The improvement in tone was unmistakable compared to the icy encounters that Lavrov used to hold with Clinton’s predecessor.īut in a meeting largely devoid of concrete accomplishments, Clinton’s gift became a source of continuing amusement to everyone except her staff, who realized that flubbing a foreign language hardly made their boss, the nation’s top diplomat, look good.

support for Georgia, the former Soviet republic invaded by Moscow last year, and on an announced sale by Moscow of advanced air defense missiles to Iran. They each emphasized that major disagreements and disputes remain on matters such as U.S.

They agreed to intensify preparations for opening a new round of nuclear arms negotiations to replace the one that expires at the end of this year. side, Clinton and Lavrov emerged from their meeting a few hours later saying they had accomplished their initial goal-reducing the frostiness in U.S.-Russia relations that had taken hold by the end of the Bush administration.Īt a joint press conference afterward Clinton and Lavrov called each other by their first names and said they had conducted wide-ranging discussions on Iran, missile defense, Afghanistan, and nuclear arms reduction. “We won’t let you do that to us,” she said.ĭespite the shoddy translation work on the U.S. Instead of “reset,” he said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”Ĭlinton and Lavrov guffawed. “You got it wrong,” Lavrov said, to Clinton’s clear surprise. Do you think we got it?” Clinton said as reporters, allowed in to observe the first few minutes of the meeting, watched. “We worked hard to get the right Russian word.

Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift-a red plastic button on a black base with a Russian word “peregruzka” printed on top. She handed him a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow.

Do not press the red button cartoon