Kommersant, Russia

NATO's 'Blockade' of President Putin

"The leadership of the Alliance is committed to curtailing most of the debate. The Russian President will be unable speak publicly on the most important questions of world politics. This is an ugly spectacle, and attempts to blame it on the rules are inappropriate."

-- Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Ambassador to NATO

By Mikhail Zygar and Vladimir Solovyev

Translated By Igor Medvedev

April 2, 2009

Kommersant - Russia - Original Article (Russian)

The NATO summit opens today in Bucharest, and it may be the most scandalous summit in the history of the organization. Ukraine and Georgia will attempt to obtain entry into the Alliance's Membership Action Plan, while Russia and its key economic partners try to prevent this. The format of the Russia-NATO meetings won't give Putin a chance to make another Munich speech WATCH . But the presidents of Georgia and Ukraine and former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov will be given a chance to speak.

[Editor's Note: In his speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy last year, President Putin said, among other things, "One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?  And of course this is extremely dangerous. The result of this is that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this no one feels safe! Because no one feels that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them! [Read Putin Tells off the United States from February, 2007 ]."

ANTI-MUNICH

Even before the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin's participation is a source of controversy. The Russian leader arrives in Bucharest on Thursday to participate in a meeting of the Russia-NATO council on Friday, the summit's final day. But the day before the summit, the Russian side accused the Alliance of intending to deprive President Putin of the chance to be speak.

Significantly, Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, when asked in an interview published in the Moskovsky Komsomolets on March 31 whether the Russian president would make another "Munich speech" in Bucharest, said that such a thing would be impossible because of the format of the NATO summit. “The Munich speech was addressed to the public and not so much to people making the decisions. In Bucharest things will be quite the opposite. The entire discussion of the Russia-NATO council will be held in the usual format - private.”

But by the evening of the same day, Rogozin expressed a different point of view.

For example, Rogozin noted that the agenda for the Ukraine-NATO and Russia-NATO councils were set up differently: In the first instance, opening speeches would be given by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. In the latter instance, only de Hoop Scheffer would speak. After the Ukraine-NATO meeting, de Hoop Scheffer and Yushchenko are to hold a joint press conference, while, after the second, de Hoop Scheffer alone is to hold one. Rogozin concluded that “the leadership of the Alliance is committed to curtailing most of the debate. The Russian President will be unable speak publicly on the most important questions of world politics. This is an ugly spectacle, and attempts to blame it on the rules are inappropriate.”

But at NATO headquarters, Kommersant was assured that, "the format of the NATO-Russia Council was indeed unchanged. The fact if that back in 2002, that format of that body was altered in accord with Russia's wishes. In the past, the NATO secretary general and the Russian representative sat at the podium together, and representatives of the NATO member states sat at a common table. In 2002, when Russia became an equal partner in NATO and its representative (who in Bucharest will be Putin) took a seat at the table with the presidents of the member states, who are seated in alphabetic order according to the names of the countries - so Putin will sit between Romanian President Trajan Basescu and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. So since 2002, the sole chairman of the council has been the NATO secretary general. He opens the meeting, after which the press is removed from the auditorium and the council members discuss their business.

“Since Russia is an equal member of the NATO-Russia Council, it would be unethical in regard to the other leaders to give Vladimir Putin the floor along with the secretary general,” said a NATO spokesman. “President Bush, President Sarkozy or Chancellor Merkel might also have the desire to speak. Then there would be no constructive discussion at all - everyone would be speaking exclusively to the audience.”

An official NATO representative said that all meetings since 2002 have been held in a closed format away from journalists, and so far the Russian side (as Rogozin admitted in his interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets) hasn't objected. In addition, the NATO press service told Kommersant that they had been told that Putin intends to hold his own press conference immediately after de Hoop Scheffer's. “And why would NATO invite Vladimir Putin to the summit, if it didn't want to listen to him?” the spokesman asked.

The format of Ukraine-NATO meetings follow a different tradition. Ukraine isn't considered an equal partner, so Victor Yushchenko will be able to appear before journalists beside the NATO secretary general twice.

But disagreements over Putin's speech aren’t the only ones. Traditionally, council members agree on a joint statement at the end of their meeting. But it's still unclear what the parties can agree on. On matters of principle (the Treaty of Conventional Forces in Europe, missile defense and Kosovo) Russia and the NATO countries have no common ground. Another issue is the initiative to create a public forum for the Russia-NATO council, a structure that would advocate cooperation between Moscow and Brussels, or in other words, strive to improve NATO's image in Russia. To this end, Russia and the Alliance should jointly organize conferences, roundtables, seminars and sociological studies on Euro-Atlantic security. Moscow, however, isn't terribly interested in the project, fearing that NATO will use it to finance various “untrustworthy” nongovernmental organizations [on other words, groups operating in Russia without Kremlin control].

The only real Russia-NATO achievement is a simplified procedure for the ground transport of NATO cargo to Afghanistan. But according to information obtained by Kommersant, if the discussions take a bad turn, the Russian side is considering not issuing such a declaration after the council meeting. Moscow's claims about the format of Vladimir Putin's Bucharest speech can be considered a warm up for just such a scenerio.

