To intensify and regularize staff exchange work, AFPC organized an April delegation to Moscow of House staffers.  The Honorable Jeff Trandahl, Clerk of the House of Representatives, led the delegation on a reciprocal staff visit.

They were hosted by the State Duma and met with senior parliamentary leaders, such as Duma Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska and International Relations Committee Chairman Dmitry Rogozin, and staff.  They also met with Russian foreign ministry officials and U.S. Ambassador James Collins.

“Of the 20-plus overseas experiences I have had during my tenure on Capitol Hill, I can truly say that my time in the Duma-Congress Exchange Program was one of the best administered and interesting events I have been privileged to experience,” Trandahl told AFPC.  “The ease and guidance you continually provided made certain that the mission was a great success.”

 The delegation “was the first big group of U.S. House staff to go over and meet face to face with their Duma counterparts,” said AFPC Program Officer Kyle Parker, who coordinated AFPC support work and accompanied the group.

 “There are areas of cooperation between the U.S. and Russian that can be faciliateted by staff cooperation,” says Pirchner.  “It may be areas like adoption, scientific cooperation, proliferation, the question of U.S. aid and developing an independent bilateral monitoring group to look at where the money is going, and the funding of treaty implementation.  These questions are already being discussed, and we’re trying to put together an institutional framework where it works.”