In this issue:

Two Triangular Meetings During UN General Assembly Session

Putin Stresses Strategic Importance Of United Nations

Putin Active In New York Before Bush Summit

Yukos Denies Kissinger Is Paid Agent For Khordorkovsky

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Meeting: Economics, Security, Silk Road

China-Russia Prime Ministers' Meeting

Russian Credit For Chinese Nuclear Plant

Putin Endorses Orthodox-Catholic Reconciliation

From Volume 2, Issue Number 39 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Sept. 30, 2003
Russia and Central Asia News Digest

Two Triangular Meetings During UN General Assembly Session

The "anti-war three"—Presidents Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin of France and Russia, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder—met on Sept. 24 in New York, where they were attending the annual fall session of the United Nations General Assembly. All three leaders reiterated that they do not intend to send troops to Iraq. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov reiterated Sept. 22 that, if anything, Russia would consider joining a UN peace-keeping mission to separate the two conflicting parties of Palestine and Israel. Fedotov said that American troops should leave Iraq, and instead join such a UN force in the Middle East, which would make more sense in the eyes of Russia.

On Sept. 23, China, India, and Russia agreed to adopt a common approach on Iraq. The three great Eurasian powers held the second "triangular" meeting of their foreign ministers, at the UN General Assembly in New York. This year, the meeting was hosted by India's External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, who met with Foreign Ministers Igor Ivanov of Russia and Li Zhao Xing of China. Afterwards, Sinha announced that there was "unanimity that what was required in Iraq was not sending more troops but a political solution that will see the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, a return of governance." Iraq does not need more troops, Sinha said, but a political solution, and return of sovereignty. "This will be the approach and we decided to work together on the new resolution on Iraq," he said.

The three discussed many other issues, but Iraq was most important. Sinha said that India would be working with China and Russia on a new resolution on Iraq that is to be placed before the Security Council. "We have adopted a common approach, and we have asked our ambassadors at the UN to work together on this and, if necessary, take the help of experts to firm up a proposal," Sinha said.

The three nations have also agreed to work out a common approach to reform of the United Nations, and have asked their ambassadors in New York to work on this together, and do what they might think necessary to evolve a common position, Sinha said.

"We also discussed about trilateral cooperation among the three countries, and we decided that this is again something which could be remitted to an expert group which will identify the areas in which there could be trilateral cooperation," Sinha said. He said that the Russian Foreign Minister invited him and the Chinese counterpart to Moscow to have further discussions on the issues. Sinha described the meeting as "very substantive."

Putin Stresses Strategic Importance Of United Nations

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his Sept. 25 speech before the United Nations General Assembly, to the theme of the importance of the UN in our time. He reviewed the accomplishments of the UN, urged utmost caution in any moves towards changing its structure, and said that tensions within the UN as a whole, and within the Security Council, stemmed from conflicts among the policies of its member nations. In an indirect attack on the U.S. unilateralism, for which Secretary General Kofi Annan and others had chastised Washington implicitly, Putin said that "to be a great power means to be together with the world community; to be a truly strong, influential state means to see and to solve the problems of small nations and economically weak countries."

Putin Active In New York Before Bush Summit

Speaking at Columbia University Sept. 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for new types of studies of Russia and the United States, noting that American Sovietology and the Soviet school of American studies, or, as he said, of American imperialism studies, "searched for weak points in our political systems and collected instruments for dealing various blows to each other, rather than studied the unique and rich civilizations of America and Russia."

Putin also visited the exposition of the Bakhmetyev archive in the Butler Library, Columbia University, which is one of the largest archives of Russian documents abroad. Putin gave the archive a number of duplicate documents, including the June 20, 1808 Decree of Emperor Alexander I about appointing A. Dashkov consul general in Philadelphia and Russian charge d'affaires in the USA, and the message of then Russian Foreign Minister Gorchakov to the Russian envoy in the USA, E. Stekl, about Russia's policy on the Civil War in the United States.

On Sept. 26, before departing to begin two days of meetings with President George W. Bush at Camp David, Putin had a private meeting with Henry Kissinger, and visited the New York Stock Exchange.

