#13
The Asia Times
October 18, 2001
Moscow to take Central Asian worries to APEC
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - Russia is due to take another step toward integration into the world economic community in the Asia-Pacific region at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Shanghai at the weekend.

On the other hand, the Kremlin is keen to address its concerns over the global terrorist threat and the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, which may affect Russia's Central Asian allies.

Moscow expects that the summit will approve measures designed to oppose terrorism, and notably forestall "funding of extremism in any form", the official Russian RIA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov as saying. Moscow also anticipates that the summit will approve a statement on combating terrorism, said Sergei Vasiliyev, head of Asia-Pacific department of the Russian foreign ministry. The statement is due to denounce terrorism as a phenomenon, but not its particular manifestations, he said.

Although APEC focuses on building an economic community in the Asia-Pacific region, Russia further expects that the summit may approve measures "to forestall dangerous destabilization of the international economy and finances following major terrorist attacks", RIA quoted Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko as saying.

However, the Russian delegation to the APEC summit will have some economic interests in mind. President Vladimir Putin is due to deliver economy-oriented remarks tentatively entitled "Russia's Role and Responsibilities in Asia-Pacific in the 21st Century". The Russian mission to Shanghai also includes some 40 of the country's leading businessmen.

Russian officials have argued that this century is set to become the century of the Pacific Ocean, with Russia strategically located to take part in the process.

Russia won membership to APEC at a meeting in Vancouver, Canada in 1997, but its formal accession, along with Peru and Vietnam, took place in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in November 1998, making APEC a 21-nation bloc.

Moscow has viewed APEC, which accounts for more than half of the world's total income and nearly half of its global trade, as a potentially huge export market. Russian officials have argued that such trade could also be valuable for other APEC members, offering access to Russia's vast natural and human resources and with the potential to serve as a bridge to Western Europe.

However, it is understood that Moscow has had trouble defining clearly its goals in APEC and which areas of trade it should make a priority. Despite much-heralded plans of multibillion-dollar Russian oil and gas pipelines to Eastern Asia, so far Russian membership in APEC has failed to significantly benefit the country's far east regions or spur business in these remote areas.

The Kremlin is also expected to take the opportunity of the APEC summit to discuss bilateral relations, notably ties with China. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who attends the 13th APEC foreign ministers' meeting that was due to begin on Wednesday, is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Tang Jiaxuan. They are expected to discuss the Afghan crisis because "both Russia and China are Afghanistan's neighbors and we are not indifferent on how a new government there is formed", RIA quoted the Russian foreign ministry as saying.

Furthermore, on Friday Putin is due to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin. They had formal talks in Shanghai just four months ago. At the fifth annual summit of the "Shanghai Five" in China on June 14-15, it was announced that the group would be transformed into a new international body, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO. Moscow and Beijing were expected to push the SCO to become a counterbalance to Washington's perceived predominance. The SCO includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrghyzstan and Tajikistan.

However, it is understood that the SCO is unlikely to be a main focus at the APEC summit. Likewise, Moscow and Beijing are not expected in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US to highlight the "multipolar" world concept, which has in the past been used to reflect Russia's and China's shared concerns over what they view as American dominance in the world.

Since the landlocked former Soviet states of Central Asia are yet to be formally represented in APEC, Moscow may opt to deliver their shared anxiety over the Afghan crisis to the summit.

It is hardly a coincidence that on Tuesday Putin and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev held telephone consultations relative to the "ongoing anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan and its repercussions for Central Asia", according to the Kremlin press service.

The situation in Afghanistan may determine the "political and military situation in Central Asia," Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev said in an address to parliament on Tuesday. A peaceful Afghanistan would be beneficial for all Central Asia, the Kyrgyz leader said.

Moreover, the Afghan crisis remains a matter of concern for the post-Soviet states. For instance, leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are due to discuss Afghan and Central Asian developments at the CIS summit in Moscow on November 30.

No big wonder then that Putin has ordered Igor Ivanov "to intensify the efforts of Russian diplomacy in terms of a post-conflict settlement in Afghanistan", according to Putin's press secretary Alexey Gromov.

Specifically, on Friday emergency situation ministers of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia are due to meet in the Tajik capital Dushanbe to discuss ways on how to deal with expected inflows of Afghan refugees, Russia's emergency situation ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax. "Uncontrolled exodus of refugees from Afghanistan should be prevented by international humanitarian efforts," the spokesman said.

However, the Russian Federal Border Guard Service does not expect any sizable inflows of refugee unless "tragic mistakes" take place in the course of anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan, the service's director Konstantin Totsky said in Moscow. In the event of such mistakes, namely strikes against civilian targets, Russian border guards in Tajikistan and their Central Asian colleagues are "ready to concentrate the refugees in border areas", he said.

Since the beginning of the US anti-terrorist action in Afghanistan, the drug trade across the Tajik-Afghan border has increased considerably, the service said in a statement. Within the past week Russian border guards of the Khorog brigade have seized 46 kilograms of heroin and 370 kilograms of raw opium, the statement said.

Russia leads the efforts of the CIS designed to forestall any negative repercussions from the ongoing Afghan crisis, Boris Pastukhov, head of CIS committee of the state Duma, the lower chamber of Russian parliament, told journalists in Moscow. However, he complained that Moscow's calls to strengthen the southern frontiers of the CIS largely fell on deaf ears as the Central Asian CIS states remained reluctant to commit their troops or bear the extra expenses of multilateral efforts.

Despite widespread fears of refugee inflows, Russian military experts sound supportive. The first stage of the US and British military operation in Afghanistan "was carried out as it ought to have been carried out", General Boris Gromov, governor of Moscow region, was quoted as saying by RIA. Gromov, who commanded Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, suggested that the best policy was to rely on special troops and refrain from resorting to a large-scale US invasion into Afghanistan. Such an invasion could become a quagmire and could require up to 140,000 foot soldiers, commented Gromov, who oversaw the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 after 10 years of occupation.

The fate of Afghanistan is of "utmost strategic" importance for Russia, said deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is in charge of Russia's defense industries and arms exports. Moscow favors "a consolidated government in Afghanistan to represent all strata of Afghan people", he told Russian journalists while on a visit to India on Tuesday.

Therefore, it is understood that the Russian mission to the Shanghai summit will try to get APEC to focus on economic issues as well as its concerns over the Afghan crisis and the situation in Central Asia.

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