VOA慢速英语--Trump-Putin Meeting: Helsinki’s Cold War History

 

U.S. President Donald Trump¹ and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold their first summit on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland.

The meeting comes at a time of uneasy relations between their countries.

In recent years, the two sides have disagreed about a number of issues. They include Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict and its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In addition, United States officials have accused Russia of attempting to influence the 2016 U.S. elections.

Before Trump arrives in Finland, he will attend a NATO meeting in Belgium, and make stops in Britain and Scotland. Speaking to reporters before he left for Europe, the president predicted his talks with Putin may be the “easiest” during his trip.

While Trump said he “can't say right now” whether Putin is a friend or enemy, he did call the Russian president a “competitor.”

Helsinki has a rich history of high-level negotiations² between the leaders of the nuclear powers. It will be the fourth time the top leaders from the two sides will meet there. Finland has historically been used as neutral territory since Russia was part of the Soviet³ Union. It was chosen as a place for the two sides to hold high-level talks on major issues.

Finland fought Soviet forces during World War II and signed a cooperation deal with the Soviet government in 1948. Before the Soviet Union collapsed⁵, Finland permitted Soviet influence on its national and international policies, while officially keeping its independence.

The Finnish government sought to keep an even balance between the Soviet Union and the United States. Both powers used Finland as a base for intelligence-gathering operations.

Finland often offered Helsinki as a meeting place for negotiations between the Soviet Union and Western nations. In an effort to be seen as truly neutral, Finland never joined NATO or the Warsaw Pact⁶, the defense⁷ treaty signed by the Soviet Union and its allies.

Mikko Majander is a Finnish historian. He told Radio Free Europe that Finland sought an "active policy” of neutrality. "Finland was between the blocs⁸, East and West,” he said. “And by offering good services to international diplomacy⁹, kind of strengthened its position."

Helsinki’s most famous security summit came in 1975, with U.S. President Gerald Ford¹⁰ and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The meeting resulted in the signing of an agreement known as the Helsinki Accords. These were a set of guidelines - including territorial¹¹ issues and human rights – on ties between the United States, the Soviet Union and 33 European countries.

Brezhnev and Ford also held arms-control talks at their Helsinki summit. Then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described those talks as "very useful."

Jussi Hanhimaki is a Finnish historian with the Graduate Institute of Geneva. He said the 1975 summit represented a "major goal of Finnish diplomacy in the early 1970s."

The next meeting of U.S. and Soviet leaders in Helsinki took place in September 1990. That is when U.S. President George Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Their talks mainly dealt with a major international event at the time, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Two years earlier, then U.S. President Ronald Reagan, stopped in Helsinki on his way to Moscow for a summit with Gorbachev. During his three-day visit to Finland, he declared in a speech there was “no true international security without respect for human rights."

The most recent summit in Helsinki was held in 1997. It involved U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. They discussed several major issues, including Russia’s strong opposition¹² to NATO expansion into nations once belonging to the Soviet Union.

Finland joined the European Union following the collapse⁴ of the Soviet Union, but has still not joined NATO. It is now part of the alliance’s Partnership¹³ for Peace program, which permits Finnish troops to take part in NATO peacekeeping operations.

I’m Bryan Lynn.

Words in This Story

summit – n. an important meeting between leaders

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

5 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

6 pact   

n.合同，条约，公约，协定

参考例句：

• The two opposition parties made an electoral pact.那两个反对党订了一个有关选举的协定。
• The trade pact between those two countries came to an end.那两国的通商协定宣告结束。

7 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

8 blocs   

n.集团，联盟( bloc的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The division of Europe into warring blocs produces ever-increasing centrifugal stress. 把欧洲分为作战集团产生了越来越大的离心效果。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The policy of the two blocs was played out. 把世界分为两个集团的政策已经过时了。 来自辞典例句

9 diplomacy   

n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕

参考例句：

• The talks have now gone into a stage of quiet diplomacy.会谈现在已经进入了“温和外交”阶段。
• This was done through the skill in diplomacy. 这是通过外交手腕才做到的。

10 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

11 territorial   

adj.领土的，领地的

参考例句：

• The country is fighting to preserve its territorial integrity.该国在为保持领土的完整而进行斗争。
• They were not allowed to fish in our territorial waters.不允许他们在我国领海捕鱼。

12 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

13 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。