My Life Is Not A Book Or A Movie

MOSCOW. MARCH 16, 2022. PIR PRESS. “In essence, negotiations are the basis of all diplomacy. After all, one of the main tasks of a diplomat, whether at the actual negotiations or when working at the embassy, is to agree on some mutually acceptable things with their foreign partners. This is the fundamental difference between the profession of a diplomat and the profession of a military man. A military man with a weapon in his hands achieves the task by force, and a diplomat – by finding a compromise,” – Yuri Nazarkin, Professor and Honorary Doctor (honoris causa) at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

EDITORIAL: The 90th anniversary was recently celebrated by our Open Collar guest today – Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (retired), Professor and Honorary Doctor (honoris causa) at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, a member of PIR Center’s Advisory Board Yuri Konstantinovich Nazarkin.  Between 1956 and 1992, he worked at the system of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR / Russia, throughout roughly two decades – on issues of disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. Yuri Nazarkin contributed actively to drafting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof (also known as the Seabed Arms Control Treaty), etc. In the period from 1987 to 1989, he acted as Representative of the USSR to the Conference on Disarmament. Also, he negotiated the draft of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Ambassador Nazarkin was a head of the delegation of the USSR during the US-Soviet negotiations leading to the conclusion of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1 Treaty). In 1992-1995, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Yuri Nazarkin told us about his childhood, the curiosities of diplomatic work, interdepartmental cooperation, tennis and the difference between generations.

Read the interview (in Russian)