A Done Deal
// Is what Condoleezza Rice is hoping for in Moscow
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaves today for a foreign tour that will wind up in Moscow for a meeting of the top foreign affairs officials of the G8 countries. At the recent meeting to put the finishing touches on the Bush administration's St. Petersburg summit plans, the last brainstorm took place to establish the White House's position at the summit. A Kommersant source says that Bush's main goal will be to advance American business interests in Russia and to reach an agreement on Iran. Whether or not that works out will depend on the U.S. position on democracy, energy security and the situation in the CIS.
Washington Powwow
Rice's tour has been shrouded in secrecy. The State Department has not announced where she will be stopping en route to Moscow, saying that it is concerned about her security. Kommersant has obtained information that she will spend two days either in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Once in Moscow, Rice will have a full schedule beyond the meeting of the G8 foreign office heads, at which the final details of the upcoming summit will be worked out. Washington is placing great significance on the meeting that will be held between Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and, possibly, Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House's attention is due to the fact that, in spite of months of negotiations, it sees more questions than answers, while the summit is only three weeks away. Russian presidential aide Igor Shuvalov made a statement last week that illustrated how those questions in relations between Moscow and Washington could complicate the course of the summit at the last minute. Shuvalov, speaking of “possible surprises,” mentioned U.S.-Russian relations. “We have not brought WTO negotiations to a close. If one side suddenly introduces some unpleasantness prepared in advance before the summit, it will be outmaneuvered in the appropriate political manner.”
Considering the complexity of the moment, it had been a long time since Bush had invited a group of Russia experts to see him, as he did last Friday. A Kommersant source says that Rice was present at the meeting with the five experts as well. They were executive director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council Blake Marshall, director of the Carnegie Foundation Russian program Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow for the Russian economy at the Brookings Institute Clifford Gaddy, director of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Marshall Goldman and fellow of the influential NGO Council on Foreign Relations Stephan Sestanovich.
One can guess what Bush wanted to know from the list of people he asked. Gaddy is a specialist in the Russian oil industry, Goldman analyzes Russian finances and macroeconomics and is well-known as a lobbyist for American companies in Russia. Kuchins and Sestanovich study the political situation in Russia, and have distinguished themselves with their critical views. Sestanovich is one of the authors of the report “Russia's Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do,” which former U.S. vice presidential candidates Jack Kemp and John Edwards presented several months ago. That report favored excluding Russia from the G8 for civil rights violations.
You Have to Ask the Russians
But no matter what critical words the experts may have, the Bush administration does not want to exacerbate relations with Moscow. It prefers to find compromises on the more pressing questions. It looks as if that is what the White House has made the main goal of Rice's trip to Moscow. Notably, Bush's press secretary Tony Snow said after the president's meeting with the Russia experts that “Russia is in the center of many things that we are now engaged with.” On the whole, Snow's statements were deliberate and positive. Calling Moscow “a critical partner in Iraq, North Korea, in relations with Iran and in a number of other places,” Snow characterized Moscow's approach to the Iran and North Korea problems as “very constructive.” He acknowledged that the United States and Russia do not agree on certain issues but did not name those issues.
Recent statements by other representatives of the U.S. administration confirm that the Bush administration still has doubts about Moscow's readiness not to interfere in the imposition of sanctions against Iran by the UN Security Council if Iran rejects the proposals made by six countries several weeks ago. On Friday, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried twice avoided Kommersant's question at a briefing in Washington about whether he was “100-percent sure that Russia would be on the same track as the U.S. if the UN Security Council discusses possible sanctions against Iran.” “You have to ask the Russians that, but I think Russia also understands that the presence of nuclear arms in Iran will hardly be in its interests,” he said.
Iran is far from the only topic that Moscow and Washington cannot agree on. A source close to the White House told Kommersant that issues remain concerning Russia's admittance to the WTO and American companies' participation in the development of the Shtokman natural gas deposit and construction of oil and gas transport facilities in Russia. A contract for the Russian purchase of 22 Boeing 787's also remains in limbo. The source said that Washington “is very much counting on a positive decision” from Moscow. Washington is also hoping that an agreement on American companies' involvement on building the Russian oil and gas transport network can be reached at the summit in St. Petersburg.
To Each His Own Energy Security
Realizing that negotiations on all those issues will be difficult, Washington is trying to shore up its negotiating positions in the time left before the summit. One step in that direction has been the joint U.S.-European Union resolution promoting peace, human rights and democracy worldwide signed at the U.S.-EU summit in Vienna last week. Observers in Washington say that the eight-page document, which also describes joint action by the EU and U.S. on energy security, means that the U.S. and EU have put their disagreements behind them. Assistant Secretary of State Fried, one of the authors of the resolution, said that it “is the most ambitious document that we have ever tried to establish with the European Union.”
Observers in Washington also note that the document has an immediate impact on Russia, since it mentions not only the “importance of pursuing deeper cooperation” but also “concern about some recent events in the Russia and region,” meaning the former Soviet Union. In that connection, the document also notes the need to “work with Russia to promote energy security, the application of the rule of law, an independent judiciary and full respect for human rights, including free and independent media and a vibrant civil society, and a resolution of frozen conflicts in the region.”
Energy security, which Moscow, as the chairman of the Eight proposes as one of the key topics on the summit agenda, is the topic of two whole pages of that document. Judging from the text, the Westerners understand energy security somewhat differently from Moscow. The declaration speaks of the need to observe the supremacy of market principles in fuel trade and to ensure open, transparent and nondiscriminatory conditions for investment in the energy sector. Commenting on that section of the resolution, a Kommersant source close to the White House said that “Russia's gas attack on Ukraine significantly encourage the U.S. and EU to draw closer together in their positions, which is what led to the signing of that joint document.”
Fried did not deny that fact. He told journalists that “the resolution doesn't mean the foundation of an alliance against Russia,” but he noted that energy is a difficult matter even without the instilling political risks in it, as between Russia and Ukraine in January of this year.
Dmitry Sidorov, Washington; Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of June 26, 2006
|