Russia and the CIS News Digest
Putin Likens Iraq Crisis to Bombing of Belgrade
Russian President Vladimir Putin met June 3 with V. Kostunica, the President of Serbia. Putin supported Kostunica's policies towards calming ethnic conflicts, which have flared again in Kosova. RTR TV reported. But Putin's most striking comment came during a press conference after their talks. Talking about the reconstruction of Serbia after the fighting, including the NATO bombing of Belgrade starting in the spring of 1999, prior to the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic, Putin said, "I personally think that the restoration of Serbia's economy should be funded by those who destroyed the infrastructure of Serbia and Montenegro." He then added: "As for our attitude to the policy of shifting the domestic political situation in various countries using force, our approach is well knownwe categorically oppose this sort of policy.... Furthermore, I am deeply convinced that if the international community had had the courage and strength to prevent the bombing of Belgrade, there would not be such a difficult situation in the Iraq crisis today. It would have been of an entirely different nature."
Egyptian President Mubarak Visits Russia
Russian and Egyptian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hosni Mubarak met at the Kremlin on May 28, with only aides and translators present, to begin talks on a Middle East settlementwith consideration for a "weighty and invariably active role of Egypt in Middle East affairs," as a Kremlin spokesman put itas well as the situation around Iraq, cooperation between Russia and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the dialogue of civilizations, and political settlement of international and regional problems. Russia is interested in becoming an observer at the OIC.
"Egypt is a country with which Russia has many-year, very close relations, and we consider Egypt as a privileged partner, especially in Middle East and African affairs," Putin told Mubarak. "We consider you personally as a close friend of Russia, who has special relations with our country, including the years spent here."
Near the conclusion of his three-day visit to Moscow, Mubarak said he favored admitting Russia to the OIC. "Such a step would refute the clash of civilizations theory. Some contemporary forces are using this concept in a very dangerous way that disunites peoples and creates instability in the world," Mubarak told a ceremony at the Moscow State University of International Relations on May 29. "I was the first Arab leader to welcome Russia's desire to join the OIC. Russia has 20 million Muslims who live in peace with the Christians," the Egyptian President stressed.
Commenting on prospects for the Middle East settlement, Mubarak said that Palestinian-Israeli peace would stimulate reforms in Arab countries. "Russia and Egypt share similar views not only on methods of solving the Middle East conflict. They have the same vision of reforms in the Arab world," Mubarak stressed. He said that the "specific features of the national development of each particular country should be taken into account if it wants to launch a modernization process.... We are convinced that the Arab League is the only organization that can initiate reforms in Arab countries on condition of the earliest solution of the Iraqi problem and the Middle East crisis."
On relations with Russia, Mubarak said, "Egypt consistently supports the development and strengthening of cooperation with Russia. Russia used to render enormous assistance to us in various stages of our historyin the supply of arms, the solution of economic tasks and in industrial development."
Putin Again Calls for International Conference on Iraq
Following talks with visiting Egyptian President Mubarak, President Putin said May 28 that the current situation in Iraq must be of concern to the international community. "It worries everybody, including Russia," he said. After the wide-ranging talks with Mubarak, including on boosting the role of the international community and the United Nations in resolving the Iraqi problem, Putin stated: "To reach these objectives, we regard it as expedient to call an international conference. Its participants should be representatives of the Iraqi people, neighboring countries, the UN Security Council and other states."
At his May 30 press conference after the talks, Putin said he had just spoken by telephone with President Bush on how to restore Iraq's sovereignty. Putin said that the expected U.S.-submitted UN resolution on Iraq will not be effective or tangible on the ground, unless it included the mechanism that would guarantee sovereignty of the Iraqi people.
SCO Anti-Terror Center To Open Soon
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's regional anti-terror center will be officially opened at the upcoming SCO summit in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan. The SCO nationsChina, Russia, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikistanagreed in 2002 to create the center. All the SCO member-nations' Presidents will attend the June 16-17 summit, as well as representatives from the UN, EU, CIS, and OECD. The anti-terror center will be the second permanent office of the SCO, which opened its secretariat in Beijing in January. The summit will discuss a new document on foreign relations for the SCO.