Before leaving Russia, Putin gave a four-hour interview to U.S. journalists. Calling the upcoming summit with Bush "a can-do situation," Putin said he did not "exclude more active involvement of Russia in the restoration of Iraq, including the participation of our military in the normalization of the situation." He said that the American military could be in charge, but "what matters here is that this decision be taken by the Security Council of the UN, and that they spell out the terms."

Putin responded to the State Department's human rights attack on Russian activities in Chechnya as a "double standard." "Are you sure everything is all right in Iraq..., or take Afghanistan?... Or, should I recall for you the tragic events that took place?" He also brought up the Guantanamo prisoners, including some Russian citizens.

He insisted that the arrest of Yukos Oil executive Platon Lebedev and the charges against CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky were not his doing, and that it was "total nonsense" that it had to do with the oligarchs financing opposition parties.

Yukos Denies Kissinger Is Paid Agent For Khordorkovsky

In response to an earlier article in which it was reported that Henry Kissinger was in Moscow as a paid agent for Yukos head Mikhail Khordorkovsky, attempting to arrange a deal between Yukos and ChevronTexaco or another major U.S. oil company, a key Yukos executive has denied that Khordorkovsky pays money to Kissinger, who is a trustee of Khordorkovsky's Open Russia Foundation. "Yukos denies any payment to Kissinger personally or to companies linked to Kissinger in any shape or form for any commercial transaction," said Yukos executive Hugo Erikssen. Erikssen indicates that any communications between the two are limited to Foundation business.

But, John Helmer reported in The Russia Journal, another source says that Kissinger has been paid to advise ChevronTexaco in the past. According to sources, Khordorkovsky has told the directors that negotiations are underway for a deal with ChevronTexaco, and that he had met with Putin and obtained his go-ahead for the sale, but this was before the July arrest of Khordorkovsky's partner in Yukos, Platon Lebedev.

The second U.S.-Russia Commercial Energy Summit was held Sept. 22-23 in St. Petersburg, with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham in attendance. Under discussion was U.S. commitment to invest several billion dollars in the Russian gas industrial sector, and the deployment of a team of 60 Russian energy experts to the United States, to probe options for shipment from northern Siberian and Arctic gas and oil fields to the U.S. Furthermore, there was talk about cooperation in transporting liquefied natural gas from Russia to the United States.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Meeting: Economics, Security, Silk Road

The Peoples Daily reported Sept. 23 that the two-day meeting of prime ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held Sept. 23-24 in Beijing, would focus on on economic cooperation and security, to create a modern Silk Road. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao called for three proposals to boost economic cooperation, which would eventually lead to a cooperative "free trade" zone among the six member nations. The six are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Wen Jiabao also called for the SCO nations to cooperate with other nations and organizations all over the world. If the SCO members are "joining hands" to strengthen regional economic cooperation, a modern "Silk Road" will be "explored out" for common development and prosperity of the six SCO members, Wen Jiabao said.

The SCO held a head-of-state summit in Moscow in May, and the September meeting was to carry out the policies agreed to there. The SCO has established regular meetings of economic and trade ministers, and of transportation ministers.

Wen proposed facilitating trade and investment, including by reducing international non-tariff barriers, including by facilitating transport and customs. He called for prioritizing certain large projects on economic and technological cooperation, especially in transportation, energy, and light industry. Eventually, the nations could move towards a free trade zone, he said.

RIA Novosti reports that the prime ministers signed six documents, including one providing for the SCO Permanent Secretariat to be opened in Beijing in January 2004, and one on inauguration of the SCO regional anti-terrorist organization headquarters in Tashkent (a shift from its earlier planned location, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). These bodies will begin operation on Nov. 1, 2003, and be fully operational by Jan. 1, 2004, Vitali Vorobyov, special envoy of Russian President Putin, announced in Beijing. The prime ministers also signed an agreement to fight narcotics trafficking and expand anti-terrorism work. Russian Prime Minister Kasyanov talked about the great resources of the SCO member countries for implementing specific joint projects. He said a key issue, in addition to transport and energy infrastructure, will be water management, which "is of current importance to Central Asia as never before."

