In this issue:

Bush and Putin Emphasize Bilateral Cooperation

President Putin Embarks on Diplomacy with 'Strategic Triangle'

'Italian Breakthrough' Towards LaRouche's New Bretton Woods Covered in Russian Monthly

Franco-Russian Talks Center on Iraq

Ivashov Speaks on Geopolitics of Russia-Europe Relations

From Volume 1, Issue Number 38 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published November 25, 2002
Russia and Central Asia News Digest

Bush and Putin Emphasize Bilateral Cooperation

President George W. Bush flew to St. Petersburg, Russia Nov. 22, directly from the final session of the NATO summit in Prague. He was in Russia for a total of two and one-half hours, for a conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. After their meeting, Bush and Putin held a brief photo opportunity and took several questions.

Putin emphasized the frank but friendly nature of the dialogue between the two leaders, telling the reporters, "We discussed practically everything between the sky and the earth," including the "problem" of NATO expansion, the war on terrorism and issues of "strategic stability."

Bush responded to Putin's opening by restating, "I consider Vladimir Putin one of my good friends." Bush announced he had accepted an invitation from Putin to return to St. Petersburg in May.

Putin later said that "the interests of Russia and the United States coincide not only in many economic fields, but they are also identical in many strategic areas." Asked about the Iraq situation and the war on terror, Putin made two interesting observations: He reminded the press that 16 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 were said to be Saudi citizens; and he noted that, while President Musharraf of Pakistan has been cooperating in the war on terror, there are credible reports that Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders are hiding in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, and there is worry that terrorists may get their hands on Weapons of Mass Destruction from Pakistan.

Putin also emphasized that the Iraq situation must be handled within the framework of the United Nations Security Council: "Diplomats," he said, "have turned out a very difficult, a very complex work, and we do believe that we have to stay within the framework of the work being carried out by the Security Council of the United Nations. And we do believe that, together with the United States, we can achieve a positive result."

President Putin Embarks on Diplomacy with 'Strategic Triangle'

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China, then go directly to India, before the end of this year. The Times of India played up this news on Nov. 22, citing the Kremlin's announcement. Putin will first head to Beijing on Dec. 1, for a three-day visit on the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin. He will for the first time meet new Chinese Communist Party head Hu Jintao, who will most likely be elected President of China in March 2003.

Directly from Beijing, Putin will fly to India to meet with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. He is to arrive in New Delhi late on Dec. 3, according to Indian statements. He will then hold a summit with Vajpayee Dec. 4. Then, on Dec. 5, Putin will meet with leaders of Indian industry, before departing for Moscow.

The plans for this "Triangle" diplomacy were made last June, according to the Kremlin. This was at the summit of 16 Eurasian nations at Almaty, Kazakhstan June 3-4, associated with the inaugural meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). CICA, proposed by Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992, was to have first met in November 2001, but this was prevented by the launching of the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

Now, according to the Times of India, New Delhi has requested of Putin that he stay for one more day, but he has declined this, saying that bilateral relations are "cloudless."

'Italian Breakthrough' Towards LaRouche's New Bretton Woods Covered in Russian Monthly

The November 2002 issue of the Russian financial magazine Valyutny Spekulyant (Currency Dealer) carried a two-page report by Sergei Dyshlevsky, on the Italian Parliament's adoption of Resolution No. 6-00030 "On the Economic Crisis in Argentina." The article is headlined, "The Italian Breakthrough," and illustrated with a picture of the Spanish Steps in Rome and a portrait of Lyndon LaRouche, who is identified as the intellectual and political author of the conceptions put forward in the resolution.

Valyutny Spekulyant reports that the resolution called for creation of a "new financial architecture." This "new system of world financial relations, Italian parliamentarians call 'a New Bretton Woods'—the initiative for which belongs to the American economist Lyndon LaRouche."

Before summarizing the Italian resolution in detail, Dyshlevsky situates it within LaRouche's record of forecasting and policy proposals: "Lyndon LaRouche has become widely known, thanks to two of his successful long-term forecasts. In the first of these, made in the late 1950s, he predicted the demise of the Bretton Woods system, which indeed was liquidated in 1971. The second was his forecast of a systemic crisis—a general collapse of the global economic system. And indeed, during the past decade world monetary and financial markets began to experience a continuous series of 'seismic shocks,' testifying to the onset of a global systemic crisis of the world economy.

"After the publication of an article about L. LaRouche and an interview with him [in VS No. 11 and 12, 2001], some readers expressed to VS their genuine skepticism about the possibility of introducing a new gold-reserve standard: this 'archaic system,' they said, was replaced with good reason and should not be restored. Nonetheless, resolutions calling for signing a New Bretton Woods agreement have been put forward and discussed during the past two years, in not only the Italian Parliament, but also the European Parliament."

In addition to details and excerpts from the Italian resolution, Dyshlevsky reports Representative Giovanni Bianchi's words during debate of the resolution, about LaRouche's leadership in forecasting the crisis and developing the solution (see www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2938_ital_parl_report.html). The VS article concludes with news of the Oct. 9-10 conference held at the Financial Academy of the Russian Government, where National Banking Council chairman Victor Gerashchenko endorsed the Italian resolution and called on the Russian State Duma to follow its example.

VS also provides the web address where a complete Russian translation of the Italian resolution is posted: www.larouchepub.com/russian/nbw/020925_ital_parl.html.

Franco-Russian Talks Center on Iraq

Concluding three days of talks in Paris, Russia Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had a one-hour meeting with French President Jacques Chirac on Nov. 15. The Iraq issue, discussed at that meeting, also was on the agenda of the first official session of the newly created Franco-Russian Council for Strategic Consultations, which met on the level of the Defense and Foreign Ministries, also in Paris and also Nov. 15.

Chirac's spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said after the meeting that both sides categorically made clear that they wish an undelayed and efficient inspection mission in Iraq, to be able to deliver the expected report on Iraq's armaments to the United Nations Security Council in February next year.

Ivashov Speaks on Geopolitics of Russia-Europe Relations

In a review of the NATO expansion decision at the Prague summit, the former head of the international department of the Russian Defense Ministry, Gen. Col. Leonid Ivashov, wrote in the Nov. 23 issue of Junge Welt that the future of the expanded NATO is not clear. "It is difficult to forecast which direction political developments in Europe will take, if the geopolitical situation there changes. It is not at all a secret that the world community is going through a systemic crisis today," Ivashov observed.

If one of the prime objectives of the U.S. war drive is to gain full control of the Mideastern oil, he said, which implies a desire to make Europe energy-dependent and gain access to Russian oil, then Russia must also watch out, because its oil resources are very attractive. Russian diplomacy should be wise and balanced, and follow economic interests, which converge with those of Europe: "Today, a unique opportunity is offered to use economic leverage for the solution of Russia's problems abroad. Thus, Europe's dependency on Russian crude oil and natural gas is increasing. But this does not only concern energy carriers. Under conditions of a deepening world economic recession and the ensuing stagnation, Russia is turning into an attractive sphere for capital investments for the Western countries, into a giant market for Western goods. In dealing with controversial aspects of the NATO expansion, Russia's diplomacy should not only use political, but also economic leverage more decisively."

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