to recover
— its resilience — is compromised
compared to the past, because
there are fewer babies, and fewer
large breeding adults,” Dr. Andy
Dietzel, the lead author of the
study, said in a statement.
The study was published on
Wednesday in the journal Pro-
ceedings of the Royal Society.
Dr. Dietzel and other re-
searchers from the ARC Center of
Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
in Queensland, Australia, meas-
ured changes in colony sizes as a
way of understanding the capaci-
ty of corals to breed.
Bleaching — a process in which
corals expel algae and turn white
as water temperatures rise — con-
tributed to steep losses of coral
colonies in the northern and cen-
tral Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and

2017. The southern part of the reef
      was also exposed to record-set-
      ting temperatures in early 2020,

according to the researchers, who

cited climate change as one of the

major drivers of disturbances to

the reef.

“There is no time to lose,” the re-

searchers said in their statement.

“We must sharply decrease

greenhouse gas emissions ASAP.”

“We used to think the Great

Barrier Reef is protected by its

sheer size — but our results show

that even the world’s largest and

relatively well-protected reef sys-

tem is increasingly compromised

and in decline,” one of the re-

searchers, Terence Hughes, said

in a statement.

The decline of “branching and

table-shaped corals,” which pro-

vide critical habitats for fish, was

especially pronounced, the re-

searchers said.

“These were the worst affected

by record-breaking temperatures

that triggered mass bleaching in

2016 and 2017,” Professor Hughes

said.

“The changes to the Reef are

shocking,” he added on Twitter.

He lamented what he saw as a

lack of attention to the study from

government leaders in Australia,

the world’s biggest coal exporter.

The government has resisted calls

to reduce carbon emissions even

as heat waves, drought and fires

continue to reveal the country’s

vulnerability to climate change.

The Great Barrier Reef, which

supports a vast array of marine

life, has between 300 and 400 coral

species and stretches for thou-

sands of kilometers across the

Australian coast.

“You can literally see it from

space,” said Deron Burkepile, a

professor in the department of

ecology, evolution and marine bi-

ology at the University of Califor-

nia, Santa Barbara.

Coral reefs worldwide are re-

sponsible for billions of dollars in

tourism and provide habitats for

fish that feed close to one billion

people on the planet, he said.

The findings of the Australian

researchers were significant, he

said, because they focused on the

reef’s breeding capacity and its

ability to recover from devastat-

ing bleaching events caused by

human-caused climate change.

“The situation is dire,” Profes-

sor Burkepile said.

But people should not feel hope-

less about the future of coral reefs,

he said, even as they wait for

world leaders to take more ag-

gressive steps to curb the effects

of climate change.

At the local level, for example,

nitrogen pollution — which ex-

acerbates bleaching — can be con-

trolled by mitigating fertilizer and

sewage runoff, according to a

study that Professor Burkepile

conducted with other researchers

at his university.

“The other thing that we need to

take away is that coral reefs are

amazingly resilient,” he said. “If

we don’t continually damage

them, they will recover.”

Speaking of climate change’s effects on the Great Barrier Reef, Deron Burkepile, a California professor, said: “The situation is dire.”

BROOK MITCHELL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Scientists Say

Record Heat

Has Cost Reef

Half of Corals

By MARIA CRAMER

Kitty Bennett contributed re-
search.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon
and Israel kicked off their first ne-
gotiations in 30 years on nonsecu-
rity issues, aiming to end a long-
running dispute over their mari-
time border in the gas-rich Medi-
terranean Sea.
The brief first session on
Wednesday was hosted by the
United Nations and mediated by
the United States, whose diplo-
mats worked for years to get the
negotiations going before the two
sides announced on Oct. 1 that
they had agreed on a framework
for talks.
At issue is more than 330 square
miles in the Mediterranean that
Israel and Lebanon both claim is
in their exclusive economic zone.
Pressure to resolve the dispute
has mounted as Israel and Cyprus
have begun exploiting offshore
gas in the eastern Mediterranean.
Lebanon has sought to do the
same, hoping the new industry

can assuage its profound eco-

nomic woes.

It was not immediately clear

whether any progress was made

during the first session in the

southern Lebanese town of

Naqoura, near the Israeli border.

The meeting lasted about an hour

and the teams are expected to

gather again on Oct. 28.

The Lebanon-Israel talks follow

normalization agreements be-

tween Israel and two Gulf States

— Bahrain and the United Arab

Emirates. They were the third and

fourth Arab states to recognize Is-

rael, after Egypt and Jordan.

But officials on both sides of the

talks said that they sought to ad-

dress only the maritime border

and that normalization was not on

the table.

The Israeli team was headed by

the director general of its energy

ministry, Udi Adiri, and the Leba-

nese delegation was headed by

Brig. Gen. Bassam Yassin, the

army’s deputy chief of staff for op-

erations.

The talks were held in a United

Nations base where representa-

tives from Lebanon and Israel

have regular talks about security

issues along their disputed border.

Under the framework agreement,

the delegations were not sup-

posed to address each other di-

rectly, but instead to communi-

cate through intermediaries from

the United States.