The next SCO summit will be held in May 2004 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

China-Russia Prime Ministers' Meeting

Russian Premier Mikhail Kasyanov was in Beijing for four days in all, beginning Sept. 22. After the SCO session, he turned to the eighth regular meeting of the Prime Ministers of the two China and Russia, dedicated this year to their strategic partnership.

Kasyanov told the Chinese press, that the Russia-China strategic cooperative partnership has "great potential." He also noted that this was the first Prime Ministers' meeting with the new Chinese government, where he would meet Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The two countries' bilateral trade volume hit a record high of $12 billion last year, Kasyanov said, but this remains very small. He said that the Russian side hopes to expand trade in machinery, high technology, and new-technology, and high-added-value products. Trade turnover was up 20% for the first seven months of 2003 over a year ago, to over $8 billion. Itar-Tass said the two sides would concentrate on cooperation in machine building, aircraft exports, and Russia's advanced technologies in the sphere of atomic and nuclear power engineering.

On the eve of Kasyanov's trip, China sent a high-ranking delegation to Moscow to push for finalization of plans for the long-proposed Siberian-China oil pipeline, a project worth, ultimately, $150 billion in trade. This long-discussed project has been hung up by disputes on the Russian side, over the route of the pipeline (whether only to Manchuria in China, or designed as a spur from a line to Nakhodka on the Pacific Coast) and the nature of its ownership (whether 100% state-owned, or part private, involving the crisis-ridden Yukos Oil Company). China Daily acknowledged that "the issue was complicated further by deep rifts between the Kremlin and private oil companies such as Yukos, the project's Russia oil supplier. "At the U.S.-Russian Commercial Energy Summit in St. Petersburg, Russian Economics Minister German Gref thought it "possible" to build two oil export pipelines connecting Angarsk to Daqing, China, and another, from Angarsk to Nakhodka. The second pipeline would supply Japan. Gref claimed that the decision on the pipelines would depend upon "how economical" they would be. There are enough resources to accommodate the pipelines, he said, but prospecting and feasibility studies still have to be done.

The Chinese press portrayed the visit of their delegation, beginning Sept. 12, as the "latest effort to rescue the deal." The Chinese delegation was led by Ma Kai, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, and Ma Fucai, chairman of PetroChina. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources has been citing "environmental grounds" as a reason to block the planned route for the Angarsk-Daqing pipeline. There was even discussion of abandoning the project.

After meeting with Wen, Kasyanov reiterated that Russia will carry out the agreement to build the pipeline to China, but he put it in terms of "continuing to study" the project. The communique signed by the two sides, said that the two countries should work toward "the breakthrough of bilateral economic and trade ties and the marked increase of trade volume", which was the consensus reached by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin during Hu's Russia tour in May. It emphasized improving commodity structure through expanding trade of machinery and other products with high added value. They agreed to carry out cooperation in using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, power generation equipment, and other matters.

Wen proposed expanding mutual investment and cooperation in energy and electromechanical fields. China and Russia are both seeing industrial reconstruction and rapid economic growth, and can cooperate, he said. The Russian side welcomed China to participate in the development of its Siberia and Far East regions. China welcomed Russia's participation in its western development.

Wen said that the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting had concluded a program for multilateral cooperation, and that this will have a profound impact on economic cooperation among SCO members.

Kasyanov said Russia wants to improve cooperation with China in oil, natural gas, electric power, spaceflight and civil aviation.

Russian Credit For Chinese Nuclear Plant

Russia is prepared to offer China a credit for construction of a second part of the Tian Wan nuclear power station, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said in Beijing Sept. 25. The credit would finance a large portion of construction of the plant, including equipment and maintenance.

Currently, Russia is helping build two nuclear reactors at the Tianwan nuclear power station, which should be finished by 2005. During this time, it will be decided if the second "line" of the plant will be built, Kasyanov said.

Putin Endorses Orthodox-Catholic Reconciliation

Speaking Sept. 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it "would be appropriate if the two sister churches rose above their controversies and found a common language. It would also provide an additional step towards the full integration of Russia into the world community." Putin said that he could not invite Pope John Paul II to come to Russia; this would have to proceed under the auspices of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin has met the pontiff before, during visits to Italy.

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