West Siberia-Murmansk Oil Pipeline Discussed
A conference on "NATO and RussiaCooperation in the Barents Sea and Arctic Region" was held June 1 in Murmansk. It featured an endorsement by U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow, of the pipeline project from the northwestern Siberian oil fields to the port of Murmansk. From there, the oil would be shipped across the northern Atlantic to the United States. This is the scheme on which the four biggest Russian oil firmsLukoil, Yukos (now near bankruptcy), Sibneft, and TNK (now in merger with BP)signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. interests in 2002, to build it as a private pipeline; the question of private ownership and public operation (by the state pipeline company Transneft) continues to be hotly debated in Russia. The idea was launched around the time of the first "U.S.-Russian Commercial Energy Dialogue" summit in Houston, on Russia's potential to become a major petroleum supplier to the United States.
An alternate pipeline project would go to Inaga on the shore of the Barents Sea, where a special oil terminal would be constructed, according to Semyon Veinshtok, the chairman of Transneft. He met with visiting U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in Moscow a few days earlier, to discuss that project. The U.S. has signalled its interest, but has not committed more than $1 million, so far, for a feasibility study. The Russians say at least $100 million would be required. The pipeline and related issues will also be on the agenda of talks between Russia and the United States on the assistant energy minister level, June 7.
EU-Russia Continental Electric Power Alliance Going Forward
In meetings in Moscow June 2, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko and the European Union's Director-General for Transport and Energy, Francois Lamoureux, agreed to speed up negotiations on the envisaged power alliance between Russia and the EU, to establish it in 2005, two years ahead of schedule.
The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has recently raised once again the development of fast-breeder nuclear technology, as an important joint EU-Russian project, in addition to projects discussed for the oil and gas sectors. Russia would supply Europe with power from fast breeders at affordable prices; within Western Europe, France is the only major country pushing for new nuclear projects to be built at home.
Georgia Military Moves Around South Ossetia Raise Caucasus Tensions
Tension has escalated between Georgia and Russia, around the Georgian province of South Ossetia. That region and Abkhazia, both bordering on Russia, have been quasi-independent since repudiating Tbilisi's authority 12 years ago, though they are officially part of Georgia. Having ousted Aslan Abashidze as leader of Ajaria (another autonomous region, on the Turkish border, but it had not broken away to the extent the others did), Georgian President Michael Saakashvili has vowed to reunify all of Georgia. Saakashvili's George Soros-funded movement came to power in a coup at the end of last year.
The South Ossetia border with the rest of Georgia is patrolled by peacekeepers from Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia itself, under agreements reached in 1992. On May 31, Tbilisi sent reinforcements into the 10-km buffer zone, allegedly to fight smuggling. A furious exchange of denunciations followed, including three official statements from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called on Tbilisi to "realize the danger of provocations" and warned that the Georgians were violating international agreements and fanning tensions. Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania rejoined, "Neither the U.S.A., nor Russia can dictate how we are going to use our military forces, which have been trained under the Georgian-American program"one more indication of the ever-present element of foreign meddling, as a factor in these Transcaucasus crises, cited by Lyndon LaRouche as a strategic danger, in his "Southwest Asia: the LaRouche Doctrine."
As of June 3, Georgia and South Ossetia were supposed to have calmed the flare-up, in talks with Russian mediation, but it was later reported that Georgia has sent heavily armed forces, including tanks, into Gori near the South Ossetian border. This evening's Russian TV broadcasts carried emotional denunciations of these actions, by people in South Ossetia.
Russian 'Oligarch' Named Economics Minister of Georgia
That Moscow's relations with the Saakashvili regime in Tbilisi are more complex than meets the eye, is indicated by the June 1 appointment of Kakha Bendukidze to be Georgia's Minister of Economics. The Tbilisi born, ethnic Georgian Bendukidze has made his career in Russia, as one of the whiz kids who seized the chance to become an industrial magnate, one of Russia's top "oligarchs," during the 1990s. Bendukidze owns an industrial conglomerate called United Motor Works, which includes Uralmash, formerly the Soviet Union's premier machine-tool plant.
Though his holdings are in the real sector, Bendukidze is going to economically flattened Georgia, with its deeply impoverished population, mouthing Mont Pelerinite nonsense. According to Russian wires, he said June 1 that he advocates radical economic deregulation and shifting the tax burden as much as possible from businesses onto individual taxpayers.
Saakashvili has gone abroad, both to the east and to the west, to recruit members of his government, who have no visible ties to officials in previous regimes. Georgia's current foreign minister is Salome Zourabichvili, a career diplomat from France, whose family emigrated from Georgia in 1921, and who was French Ambassador to Georgia until this spring.
|