Article of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov for Diplomatic Yearbook 2005, THE FOREIGN POLICY OUTCOMES OF 2005: REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Unofficial translation from Russian
Article of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov for Diplomatic Yearbook 2005
THE FOREIGN POLICY OUTCOMES OF 2005: REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The past year has been a definite stage in the matter of providing favorable external conditions for the far-reaching internal changes in our country. One can talk about the further consolidation of the country's foreign policy positions. The success of our diplomacy was ensured by the totality of its increased internal and external resources. As to the former, it is the firmer internal political stability, the further evolution of Russian statehood as applied to the new conditions, including the imperative of effectively countering the terrorist threat; the stable economic growth, a resolute turn towards the reinforcement of social policy and towards investment in human resources via the adoption of national programs in public health, education and science, in agriculture and in the tackling of housing problems. Feedback here found reflection in a striving to bring foreign policy nearer to the real needs and interests of the Russian citizens and our compatriots abroad.
Externally, events in the world as a whole developed in the mainstream of our evaluations and approaches, that is in the direction of strengthening multilateralism in international relations. The range of our allies broadened, and the need for an active role of Russia in world politics grew. The principles set into the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, as approved by President Vladimir Putin in June 2000, adequately reflected the key world trends and so gave correct guidelines to our strategy in international affairs. It is, first and foremost, about such notions as pragmatism and multivectorness, and foreign policy activities being entirely predicated upon national interests, which we do not oppose to the collective interests of the international community. If we previously happened to encounter criticisms of the multivectorness of Russian foreign policy, the past year has produced some convincing evidences of the fact that this kind of line is becoming universally widespread. Whatever definitions may be given, be it policy "across all azimuths," or "in many dimensions," and the like, it is invariably about this precisely.
In the contemporary world the interests of any country, including Russia, cannot be limited to adjacent regions. We did not actively build relations with states in all continents for a "flag demonstration," but in order that pragmatically, on a realistic basis, the forms of cooperation should be found that will help solve national tasks, reinforce the security of the country, raise the competitiveness of our economy and ensure Russia a worthy place in the international division of labor. Attempts to play off some partners against others have nothing in common with multivectorness. For us, each vector is self-valuable. Moreover, the firmer our relations with some partners, the steadier they are with others.
The practice of so called fixed alliances has become a thing of the past, together with the Cold War. All our leading partners, including the US, France, Germany, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other countries, have unmoored and gone navigating freely. No one "puts all his eggs in one basket" anymore. Diverse interest alliances, a kind of diplomacy with variable geometry, are taking over. This is understandable. The very paradigm of international relations has changed. There is no longer any need to build defensive alliances, which in today's conditions would be nothing more than "Maginot lines." And where the previous rigidity of interconnected relationships still lingers on, the price of such a choice becomes exorbitantly high.
The world community has grown aware of the fact that the globalization of challenges and threats to security and sustainable development calls for a truly collective response, which is by no means confined to the use of military force or containment through deterrence. The character of the new challenges - and they are international terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, poverty, environmental degradation, and a lot of other things - is such that there is no longer any direct relationship between the size, military and economic strength of states and their ability to make a contribution to common efforts to resist those threats. At times states located near regions of instability or bordering countries which are sources of terrorist and other dangers, for example, illegal immigration can make a far greater contribution to the common cause than large states situated in other areas of the world. Hence the question naturally arises of pooling not only efforts, but also resources and assisting those nations that have found themselves in this or that regard in the position of "frontline states." In a word, as never before, it has become clear that problems are to be tackled only through broad and multifaceted international cooperation.
The radical shift in the very coordinate axis of international relations has, among other things, contributed to the creation of conditions for their further democratization. It is noteworthy that the discussion about a unipolar/multipolar world has come to naught. Evidently because the scholastic discussions about the obvious have lost all sense. The world is already multipolar, and it is from this premise that practically all states proceed in their foreign policies, including leading states. Not only is Russia's analysis of the ways of the evolution of world order towards collective security in its new interpretation, with the UN playing the central coordinating role and with reliance upon international law, being proven right. The predictions of political scientists are coming true, among them such authoritative ones as Henry Kissinger, who as early as 1994 in his book "Diplomacy" forecasted, though phrasing it differently, just this kind of architecture of international relations.
