Before the G20 conference in China happened the Treasury Department increased sanctions. I discovered this via twitter and confirmed it here.
Reports of this are far and few between but I did find this piece on an Aberbizani news source (see here).
This is interesting as it seems that, at least according to Reuters, that the US and Russia will be meeting soon and that talks are expected to be positive.
Let’s review:
Before the G20 the Treasury Department announced increased sanctions.
During the G20 reports were coming out that the US and Russia were coming to terms on the Syria question then all of a sudden Russia “backed out.”
Now reports are coming in that the parties are going to meet and that a deal seems to be in the works.
So the question is whether this positivity is because talks really are getting somewhere or whether the sanctions that the Treasury Department is levying are inducing Russia. If it is the later we have to ask whether this will last? Do sanctions even work in the long term? They did not really work in Cuba, I really don’t know if they will work in the long run with Iran either (only time and nuclear oversight will really tell on that one).
