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Last Updated: Feb 1, 2008 - 2:25:49 PM |
A Russia-NATO Council meeting at the level of permanent envoys opens in Brussels today. Despite the controversial issue of the moment - Ukraine and Georgia seeking NATO membership - no harsh statements from Russia should be expected. Over the six weeks since Dmitri Medvedev's nomination as a presidential candidate, Moscow's foreign policy rhetoric has been toned down beyond recognition. Yet this doesn't change the essence of Russia's foreign policy. The experts we approached for comments maintain that this remains unchanged: defending national interests, which still haven't been formulated, so each official has a different interpretation of them. Statements made by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this January entirely contradict the speech made by President Vladimir Putin in Munich on February 10, 2007. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has called on Moscow to refrain from making "irresponsible statements," should be happy: Russia is no longer threatening to "circumcise" anyone.
At a Russia-EU summit in Brussels November 11, 2002), a French journalist asked an inappropriate question about Chechnya, and President Putin responded by inviting the journalist to come to Russia for circumcision. But now Russia is publicly refusing to compete with the West for influence over neighboring countries or recognize Abkhazia in response to Kosovo; Russia is once again offering the West friendship and money to fight a crisis, while complaining mildly that the West "doesn't understand us." Foreign Minister Lavrov's official rejection of the idea that Russia is competing for influence over other former Soviet republics has met with some disapproval even within the Foreign Ministry itself. Some have sarcastically dubbed it the "Lavroe Doctrine" - like the Monroe Doctrine, claiming a monopoly for US influence in the Americas. But does this new rhetoric mean that foreign policy itself has changed? Vadim Karasev, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Global Strategies: "Yes, there is such a trend.
The choice of Medvedev is perceived as a failure for the ex-KGB faction and a win for the liberals, who don't want Russia to become a pariah state." Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky: "Only the rhetoric is being toned down. Our irritation with the West stemmed from the insufficiently warm welcome given to Russian capital there, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the departure of Putin-allies Silvio Berlusconi and Gerhard Schroeder. This irritation peaked with the Munich speech. However, I believe that Russia's international influence has declined since then, and the Kremlin is now trying to soften the conflict. This is indicated by the choice of Medvedev as successor, and by Sergei Lavrov's statements. But Russia's foreign policy remains unchanged: an instrument for advancing the business interests of Russia's elite." Alexei Mukhin, head of the Political Information Center, says that Russia's milder rhetoric is a consequence of the global economic crisis: "Putin's Munich speech, which was perceived in the West as Russia's dramatic comeback to big-time politics, heralded an active publicity campaign for Sergei Ivanov at home." According to Mukhin, Ivanov took the lead in the successor race by mid-2007, but circumstances changed by autumn: "Putin suddenly replaced Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov with Viktor Zubkov. Then Putin himself headed United Russia's candidate list in the Duma elections. Then he named Medvedev as his successor."
Mukhin attributes this sequence of three moves to changes in the international situation: "Ivanov was being groomed for the presidency in the event of a new Cold War, in the course of which Western corporations would gain access to our resources. And this had already started - but a systemic crisis hit the United States in late summer of 2007, undermining the dollar. The crisis forced the West to tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric - and Russia, which wasn't ready for a confrontation either, made an appropriate response by nominating the 'liberal' Medvedev." Mukhin maintains that even if Putin decides against becoming prime minister, Russia's foreign policy course will remain unchanged under President Medvedev: it all comes down to looking after Russia's national interests. "Then again, no senior officials have defined our national interests. Perhaps Medvedev will explain them - if not to us, then at least to the West, since Medvedev already intends to explain why the West shouldn't be afraid of Russia."
Source:Ocnus.net 2007
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