Russia and the CIS News Digest
Putin: Some Outstanding Russia-EU Issues Settled
A large part of the EU Commission arrived for several days of talks in Moscow April 22. The EU delegation, led by Commission President Romano Prodi, included Chris Patten (Foreign Relations), Loyola de Palacio (Energy and Transport), Pascal Lamy (Trade Relations), Guenter Verheugen (EU Expansion), Antonio Vitorino (Justice), Philippe Busquin (Research, Science, Aerospace), and Margot Wallstroem (Environmental Affairs). The EU-Russian talks are also to prepare the ground for the May 21 EU-Russia Summit in Moscow.
At a press conference following his talks with Prodi on April 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that agreement had been reached concerning Russian freight transit to Kalinigrad across Lithuania. Several days earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov said that while "95%" of the disputes related to EU expansion had been solved, the transit question and the situation of Russian ethnic populations in the Baltic states remained.
Russian Economic Leaders Trek to London
While Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov continued an intense schedule of meetings on tax-policy changesthe new Russian government's main notion of how to boost the economyand abolishing government agencies (over 120 state commissions have been reduced to 14), two of the government's three top economic officials travelled to London on April 19. First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin were among 1,500 people in attendance at the annual Russian Economic Forum, along with top Russian CEOs Alexei Mordashov of Severstal, Rosneft's Sergei Bogdanchikov, General Director of United Machine Building Works Kakha Bendukidze, and Unified Energy Systems boss Anatoli Chubais. Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich, owner of Sibneft oil company and Britain's Chelsea soccer team, was also there.
Amnesty for Oligarchs Hinted in Russia
The London Times reported April 19 that Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin had hinted at a possible amnestywith respect to tax evasion such as Yukos Oil owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky is charged with, as well as illegalities during privatizationfor Russia's "oligarchs," within the next four years, if they follow "new rules": paying their taxes, contributing to charity, and staying out of politics. Kudrin said, "This is not the most popular idea in Russia today. We have to pick a moment when the rules are absolutely clear so that legalizing underground capital will not shock the public and society, and will not be revised.... I believe this will happen during Mr. Putin's Presidency." Vedomosti reported April 19 that Arkadi Volsky, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, has made a similar appeal to legitimize the privatizations of the 1990s "through the payment of taxes on dishonestly acquired property," which revenues could then be used to fight poverty.
Earlier in April, Chairman of the Russian Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin issued an estimate, that the Russian state received only $9.7 billion from the privatization of 145,000 enterprises under former President Boris Yeltsin, which included gigantic oil companies, industrial combines, and ports.
Uzbekistan Closes Soros Institute
RIA Novosti reported April 22 that, "Shrugging off pressure from U.S. officials and international organizations," as well as the complaints of George Soros that Uzbekistan is "stifling civil society," the office of Soros's Open Society Institute in Uzbekistan has been closed. On April 14, the Uzbek government revoked the registration of the OSI Assistance Foundation in Tashkent, which had functioned in Tashkent since 1996, which effectively shut it down. It is notable that Soros, the megaspeculator and drug legalizer who has used his ill-gotten gains to subvert governments across the globe, called on the U.S. government to "re-evaluate" its strategic partnership with Tashkent. Since the U.S. launched its attacks in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan has allowed the stationing of U.S. troops.
Uzbekistan, the most populous nation of Central Asia, will host the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in June. In March, there was a militant Islamic attack in Tashkent, which killed 48 people.
Uzbekistan's Ministry of Justice sent the OSI a letter accusing it of activities that undermined government authority. The letter said that OSI-funded educational materials were trying to "discredit" government policies by allegedly distorting "the essence and the content of socio-economic, public, and political reforms conducted in Uzbekistan."
Soros responded that the decision showed Uzbekistan's "horrendous" human rights record. "Now that [the government] refuses even the semblance of working toward a freer society, how can anyone claim that it is observing human rights?" The OSI, which has spent at least $22 million (officially) in Uzbekistan, was the largest private donor in Uzbekistan in 2003, giving $3.7 million in "assistance."
Russia-China Diplomacy Precedes SCO Session
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov visited China starting April 20 to discuss the situation on the Korean Peninsula, with his counterpart, Cao Gangchuan. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has just finished a visit to Beijing. Ivanov said at a press conference that the North Korean nuclear "crisis" must be settled on the basis of a compromise taking both North Korean and U.S. concerns into account. This must be resolved through "political efforts," Ivanov said.
Referring to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose Foreign Ministers were to confer in Moscow April 23, Ivanov said that the SCO's "full potential is not being used. Its potential is immense, and there is proof of this." Cao Gangchuan said that "The military-technical cooperation of China and Russia fully corresponds to the level of strategic partnership between our states," and is "the most important part of the Chinese-Russian strategic partnership." He emphasized that, despite the "large volume" of Russian-Chinese military-technical cooperation, "it is not directed against other countries but at maintaining stability in the Asia Pacific region."
On April 23, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing arrived in Russia for the SCO meeting. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko was quoted by Itar-TASS, saying that Li and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would also confer on "expanding trilateral dialogue in the format of India-Russia-China, launched in September 2002 with the informal meeting of their Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session." Yakovenko said, "Interaction of Eurasia's three largest nations could become a weighty factor of strengthening international and regional security and countering new threats and challenges of the modern times."
Foreign Minister Li was received by Russian President Putin on April 22. Putin anticipates three summits this year with Chinese President Hu Jintao: at the SCO summit in Tashkent in June, the Asian Pacific Economic Summit in Chile, and the Sino-Russian Beijing Summit in October. RIA Novosti reported that discussions between Li and Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov emphasized the promotion of Eurasian security through more specific cooperation between China and the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), focussed on international terrorism, drug trafficking, frontier, visa and immigration policy.
Ukraine and Poland Confine Iraq Troops to Peacekeeping
The Defense Ministers of Ukraine and Poland announced April 19 that their troops in Iraq should be confined to strictly peacekeeping operations and not be part of any offensive military activities. The decision was made during the April 18-19 meeting of the ministers in Kiev. The troop pull-out from several cities under the control of the Muqtada al-Sadr movement, which is within the zone where troops of both countries are located, was ordered at the peak of armed clashes two weeks ago.
The Kiev decree is seen as a prelude to accelerated troop pullout, as there will soon be a debate in the Ukrainian Parliament on foreign policy. Critics of the Iraq mission (which include many deputies of the formerly pro-American opposition) argue that Ukraine is being drawn into wars, when its interest is in a peaceful and cooperative world. The debate intensified after three Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Iraq.
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