Public Remarks

Remarks at the Jubilee Celebration of 200th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations

William J. Burns, U.S. Ambassador to Russia

State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, May 22, 2007

I am pleased to be with you today to mark the bicentennial of our diplomatic history together, and honored to be joined by Governor Matvienko, Senator Frist and so many other distinguished guests. Two hundred years ago, Tsar Alexander I and President Jefferson exchanged letters, agreeing to send each other ambassadors. And I can think of no better place to celebrate the occasion than the Winter Palace, where our first envoy John Quincy Adams presented his diplomatic credentials to the Tsar. Their personal ties set the tone from the very beginning for a positive relationship between the United States and Russia. A relationship in which St. Petersburg has played an important role, from imperial capital to host for last year's G-8 Summit.

The relationship between Russia and America matters greatly to our mutual interests, and to the future of the global order, on issues that range from energy security to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We will still have moments of competition as well as partnership, of friction as well as common purpose, but one thing we will not have is the luxury of ignoring each other. Americans and Russians have had enough of Cold Wars, enough of wasteful arms races. It is deeply in the interest of our two peoples, and in the interest of global order, to recognize how much we have to gain by working together. It would be a huge mistake, for both of us to lose sight of that fact.

Both Russia and the United States are large multinational countries with pioneering traditions. Russians and Americans have proven themselves historically to be great people -- capable of making significant contributions to the development of world civilization. Whatever their differences, Shostakovich and Duke Ellington, Tsar Alexander II and President Lincoln, Bulgakov and Hemingway, Sakharov and Martin Luther King, Bill Gates and Sergey Brin helped define and propel the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is also important to remember that relations between our countries are not the exclusive purview of diplomats like me; they are a practical matter with real benefits for everyone in our societies. Those benefits can only be achieved by the combined efforts of entrepreneurs and engineers, scientists and soldiers, academics and artists, and, of course, the newest generation of Russians and Americans. We are fortunate to be joined this evening by leaders in many of these fields, from Cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov to St. Petersburg State Rector Verbitskaya and to our kind host this evening, Dr. Piotrovskiy.

The efforts of our business communities are equally important in expanding commercial relations, and I would like to recognize the sponsors who have helped us with tonight's events: The Corinthia Nevskiy Palace, the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, Citigroup Russia, the Ford Motor Company, Leathertouch, Kelly Services, Alfa-Bank, Corning International, Otis, Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Salans and the Intel Corporation. We appreciate the contribution that businesses make every day to increasing interaction and understanding between our two countries. St. Petersburg itself is a major contributor to our relations, as the venue earlier today for the first annual Forum on Global Health at which we announced plans, together with the Russian Ministry of Health and with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to launch a new Health Partnership Initiative.

No one can foresee exactly what a new century of Russian-American relations will bring. While the challenges for both of us will be considerable, and the path before us often difficult, I am convinced that the promise of the next century in our relationship is enormous. Realizing that promise is not just a matter of our own self interest, but of the future of the rest of the world.