The American Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul named several critical priorities in Russian-American relations in the days before the New Year. According to the high-ranking diplomat, the priorities for 2014 will include agreements on the Iranian nuclear issue, a peace settlement in Syria, the withdrawal of the coalition military contingent from Afghanistan, bilateral commerce, as well as a possible presidential summit. In the near future, a priority for the U.S. Embassy would be the Sochi Olympics.

As far as the Iranian issue goes, of great priority to Russian-American relations is following up on the preliminary agreements that the Iranian regime took upon itself. This task should be accomplished in the first six months of 2014. The Syrian issue is next in terms of important bilateral engagements, particularly in advance of the Geneva-2 conference that is to take place on January 22 in Switzerland. Cooperation on these issues is an example of successful bilateral dialogue in U.S.-Russian affairs.

Afghanistan is the next priority area, where discussions of cooperation are ongoing even as the coalition forces continue leaving the country.

The importance of economic relations to the Russian-American bilateral agenda also may not be understated.

As to the possibility for a meeting between Presidents Putin and Obama, a bilateral encounter could be organized on the sidelines of the nuclear security summit at The Hague that has been scheduled for the month of March. Another opportunity for the two leaders to meet would be during the G8 summit taking place in Sochi from June 3 to June 4. While foreign policy analysts emphasize that it is too early to speak of specific details, they note with reference to Obama’s and Putin’s one-on-one conversation in St. Petersburg that the two heads of state are capable of achieving significant results when acting in concert.