From The International Herald Tribune:HELSINKI: The United States and Russia sent their top military officers to this neutral capital for an unannounced meeting Tuesday to seek and define common ground and to try to move bilateral relations back on track, American officials said.
The meeting was arranged with great secrecy and was the first time that Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had met his counterpart, General Nikolai Makarov, since the Russian was appointed chief of the General Staff this summer.
The two spoke by telephone multiple times during the August crisis when Russian military forces overran areas of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a development that threatened to rupture relations between Moscow and Washington.
U.S. military officers said the session Tuesday in Helsinki, a city with a rich legacy of hosting numerous Cold War-era negotiations, came at the request of the Russians.
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My Comment: These talks have been initiated by the Russians. They are probably looking for common ground, and are also trying to size up what the next U.S> Administration will be doing.