#5540 #5541
#1
Financial Times (UK)
12 November 2001
Poker-faced Putin raises the stakes at Texas table
As President Vladimir Putin prepares to fly to the US to meet George W. Bush, many Russians hope that his gamble in so closely supporting their former Cold war enemy in the fight against terrorism produces some concrete results.
While officials in both countries have been playing down expectations over the last few days, observers believe Mr Putin needs to bring back some significant concessions from this week's talks at the White House and the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Few doubt Mr Putin made a historic step on September 24, when he offered the US intelligence co-operation and air corridors, and withdrew any objections to the Central Asian states hosting foreign troops.
He then promised to close two symbolic remnants of the former Soviet presence abroad - its bases in Cuba and Vietnam - and has increasingly hinted at a new flexibility in interpreting the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.
The question is what will be necessary to ensure that the new-found alliance lasts, and Mr Putin maintains the domestic support he seeks to pursue such pro-Western policies.
Mr Putin has been statesmanlike in insisting that he is not bargaining but simply responding to the threat of terrorism, which threatens his country as well as the US.
"Russia is not expecting any preferences or payment for its position in supporting your country in the fight against terrorism," he told ABC television last Wednesday.
But Dmitri Trenin, deputy head of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think tank, says: "Russia will not publicly ask for anything, but it would appreciate the West being forthcoming in response to its needs. It is very important for Putin to show that he is not naive like Gorbachev, or uncaring like Yeltsin, but is developing a pragmatic relationship."
Vladimir Lukin, a senior member of the pro-Western Yabloko party, hinted at the stakes last week when he said that no-one asks for a reward before helping to put out a fire next door, but "it is a different thing when your neighbour thanks you, if he is a decent man, after we have extinguished the fire together".
Russia has already begun to gain from its position, which Mr Putin has stressed was reflected in measures he had begun to implement long before September 11.
Donald Evans, the US Commerce Secretary, has given political impetus to a new wave of interest in foreign investment, recognising Mr Putin's pro-market economic and institutional reforms and conservative fiscal policy.
Negotiators say there has been a growing US willingness in the past few weeks to support Russia's status as a market economy as part of plans to ease its swift integration into the World Trade Organisation - a priority for Mr Putin.
Earlier this month the White House began talks on repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which limited trade from the Soviet Union in retaliation for restrictions on Jewish emigration. The amendment irritates Russia today, despite being regularly waived by the US administration.
The White House, along with several European governments, has also tempered criticism of Russia's hard line in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The US rhetoric has shifted from stressing human rights abuses and the need for a settlement, to the links between Chechen rebels and international terrorism.
Furthermore, leaks over the past few days suggest Mr Bush is now willing to cut the number of US strategic nuclear weapons to as low as 1,750 - far deeper than his previous policy and in line with Russian demands. He has already stalled missile tests viewed by Russia as potential violations of the ABM treaty.
That leaves a long wish-list raised by different interest groups, including fresh write-offs of Russia's Soviet-era debt.
But Mr Putin himself has stressed the desirability for everyone that his country be politically and militarily integrated into the contemporary international world, and over the weekend he called for Russia to have a decision-making role within Nato. Alexander Vershbow, the US ambassador to Moscow, hinted this month that once the ABM talks were resolved, there was scope for a broader strategic relationship with Russia. It might include greater Russian involvement in Nato, joint decision-making to combat terrorism, and a new US-Russia treaty.
For the moment, both sides are keen to play down excessive hopes for short term developments. Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, and Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, argued in the last few days that a comprehensive new strategic framework would not be in place this week.
"I don't see Crawford as the turning point," says Mr Trenin. "It's one of many turning points which hopefully will re-orient Russia-US relations into a quasi-alliance. It maintains the momentum for discussions which are a golden opportunity to deal with the vestiges of the Cold war."
Back to the Top Next Article
November 12, 2001:
#5539 #5540 #5541
- Back to the Top -