#14 - RW 260
Asia Times
June 5, 2003
Bush rescues Putin's St Petersburg bash
By Pavel Ivanov

Once the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in his poem Peter the Great referred to St Petersburg, now the unofficial second Russian capital, as the "window to Europe". He emphasized that by founding Russia's "northern capital", the great emperor opened the country to the outside world and thus started a new epoch leading to Russia's joining the exclusive club of world powers.

By staging the grandiose celebration of St Petersburg's 300th anniversary at the end of the last week, the current Russian authorities tried to remind the world that this window is still open (or, to be more precise, President Vladimir Putin has reopened the widow - everybody knows that Peter the Great is one of the most favored historical heroes of the Russian president and the bright example to follow), and that Russia remains among the world's leading nations. The show met with a certain degree of success: all leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, practically all heads of the European Union and, on top of that, US President George W Bush gathered in St Petersburg to celebrate the birthday of the Russian northern capital.

Believing that at a birthday party Russia deserved some nice presents from the West, the Kremlin decided to decorate the show with two businesslike events - on Friday Putin held a summit with the leaders of the EU, and on Saturday with his close friend and colleague George. But Friday brought nothing but disappointment to the heir of Peter the Great although he tried very hard to show to the world public that everything went just perfectly. It turned out that the EU members, even Russia’s partners in the "Coalition of Losers" (ie the French president and the German chancellor), were in no hurry to present expensive gifts. The best evidence of this is the final declaration of the summit. It is difficult to imagine that a more vague document could be created.

Trying to be polite at a festive occasion, in the declaration the European leaders reluctantly admitted that Russia "has made some progress on the way of peaceful settlement in Chechnya" and that the sides "agreed to work together toward the goal of Russia's acceptance in the WTO" (World Trade Organization). The declaration also proclaimed the goal of the creation of the so-called Russian-European "mutual economic space" - without any explanation of what that means and when and how it is going to happen. The existing Russian-EU Council of Cooperation was replaced by the Permanent Council of Partnership. It is quite doubtful that the change of name will give a new impulse to the development of the relationship between Moscow and Brussels.

However, during the summit one moment got Putin truly disgusted. The Kremlin had hoped very much that the main "present" to the anniversary from the Europeans would be official agreement on abolishing the visa regime for Russian citizens traveling to EU countries. Alas, the EU demonstrated no willingness to do so in the foreseeable future. Moreover, countries such as Germany, the Scandinavian states and Poland were quite negative on the issue - apparently, closer to the Russian borders, they are the more concerned about penetration by the notorious Russian criminal gangs. The snub prompted President Putin to pronounce the bitter words: "Instead of the Berlin Wall, the EU is building up the Schengen Wall," a reference to the visa treaty among 15 European nations. But Putin's taunt did not change the Europeans' minds. As a result, the sides only agreed on a very vague provision stating that they "agreed to study conditions for abolishing the visa regime as a long-term prospective" without citing even an approximate time frame.

But Saturday consoled the Russian hosts. President George W Bush appeared in St Petersburg with all the glamour of an emperor of old and turned on his personal charm. The whole day, buddies George and Vladimir were practically inseparable, demonstrating to the whole world that the "Iraqi thing" and Russian participation in the anti-war coalition were nothing more than a regrettable minor incident in the relationship between two friends. Bush himself stressed this at the press conference: "Friends can disagree on something, but they remain friends."

Compared with the results of the Russia-EU summit, the two presidents accomplished a lot. They signed and exchanged the Ratification Protocol on the Strategic Offensive Nuclear Arms Treaty; they discussed the situation around Iraq; they considered matters of nuclear proliferation regarding Iran and North Korea. Not bad for just one day. The Russian president was pleased to hear that his US counterpart did not exclude the possibility of Russian companies’ participation in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. He was even more pleased that Bush directly supported the Russian "anti-terror" policy in Chechnya. Even on such an acute problem for US-Russian bilateral relations as Russian-Iranian cooperation in the nuclear field, the US president sounded quite conciliatory: "The positions of the two countries on the issue of the nuclear non-proliferation regarding Iran are very close, and we will continue working on them." The paramount Bush pronouncement underlining his friendship with Putin was an invitation to Camp David this September.

All this makes clear (and doesn't require an expert's analysis) that the crisis in Russian-US relations has been overcome. Official Washington really has forgiven Russia's sins - unlike France's and Germany's. There are some cautions: the two countries have quite different geopolitical interests. Disagreements down the road are inevitable. But common causes prevail and it looks as if both sides are determined to restore their strategic partnership that emerged after September 11, 2001. Bush and his administration believe as strongly as ever that the United States is at war against terrorism and that everything must be subordinated to the cause of final victory in this war. And Putin, I believe, has a better understanding of Bush's pursuit and determination in that regard than any other world leader.

The White House is determined to continue cultivating Russia - not because of its economic significance, but because of geopolitics. Moscow knows that and its interests intersect the United States' vital interests in the Islamic world. Cooperation in the Islamic realm and Moscow's Chechen problem are creating the basis for common concerns and actions. No such common pursuits bind Moscow and the EU or the EU and the US. So it's probably right what a Russian diplomat told me privately: "Yeah, certainly, St Petersburg remains a window, but nowadays this window has definitely a view not on Europe but on America."

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