Many US Regions Maintain Ties With Russia Despite Political Tensions - Sister Cities International
06:08 GMT 16.04.2022 (Updated: 13:29 GMT 06.08.2022)
© Sputnik / Maxim Blinov
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Many regions in the United States have decided to follow the recommendations issued by Sister Cities International (SCI) to maintain cooperation with their partners in Russia on a people-to-people level despite the current political tensions between the two countries, SCI Chairman Emeritus Bill Boerum told Sputnik.
"Our organization has a policy not to terminate or to suspend relationships because of political reasons. In that line, our President and CEO Leroy Allala gave a statement on March 1 in which he urged our member cities not to suspend or terminate relations with their Russian city partners," Boerum said.
SCI is a US-based global organization that has established more than 2,000 partnerships between cities in 146 countries. About 60 Russian and 70 US cities have so-called "sister relations."
On 22 March, the SCI conducted a meeting with representatives of US regions that have sister relations with Russia.
"That was our Global Awareness Team, and the consensus of the people in the meeting was an agreement with our policy not to suspend these relationships," Boerum said.
While the SCI has its policy, the local authorities are not obliged to follow it and are free to make their own decisions.
Boerum expressed regret that some elected officials in the United States, including the governors of Maryland and Iowa, choose to take unilateral actions and terminate the existing relationships with the respective territories in Russia.
"They just made their own decisions without consulting anyone," Boerum said.
The relationships between sister cities and regions are established by city councils and in a number of cases they took up the issue, Boerum said.
"There are mixed results, but at least in 15 cases the local committees saved the relationships," he said. "I spoke in a couple of those meetings and urged to maintain relationships because they were built over many years and we do not get into political issues. We say, it is better to keep the people-to-people relationships. It is not really about governments, it is about people-to-people."
With respect to the potential economic and cultural impacts of severing relations between sister cities, Boerum said that it is simply a practical matter to maintain them given that Russians and Americans can not visit each other now due to recently implemented travel restrictions.
"I know that people in US and Russian cities continue keeping Zoom meetings. They also communicated by mail. I think it is a practical matter, because it will be difficult in the near term to have much activity or impact," he said, adding that many Russians and Americans hope to continue their relationships.
Asked to provide the best example of partner relations between the US and Russian regions, he said the decision by the local authorities of Roanoke, Virginia and Durham, North Carolina to keep all partnerships with Russia.
