NEWSWATCH: “Alaska has lessons for Trump in working with Russia” – Alaska Dispatch News/David Ramseur

… Trump … has a unique opportunity … to reset the worst relations between the U.S. and Russia since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. For a blueprint, Trump would be wise to look to Alaska. Beginning in the mid-1980s, citizen-diplomats from Alaska and the Russian Far East overcame tensions to melt the ‘Ice Curtain,’ which had prevented human contact across the Bering Strait for 40 years. This occurred at the height of the Cold War, made worse when a Korean civilian airliner departed Anchorage in 1983 and drifted over Eastern Russian territory. All 269 on board died when a Soviet missile shot it out of the sky. Alaskans and our Western neighbors set aside differences to rebuild personal relationships based on a shared history and mutual benefit. Those efforts reunited long-separated Native peoples and launched a productive 30-year era of commercial, cultural, scientific and educational ties, which still have lasting benefits. * * * … here’s how Alaska’s example could improve relations …. Build on common ground …. A melting Arctic ripe for cooperation …. Personal relationships matter ….

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