#9
BBC Monitoring
Russian minister's tour confirms loss of influence in Central Asia - paper
Source: Kommersant, Moscow, in Russian 11 Jan 02

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's visit to two Central Asian states has yielded protocol statements but little of apparent substance, confirming that Russia has yielded influence to the West in the region, writes the Kommersant newspaper. The following is the text of the report by Yuriy Chernogayev, published on 11 January under the headline "The Central Asia we have lost - Igor Ivanov concludes visit to Tashkent early". Subheadings have been added editorially:

Tashkent: Yesterday [10 January] Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov took off for Moscow 90 minutes early at the end of his visit to Tashkent, without appearing at a previously planned news conference. The explanation given was that the minister was in a hurry to complete the preparations for President Putin's visit to Poland. In actual fact it was simply that Mr Ivanov had nothing to tell journalists about the results of his Central Asian tour.

Cool reception in Turkmenistan

There has been increasing talk in Central Asia lately about how Russia has lost the initiative in the region and surrendered it to NATO and the Americans. The diplomats and journalists accompanying the minister on his trip around Central Asia have seen for themselves that this is precisely the case. The attitude to Russians as representatives of a power that once played a key role in the region has changed. As soon as we got to Asgabat [Turkmen capital] airport, the Russian journalists were fleeced of 135 dollars for visas, even though a visa has always cost Russian Federation citizens 30 dollars. In conversation with the journalists customs people unobtrusively made it plain that Russia is now only one of many countries with which neutral Turkmenistan cooperates and no more than that. The news conference in Asgabat following Mr Ivanov's talks with President Saparmyrat Nyyazow was a mess: first Mr Nyyazow answered questions from journalists, then Igor Ivanov delivered an official statement about the coincidence of the sides' positions "on all questions" - from the division of the Caspian to the war against terrorists.

Uzbek president: What has Russia got to offer?

The situation was repeated in Tashkent. Immediately after arriving in the Uzbek capital towards evening on 9 January, Mr Ivanov set off for President Islam Karimov's Great White Palace. For almost three hours the Uzbek president and the Russian minister talked without any witnesses present, with neither a secretary nor the waiters who are supposed according to protocol to change the water for the interlocutors being allowed in.

The Russian diplomats left pining in an adjoining room stuck to their brief and described the conversation as "very important", insisting that "its results will be a defining factor in the immediate future". It became known through an information leak, however, that President Karimov was trying to get an answer from Mr Ivanov to the question of what Russia can offer the Central Asian countries today, now that NATO is setting up its own military bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and paying cash for them.

At the end of the conversation the Uzbek president and the Russian minister embraced and came out to face the television crews. Mr Karimov looked confident and stern while Ivanov tried, as it were, to look cheerful. In front of the cameras the Russian minister said only that Russia and Uzbekistan had "reaffirmed our strategic partnership".

At the airport Mr Ivanov did not say a single word to the waiting journalists. One Russian diplomat summed up the results of the Russian Foreign Ministry head's talks in Central Asia like this: "Eternal friendship is not bankable and it does not earn interest".