We have turned out to be on history's side. But tortuous are the ways of the historical process. And even in this psychologically comfortable position Russian diplomacy still had to act in extremely complicated conditions, which was not least due to the transitional character of the present stage of world development and owing to the presence of a multitude of factors of a subjective nature - up to and including all kinds of illusions, self-deception and myth-making, which often determined the behavior of some or other states in global politics. All of this was accompanied by tough competition, by the not completely eliminated double standards, by intellectual inertia and by a metaphysical, if not to say arithmetical, approach to the complex international processes. Unfortunately, the inherited-from-the-past striving to play "zero-sum games," to engage in containment and to stake on a military presence far from one's own boundaries made itself felt. All these instruments of promoting national interests in international affairs became obsolete with the end of the Cold War. But it took years of an unaccustomed international and national existence - outside the ideological confrontation and the related certainty - to understand this. Where the relapses of the old were beginning to pose a real threat, the basis was also being recreated for allied relations patterned after the experience of the past, and in many regards - hence the contradictoriness of the international development of the last fifteen years.
Now one can already speak of a high degree of crystallization of the present-day international relations and of clarity in the way of categories with which to operate in their analysis. Many myths have been destroyed, by the course of the events in Iraq among other things. It is obvious that a final solution of the Iraq crisis will bring an additional certainty in the international situation. That's why there is every reason to hope that the post-Iraq period in global politics will be characterized by greater predictability and by a greater similarity of the views of the members of the world community on the incipient new world order. Everyone stands to gain from this convergence. The facts will not leave much space for opposite or ambiguous interpretations.
We built our foreign policy activities so that Russia could rightfully be perceived as a predictable and reliable partner. In this spirit we worked in the UN, CIS, and OSCE, in the mechanisms of cooperation with NATO, the EU, ASEAN, the integration associations in Latin America, and actively participated in the antiterrorist coalition, in the nonproliferation regimes and in the resolution of international conflicts. The unprecedentedly broad participation in the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War attests to the increased prestige of our country on the international scene.
At the same time in the anniversary year attempts intensified to rewrite history, to bill Russia for the joint past on the well-known principle "foreigners are to blame for everything," and to use instruments of democracy for interference in our internal affairs. To all this, Russian diplomacy reacted firmly, but without hysterics and confrontation, into which those would like to provoke us who find it tedious to concern themselves with their own affairs and who feel nostalgic for the comfort of existence "under the canopy" of a new wall or curtain, but now only on their own "better side." Nostalgia is a bad counselor, but a yearning for the past is in the nature of things, although it greatly complicates world politics.
The analysis of the international situation leads to the conclusion that supplanting the ideological confrontation of the Cold War period is the threat of a significantly more dangerous global intercivilizational fault line. Provoked by terrorists and extremists, this conflict is less controllable and governable, since it goes far beyond the customary framework of interstate relations. That is why the movement for a broad intercivilizational dialogue which would envisage commitments to fight extremists in their own environment is gathering momentum. We are convinced that an effective response to this challenge can be the unity of cultures and the corroboration by action of a common striving to reinforce humanistic ideals.
Russia, with its history and geography, has a centuries-old experience in the development of a multiethnic and multifaith society. Essentially, herein lay the guarantee of its survival at the junction of civilizations. On this basis we are reviving Russia now. As no one else, we are in a position to make a worthy contribution to the maintenance of harmony among civilizations in the world. A recognition of this role of Russia was the granting to our country of observer status at the Organization of the Islamic Conference. We welcome the already existing initiatives in this field, including the Spanish-Turkish idea of an Alliance of Civilizations, endorsed by the UN. We hold that the time has come to go further, to tie these ideas into one systemic process involving not only governments, but also civil society and leaders of the major world religions. UNESCO can play an important role here.
At this point, it is logical to dwell on the importance of overcoming the previous ideological stereotypes, which are not at all innocuous, since they hinder the consolidation of the world community in the face of the challenges of the 21st century. An ideologized reaction to them in terms of a "struggle against communism" does not produce a solution to the problem, but only plays into the hands of extremists keen on a new division of the world. Globalization doesn't accord us such a Cold War luxury. Otherwise we won't be able to focus on the real problems, which the contradictory consequences of globalization are. And they raise existential questions, such as the preservation of national distinctiveness and of the cultural and other diversity of the world, and the threat of the individual's loss of control over his own life, faced with the reign of market forces. In order to understand them and find solutions, the worn-out categories of the recent ideological debates are no longer sufficient. We need a higher degree of generalization, perhaps going beyond the framework of western liberal thought, of which the products were capitalism and socialism and communism and lots of other things.