General Yassin said in a state-

ment released by the Lebanese

Army before the talks began that

they were “technical, indirect ne-

gotiations.” He called the talks

“the first step on a 1,000-mile jour-

ney,” but added that he hoped the

issue would be resolved “within a

reasonable time frame.”

The idea of negotiating with Is-

rael has not been without contro-

versy in Lebanon, because the

two countries are still technically

at war and many Lebanese feel

deep animosity toward their

neighbors to the south.

After President Michel Aoun

named the four members of the

Lebanese delegation this week,

Prime Minister Hassan Diab said

that the president’s doing so with-

out consulting him violated the

Constitution. Mr. Aoun’s office re-

sponded that such statements

weakened the Lebanese negotiat-

ing position.

And early Wednesday, Hezbol-

lah and Amal, two powerful Shiite

political parties in Lebanon who

are staunchly anti-Israel, released

a statement saying that the inclu-

sion of civilian officials in the Leb-

anese negotiating team was “a

surrender to the Israeli logic that

wants any form of normalization.”

They called for the committee’s

members to be changed.

That opposition did not derail

the start of the talks, but could un-

dermine broad acceptance of any

accord the negotiators might

reach.

Israel has three objectives for

the talks, said Maj. Gen. Amos

Yadlin of the Institute for National

Security Studies, an independent

research organization in Tel Aviv:

to deny Hezbollah, Lebanon’s

most powerful military force, an

excuse for war with Israel; to di-

minish the possibility that Hezbol-

lah will target its gas drilling plat-

forms; and to show the Lebanese

that they can benefit from cooper-

ation with Israel.

Among Hezbollah’s grievances

against Israel are disputes over

land and maritime borders.

For Lebanon, a maritime bor-

der agreement would facilitate the

search for oil and gas in its territo-

rial waters and their potential ex-

ploitation, which could earn the

country much needed income.

Lebanon’s currency has lost 80

percent of its value against the

dollar over the last year, and its

debt-to-G.D.P. ratio is one of the

world’s highest.

Lebanon’s leaders have said

that developing an oil and gas in-

dustry could help the country pay

its debts.

Israel-Lebanon Talks on Sea Border Begin, With U.S. as Mediator

By BEN HUBBARD

David M. Halbfinger contributed
reporting from Jerusalem.

Two countries eager to

pursue gas riches in

the Mediterranean.

WASHINGTON — Two Ameri-

cans held hostage by Iran-backed

Houthi fighters in Yemen were re-

leased on Wednesday in a deal

brokered by the Trump adminis-

tration and the government of

Oman, according to a senior ad-

ministration official.

Sandra Loli, an aid worker, had

been held in the war-ravaged

country for 16 months, and Mikael

Gidada, a businessman, who had

also been held for a lengthy period

of time. They were released as

part of an agreement under which

about 240 Houthis in Oman, many

of them former armed combat-

ants originally captured by Saudi

Arabia, were allowed to return to

Yemen. Some of them were for-

mer armed combatants.

Houthi leaders also released

the remains of a third American,

Bilal Fateen, a Yemeni dual na-

tional who died of natural causes

while in captivity.

“Our family is filled with im-

mense relief and gratitude that

Sam — a beloved wife, mother,

daughter, sister and friend — has

been released and reunited with

her family,” said Ms. Loli’s hus-

band, Richard Boni, in a state-

ment. He described Ms. Loli as

“stable and in good spirits.”

Freeing Americans held abroad

has been a top priority for Presi-

dent Trump and his national secu-

rity adviser, Robert C. O’Brien,

who previously served as Mr.

Trump’s chief hostage negotiator.

In a brief statement, Mr. O’Brien

thanked the sultan of Oman and

the king of Saudi Arabia “for their

efforts to secure the release of our

citizens.”

The Houthis were flown home

through Saudi Arabian airspace, a

conciliatory gesture from the

Saudi kingdom given that it has

been waging a military campaign

against the Houthis, who toppled

Yemen’s government in 2015.

Since then, Yemen has been em-

broiled in a grueling civil war that

has deepened its economic deso-

lation and produced widespread

hunger and disease. Saudi Arabia

and its partners in the conflict in

the Gulf Arab region blame their

enemy, Iran, for backing the

Houthis and firing missiles into

Saudi territory from Yemen.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, a

high-ranking Houthi official, said

that about 240 Yemens who had

been stuck in Oman had arrived in

the Yemeni capital, Sana, on two

Omani jets.

Mr. Abdul-Salam told Al

Masirah, a Houthi-run television

station, that the returnees includ-

ed wounded Yemenis who had

originally traveled to Oman for

medical treatment and Houthis

who had gone there to participate

in peace talks.

The Saudi-led coalition that has

been battling the Houthis controls

Yemen’s airspace and has forced

the closure of many of its airports

to commercial traffic, making it

hard for Yemenis stuck outside

the country to return home.

Shuaib Almosawa contributed re-

porting from Sana, Yemen.

Swap Frees

2 Americans

Held Hostage

In Yemen

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

and ADAM GOLDMAN