The fact is that the NATO forum is structured in such a way that the majority of leaders in attendance have no chance to make an effective speech, just as is the case with President Putin. But some of them will be provided a platform at the Bucharest conference. For example, the presidents of the United States, Latvia, Afghanistan and Estonia; the prime ministers of Canada and Romania; and the foreign ministers of Poland and Turkey are speaking there today.

The most unpleasant day for the Russian delegation could be tomorrow [Thursday]. The day begins with a discussion entitled “Does Ukraine Need NATO.” Taking part in the debate will be two former Ukrainian foreign ministers and members of the Rada [Ukraine's Parliament] from the Party of the Regions and Our Ukraine, Konstantin Grishchenko and Boris Tarasyuk. Then the question of missile defense in Europe will be raised, with chairman of the State Duma's [Russian Parliament] Committee on Foreign Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich and Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra invited to speak.

Finally, the last and most intriguing debate will be devoted to the situation in Russia. Participating in the discussion should be former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, State Duma member Sergey Markov and British MP from the Conservative Party, Baroness Neville-Jones. Thus, Kasyanov will have the opportunity to speak to the general public in Bucharest, but President Putin will not.

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Another distinguishing feature of the Bucharest conference is that the opening event was attended by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. He too was given the opportunity to speak - during the so-called night session, which hadn't yet begun as this story was filed. The Georgian president's press service told Kommersant that Saakashvili is to "sieze the opportunity" to urge opponents of giving his country a spot in NATO's Membership Action Plan to change their minds.

ANTI-NATO

The 26 NATO members have two immediate questions to resolve at the summit. They have agreed to welcome three newcomers - Albania, Macedonia and Croatia - which have already passed through all preparatory steps for membership in the Alliance. Members will then respond to the petitions of Georgia and Ukraine, the governments of which are to simultaneously ask for admission into the Membership Action Plan. There are no fundamental differences over admitting the new members. However, the Greek authorities are roiling the waters over Macedonia's admission. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia, Greece has strongly opposed Macedonia calling itself Macedonia, since a historic Greek region carries the same name. A compromise is likely to be found today, since Macedonia is already referred to in NATO documents as “The Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.”  

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As far as the Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, the situation is ambiguous, although since the beginning, Kiev and Tbilisi have tried to join forces in their struggle to obtain invitations from NATO. Ukraine filed its application with de Hoop Scheffer in January of this year, and Georgia did so a month later. “I won't hide the fact that we are carefully coordinating our actions with Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko [President and Prime Minister of Ukraine],” Saakashvili told Kommersant. “There is much that unites our countries - and not just the fact that President Yushchenko is my son's godfather. Our interests simply coincide.”

The interests of Georgia and Ukraine that Saakashvili mentioned apparently coincide with those of the United States as well. In any case, Washington will gladly accept the two countries as patrons. Last month. after Georgia's MAP application had barely reached Brussels, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of the authorities in Ukraine and Georgia. Among the authors of the resolution was presidential favorite Barack Obama. The resolution demands that U.S. authorities do everything possible to allow Ukraine and Georgia to gain quick admission in the Alliance.

President George W. Bush received his Georgian counterpart Saakashvili at the White House in March, and promised to support his efforts to draw closer to NATO. In Kiev yesterday, he made the same promise to Yushchenko, when he said that that he had recently spoken to President Putin on the telephone. "I told that to President Putin on my phone call with him recently. I said, you just got to know, I'm headed to Bucharest with the idea in mind of getting MAP for Ukraine and Georgia, and you shouldn't fear that, Mr. President. After all, NATO is a organization that's peaceful, or NATO is an organization that helps democracies flourish WATCH ."

Also yesterday, President Bush praised Kiev for its active participation in NATO operations. "Ukraine is the only non-NATO nation supporting every NATO mission. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Ukrainian troops are helping to support young democracies. In Kosovo, Ukrainians are -- help keep the peace." This was a clear exaggeration, since even Ukraine withdrew its peacekeepers from Iraq in 2005 and Ukraine never had a military contingent in Afghanistan - but only civilian specialists.

It's possible that on the eve of the Summit, the American President intentionally overstated Kiev's services to impress the opponents of Ukrainian and Georgian integration into NATO, since there is no consensus on the matter within the Alliance. Principle NATO members like Germany, France and The Netherlands are resisting membership for the former Soviet republics and over recent days have repeatedly spoken against it. Skeptical about such plans are Italy, France, Greece, Norway, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg. They point to a lack of consensus within Ukraine, and unresolved territorial conflicts in Georgia [parts of Georgia want to break away or return to Russia.]

In an interview with Kommersant, Saakashvili assessed the motives of "Old Europe" in resisting Georgian membership.

“European businesses, which of course do business with Russia, have reacted to Moscow's negative attitude. But Europe has made these kinds of serous errors over the last century and paid heavily for them. The current generation of European politicians remembers those mistakes and isn't likely to repeat them,” he said.

SEE ALSO:

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http://worldmeets.us/gazetawyborcza000009.shtml

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http://worldmeets.us/novosti000051.shtml

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http://worldmeets.us/liberation000111.shtml

Le Figaro, France

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http://worldmeets.us/lefigaro0000205.shtml

Der Spiegel, Germany

NATO: Germany Puts

the Brakes on U.S.

Plans for Expansion

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,544109,00.html

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 3, 5:47am]