#8
Asia Times
October 24, 2001
Putin rejects Taliban - and that's not final
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - The Kremlin has once again endeavored to play a more important role in a future Afghan settlement by urging that the Taliban be jettisoned as tainted criminals.

"We believe that the Taliban movement has tainted itself by cooperation with international terrorism," Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted by RIA official news agency as saying. "We consider the position of the Islamic State of Afghanistan that excludes the Taliban movement from a future Afghan government to be justified," Putin said, using the name of the Afghan government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani that is recognized internationally as the legitimate administration of Afghanistan, rather than the Taliban regime.

Putin made his statements during a Monday meeting in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov and Rabbani, whose government was unseated by the Taliban five years ago and whose Northern Alliance forces control less than 10 percent of the country.

Putin made a brief stopover in Tajikistan on his return to Moscow from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shanghai. However, it was in no way an impromptu meeting. Before Putin arrived in Dushanbe, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service, the KGB's chief successor agency, were dispatched to Tajikistan.

In fact, during the meeting with Rakhmonov and Rabbani, Putin was accompanied by most of his key security officials. Therefore, his meeting indicated that the Kremlin wants more of a say in determining the future of post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Putin once again confirmed that Russia recognized Rabbani's government as legitimate. Russia has long opposed the Taliban, whom the Kremlin has repeatedly accused of supporting Chechen separatists. Tajikistan also opposes the Taliban and supports the Northern Alliance, which is led by Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik.

The aim of Russian foreign policy is "to create such a situation in Afghanistan so as the Afghan people can determine their future independently", he said. In the meantime, a future Afghan government "should be friendly towards its neighbors, including the Russian Federation", Putin was quoted by RIA as saying.

Putin also pledged to continue support of Rabbani's government in its fight against terrorism, including "military-technical assistance". The future Afghan government "should reflect interests of all the country's ethnic and political groups", he said.

Rakhmonov reportedly also said that Tajikistan has opposed including the Taliban into a coalition government. Rabbani described the meeting as "very important and timely" and acknowledged Russian and Tajik support "to a just liberation struggle of the Afghan people". Afghan people must determine their own fate, Rabbani was quoted as saying by RIA.

Washington has reluctantly expressed a willingness to include some Taliban activists, at Pakistan's insistence, but Moscow opposes letting even the so-called Taliban "moderates" into a coalition government.

However, despite Putin's hardline anti-Taliban public statements, there have been some hints that the Kremlin might consider a measure of flexibility with regard to the inclusion of moderates.

After Putin's return from Dushanbe, RIA quoted some anonymous "military and diplomatic sources in Moscow" as indicating that Afghanistan's future government may include "Taliban moderates who had not tainted themselves by crimes". According to these sources, the government of Afghanistan is due to be formed in two to three weeks and function during a transition period in order to prepare for general elections. The formation of this interim government is to be carried out "under control of the anti-terrorist coalition and with support of the Northern Alliance and former king Zahir Shah", although this cabinet will not be headed by Shah, who is due to become "a symbol of the national unity", the sources said

Russian politicians note some remaining differences between Moscow and Washington relative to the Afghan settlement. On Monday, Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the international relations committee of the Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, said that Russia and the US disagree over the composition of Afghanistan's future government due to different geopolitical perspectives.

"Russia understands Afghanistan much better because we were there," Rogozin said, in reference to the 10 years that ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Soviet occupying forces from the country. In the meantime, Washington has "simplistic ideas" about Afghanistan, including the belief in the possibility of building a democratic regime there, he said.

On Monday, Putin, Rakhmonov and Rabbani issued a joint statement pledging to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan and Central Asia as well as to help Afghan refugees. Moscow has repeatedly pledged to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

Notably, Russia's emergency situation ministry has announced that it has prepared a shipment, which includes seven power generators, 1,200 heaters, as well as food and medical aid. The shipment is to be forwarded by rail freight by the end of this week to "serve Afghan refugees", according to the ministry. In the meantime, since the beginning of October, Russia has sent some 75 tons of food aid and 10 tons of medicine to Afghanistan by cargo planes, the ministry said.

However, apart from the future of Afghanistan and Central Asia, the Kremlin arguably bears some material interests in mind. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, the world economy has experienced a downturn and oil prices have fallen correspondingly.

When meeting his cabinet members this week, Putin said that the world economy was to "experience negative trends". Moreover, "these trends may have repercussions relative to the situation in Russia", including the state budget for 2002, Putin was quoted as saying by RIA.

Furthermore, fresh from the APEC summit and the Tajik stopover, Putin met his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez in the Kremlin. It has been understood that Chavez, on his second visit to Moscow in six months, was trying to convince the Kremlin to cut oil production in order to maintain the price range of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

OPEC has cut production to keep prices between an average of US$22 and $28 a barrel. However, many non-OPEC so-called "independent producers" such as Russia and Mexico refuse to follow suit. Russia's oil production this year is expected to rise by nearly 9 percent to roughly 390 million tons.

Oil is Russia's key hard-currency earner. It has been understood that Russia's financial meltdown in 1998 and the financial collapse of the former USSR in the late 1980s were both caused by low oil prices.

Although Putin guaranteed Chavez that Russia was going to cooperate with OPEC, Russian officials refrained from any pledges of reducing the country's oil output.

Therefore, Russia urgently needs a return of some semblance of international stability in order to ensure global economic recovery and higher commodity prices. Otherwise, Moscow will find itself between a rock of falling oil prices and a hard place of a need to cut oil production

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