Of particular concern - and this is perhaps the reverse side of ideology in world politics - are the attempts to flirt with extremists and the striving to present their activity as a reflection of democratic processes. Democracy can successfully develop only in the conditions of stability. The experience of our country attests more than convincingly to this. I would like to refer those who do not understand this and want to experiment on others to the authors of the collection Vekhi, who even before 1917 warned of the danger of extremism in politics.
A symbol of the positive changes in the consciousness of the world community was the anniversary Summit 2005, held in September in New York. The Outcome Document, adopted at it, affirmed the commitment of all the states of the United Nations Organization without exception to the underlying principles of its Charter, which even 60 years later have not lost their relevance. The recognition of the unalternative character of the UN and its unique legitimacy formed the basis of the coordinated guidelines for reformation of the World Body in accordance with the new realities.
Speaking in favor of multilateral approaches are the understandings incorporated into the Outcome Document on the issue of use of force in international relations. Having re-emphasized that in this regard, too, it is possible to act only on the basis of the UN Charter, member states have clearly written down that they will not put up with manifestations of genocide, with mass human rights abuses or with the terrorist threat. The General Assembly affirmed the provisions set into the Security Council's resolutions that terrorist attacks on states are an armed attack, which countries have a right of self-defense to repulse in accordance with the UN Charter. So that a whole array of conceptual propositions that were agreed upon at this summit have a direct practical significance for all states, including Russia.
The Summit adopted far-reaching decisions to streamline UN activities in questions of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. A Peacebuilding Commission will be set up, which will incorporate the permanent members of the Security Council. Now the task is to agree upon modalities of the functioning of this body, which in coordination with the UN Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the representatives of the international financial institutions and the donor community will in practice engage in state building, post-conflict reconstruction and the facilitation of a normal life in countries which have just emerged from the "hot phase" of a conflict. This is utterly logical.
It is important that the work of the Peacebuilding Commission should develop under the supervision of the Security Council. For, the Commission's agenda will include the very same "hot" problems, in the search for a lasting resolution of which the UNSC has been engaged for a long period of time. Therefore, the Council should continue to look after the development of events at the phases of post-conflict reconstruction as well. Furthermore, we proceed not from a desire to add to the weight of the Security Council - its authority is already recognized by all - but strive to regularize the work of the new UN body and to impart to it considerable efficiency and effectiveness. It is needless to say that in this work it is necessary to find an optimal algorithm of engagement with the ECOSOC.
Difficulties mark the continuing debate on the transformation of the UN Commission on Human Rights into a Human Rights Council (HRC). The provision laid down in the Summit 2005 Outcome Document for the necessity to establish the Council envisages discussion of all its parameters in the course of the 60th General Assembly session. I want to especially stress the time period allowed for us: the entire 60th session of the General Assembly, that is until September 2006. This lets us expect that, in the course of the elaboration of a final decision on the new human rights body, due consideration will be given to the full spectrum of opinions of the UN member states. At the same time our western partners are seeking to speed up this process artificially. We shall try to orient the colleagues towards the need for the broadest possible discussion of all the points connected with the creation of the HRC. We must be sure that we shall arrive at the right decision, which will not weaken, but strengthen the work in this sector and will not be fraught with a split in the Organization, to which, I am convinced, a departure from the principle of sovereign equality of all the UN members would lead. Lovers of exclusive formats might create them outside the UN. We still believe that the optimal mechanism for the search of a mutually acceptable decision would be an Open-ended Working Group.
And of course, we cannot avoid implementing the decisions of the summit with respect to the reformation of the structure of the United Nations Organization and of its management system and reinforcing financial discipline so as to try and make the entire system of the UN more harmonious, more complementary and to eliminate duplication and the gaps that exist in the fabric of the world institutions.
Agreement has not yet been reached on the question of reform of the UNSC, which, regrettably, for many is associated with the Organization's reform proper, which is by no means the case. This is only one of the themes which are being examined in the context of the transformation. On UNSC reform, there is indeed no consensus yet. One group of countries is absolutely convinced that new, additional permanent Council seats ought to be created. And another group, likewise very numerous, is categorically against, and suggests that the Council be enlarged exclusively by the addition of new nonpermanent members.
We note the political flair of the states which initially wanted to put rather confrontational draft resolutions to the vote. But they took a wise decision not to do so now. At the summit it was decided to continue work in this direction and look for ways of bringing positions closer, which, of course, will not be easy but immeasurably better than whipping up emotions and voting on the drafts which will lead to a split in the UN and thus thwart the entire reform process. We are talking about the necessity to strengthen the Organization and to enhance the effectiveness of the UNSC, but if a specific decision is imposed against the will of a large group of member states, and significant states at that, playing a far from the least role in it, then for this group the UN will lose its legitimacy. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Russia has already declared its support for a number of aspirants for permanent membership, but on condition that the broadest possible consensus on the Council enlargement is reached. Our position is honest, frank and not directed against whosoever. The most important thing is that the reform of the Organization should not become hostage to the differences over the enlargement of the Security Council. Here's a brilliant opportunity for states to prove that for them, collective interests have priority over national ambitions. This would only add to their prestige, inter alia as regards support for their candidacies in the future. Let us not forget that the UN reform is not a one-time process, and that what has been begun by us, in scale and significance practically has no precedents in the history of the Organization, and then also in the history of diplomacy in general. The reform is not an aim in itself; it must result in a more effective, not a weakened UN. In this sense we would be ready to support virtually any version of Security Council reform around which consensus forms.
By and large Russian foreign policy paid the closest attention to forging international counteraction against new threats, more specifically within the Group of Eight, whose presidency we are to hold in 2006. Russia made a decisive contribution to drafting the new Security Council antiterrorist resolution 1624, approved at its summit meeting as part of Summit 2005. It criminalizes incitement to terrorism, by which we understand, among other things, the provision of a media platform for terrorists and their accomplices. An important contribution to developing the legal basis of antiterror was the opening for signature of the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This is the first treaty adopted by the UN at Russia's initiative and simultaneously the first universal international document aimed at the prevention of terrorist acts involving weapons of mass destruction. Completion of the work on a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is now in order, including elaboration of a universal definition of this evil.
The nonproliferation activities of our diplomacy were subordinated to the principal task of reinforcing the security of the country. We strove not only to strengthen the time-tested arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation instruments, but also to adapt them to counteraction against the challenges and threats of today. A great deal has been accomplished here. New multilateral nonproliferation mechanisms, such as Security Council resolution 1540, and the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), are now gathering momentum. These instruments aim to stop WMDs, their delivery vehicles, and related materials from falling into the hands of nonstate actors and to prevent their illicit trafficking.
We carried on the line on using naval capabilities to prevent terrorism and WMD proliferation by forces of coastal countries. For these purposes we strove to accelerate the adaptation of Blackseafor in the Black Sea. Soon we expect the transfer of Turkey's Operation Black Sea Harmony into a Russian-Turkish format. Similar work is getting under way in the Caspian, where we have invited the coastal states to create an international security force, Casfor.
A significant event of the year was the Seventh NPT Review Conference. Discussions bore out the viability and significance of the Treaty for containing the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world and preventing the origination of a nuclear conflict. Of course, we had expected more from the Conference, but for a number of reasons it was not possible to work out substantive recommendations at it. But no one took that as a crisis of the Treaty. On the contrary, everybody stressed the importance of tackling new problems in the field of nuclear proliferation on the basis of NPT. We continued the work on strengthening the conventions on the prohibition of chemical as well as biological and toxin weapons. We laid the main emphasis on the strict implementation of their provisions at the national level and on expanding the number of parties to the said agreements.
The task of preserving the arms control and disarmament balance that had been reached in the past became more urgent than ever before. Not only the outcome of the NPT Review Conference, but also the inability of the world community to agree upon an appropriate section in the Summit 2005 Outcome Document pointed to the dangers inherent in such imbalance. This is a task for the future. Without its solution, it will hardly be possible to preserve the potential of goodwill already amassed in the field of countering proliferation. In part, the situations in regional problems of nonproliferation suggest that the question lies on this plane as well.
Not least thanks to Russia's efforts, shifts have become evident in resolving the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula. We hope that it will be possible to advance further in the matter of denuclearizing the region next year.
The situation around Iran's nuclear program remains complicated. We still believe that the IAEA must continue its quiet depoliticized work in that country. Much, of course, depends also on Teheran, on the extent to which it is ready to heed the concerns of the international community and continue to cooperate with the Agency. The essence of our position is that we are categorically opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other types of WMD, and the point here is not political sympathies or antipathies towards some or other states.
Another thing is equally obvious, and everybody acknowledges this - neither the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, nor the problem of Iran's nuclear program has a military solution. It is also acknowledged that neither can they be solved by means of sanctions. Both situations are particular cases of the general rule: the problems are to be solved on lines of the involvement, even if critical, not the isolation of so called "problem" states. If we are to proceed from the unalternative character of politico-diplomatic settlement, then it would be useful to carry out a comparative analysis of the two situations. It would show that as applied to the Iranian nuclear program a considerable resource remains in the part of a possible reformatting of the present contacts, including their reduction to a single negotiation process involving the principal antagonists, who could establish bilateral contacts under this "roof" and move in the direction of normalizing their relations.
As to sanctions policy, it requires further honing, with, among other things, consideration for the Iraq experience. It must not be so that the untenable from the outset sanctions resolutions would be turned into "blanks" for subsequent military intervention in circumvention of the UN and the destabilization of whole countries and regions for the sake of a so called regime change. Recalling the comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, they led to an unnatural situation, initially envisaged by nobody, when the UN assumed the responsibility for the functioning of a whole state. No wonder that, being hostage to its previously adopted, not fully thought out, decisions, the UN made a forced choice in favor of the Oil for Food program. Naturally, as in any bureaucratic system, the implementation of this program was doomed to abuse. Things like that should never recur. This does not mean that there should be no resorting to sanctions. But if we take the sanctions path, then we must in advance figure out all the consequences and our subsequent moves. If it is obvious that the sanctions will not produce the desired result, but will only aggravate the situation and lead to a shortage, rather than the consolidation of stability, then a new, creative analysis of the problem is needed with the use of all the available resources of politico-diplomatic settlement. No one should stand aloof and no prejudices, past grievances or ideological considerations should serve as an obstacle to examining alternative contributions to the common cause of nonproliferation.
Nor can we ignore the regional context. If we take the Greater Middle East region, there already exist large unsettled conflicts there. Should its zone of instability then be really expanded through destabilizing Iran, Syria and Lebanon? Before embarking on escalation, thought should be given to the very logic of this mode of action. Eloquent is the experience of the NATO action in Kosovo, where the quandary resulting from unilateral moves had to be tackled with Russia's help. I shall refer to the authority of Marcel Proust, who thus reasoned in his famous novel: "The exact point to which a bluff may succeed is difficult to determine; if one party goes too far, the other which has previously yielded, advances in its turn; ...until the moment when neither can draw back any longer." To cap it all, the dangerous substitution of virtual for actual reality occurs: "The bluff may also be blended with sincerity, may alternate with it, and it is possible that what was a game yesterday may become a reality tomorrow" (M. Proust. V poiskakh utrachennogo vremeni, Moscow, 1993, Vol. 5, p. 347). I think that the psychologism of the mental torments of Proust's characters is by definition applicable to the behavior of politicians during crises.
One of Russia's priorities was still to keep outer space free of weapons of all types. At the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly we came up with a new initiative for developing transparency and confidence-building measures in outer space activities. The ideas set into the Russian draft of the General Assembly resolution got powerful support from the international community.
The specifics of the work of the Foreign Ministry are such that its practical dividends are difficult to calculate in "material" terms. But there are areas where the use of concrete figures is appropriate. To which, in particular, belongs the assistance foreign partners lend to Russia under the Global Partnership Program. Last year it constituted approximately 180 million dollars. The major part of these funds went on the implementation of the projects in priority fields for Russia - chemical weapons destruction and the disposition of decommissioned nuclear submarines.
Of course, this is a far from complete list of principal thrusts in the nonproliferation and disarmament endeavor of Russia. Painstaking and systematic work was being conducted under the CFE Treaty, at the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation, in the IAEA, in the Russia-NATO Council, at the Conference on Disarmament and in the international export control regimes.
The active involvement in the tackling of global problems organically blended with the further specialization of the multivector priorities of our foreign policy. The past year was marked by great changes in our immediate geopolitical environment, the post-Soviet space, in Europe and in Asia. The Commonwealth of Independent States remained the chief priority.
One of the key tasks of Russian diplomacy was to develop and improve the CIS. We remain neighbors and are united by a common history, geography and culture. The intertwining of the destinies of our citizens is still there; it is taking new forms, including economic, labor migration. In other words, the Commonwealth is a living organism which continues to develop in accordance with the new conditions.
The central event of 2005 for the CIS was the summit in Kazan. Its principal outcome lies in the affirmation of the necessity of the Commonwealth for all its participants. A reformation of the CIS was initiated as a still indispensable platform for the discussion of common problems. Very important is the humanitarian dimension. At the summit in Kazan an agreement was signed that aims to shape a common humanitarian space of the Commonwealth, and preserve human ties between our peoples, including adherence to fundamental values, such as tolerance and mutual respect.
The integration processes proper continued to develop in small formats, on the basis of coinciding interests of the participating countries, also customarily known as multilevel and various-speed integration, which reflects the appropriate international experience, including that of the European Union. The Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc) continued to act as the nucleus of integration processes in the CIS space. Here we are successfully advancing along the road of forming a common customs tariff and expanding cooperation among the member states of EurAsEc in the currency and financial, customs and other fields. The task has been set of forming a customs union within the Community in 2006.
The decision to merge EurAsEc and the Central Asian Cooperation Organization attested to a striving to avoid a dissipation of efforts. Uzbekistan became a member of EurAsEc as a result.
The Agreement on the establishment of a new effective integration structure, the Single Economic Space (SES), signed in Yalta in September 2003 by Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, continued to be implemented. The tasks and objectives of the SES are largely identical with the aims of EurAsEC, but its juridical base is more perfect. At the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Single Economic Space in Kazan the four states affirmed that the immediate stage of formation of the SES is a free trade zone. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia intend together to move forward along the road of deepening integration. The Ukrainian side will define the gradualness of its participation in the SES by proceeding from the principle of various-level and various-speed integration. We respect the position of the Ukrainian side, which is not yet ready for everything that is conceived, but do not intend to wait endlessly for such readiness to appear.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has acquired a qualitatively new level - as an international regional organization. Collaboration among member states encompasses an extensive sphere - from coordinating foreign policies to carrying out joint steps in the struggle against terrorism, the narco-threat, illegal migration and organized crime. The situation in the CSTO zone of responsibility, in particular, in Central Asia, was characterized by the growing threat of terrorism. Therefore, special attention was paid to the dynamic development of the appropriate capabilities of the CSTO, in particular, a collective rapid reaction force in Central Asia.
We worked on the establishment of direct working contacts of the CSTO with the UN, SCO and OSCE. It is our belief that CSTO-NATO engagement on an equal and transparent basis could produce a positive effect in countering the threats of terrorism and drugs emanating from the territory of Afghanistan.
Contributing to the rise of new formats of collaboration with the CIS countries in the defensive sphere was the signing of the Treaty on Allied Relations between the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan.
We presume that primary responsibility for settling the conflicts on the CIS territory belongs to the parties engaged in them. Russia is ready to render good offices in achieving compromise and mutually accommodating solutions. Which is the way we approached the situations in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria.
Unfortunately, 2005 has corroborated the validity of the apprehensions of the destructiveness of the revolutionary upheavals, which have not added to predictability and have also adversely affected the prospects for the solution of the acute socioeconomic problems in some CIS countries. We are convinced that democratic ideals in each country are to be realized in its own way, with due consideration for history, traditions and customs and for the level of economic and social development. Any speeding up of the natural social processes, especially from the outside, leads to destabilization, not straightening the road to democracy at all. It can't be an object of export, and in its promotion the methods of commercial advertising and political PR are inadmissible. It is strange when rally participants appeal not to their co-citizens, but to heads of foreign states. No wonder then that after such upheavals the quality of the situation does not at all improve, but rather otherwise. In this case, though, there appears a small added value for external forces that can tick it off in their reports to their own electorate and are beginning to hear from the respective capitals what they want to hear, irrespective of the quality of the situation on the ground. With striking accuracy, the Cold War experience repeats itself.
It was from the standpoint of interest in a real stabilization of the region that we approached the evaluation of the role of our European and other partners in the CIS space as well. We are prepared to recognize their interests here to the extent that our interests are considered. In any case the CIS space must not be a field of destructive rivalry, all the activities of extraregional forces there must be transparent and understandable. To us all "covert agendas" are unacceptable - all the more so actions directed at destabilizing the situation.
Russia's partnership with the European Union and cooperation with NATO have acquired a more mature and structured character. It won't be a mistake to say that Russia and the EU are doomed by geography and history to close, if difficult relations. It is also about the realization of the European choice which we have achieved through suffering, a choice based on a striving towards common values, which, though, should not be interpreted one-sidedly. Rapprochement between Russia and the EU, in our view, ought to be part and parcel of a common project for the creation of a truly Greater Europe without dividing lines. Contrasting the integration processes in different parts of the continent is therefore unacceptable to us. Now that the European Union has entered a period of difficulties and self-analysis, all the more incomprehensible are the attempts that took place to place our CIS partners before an artificial choice - "either with Russia, or with Europe." On the contrary, a conjugation of all the integration efforts and movement on reciprocal courses are needed. The result will be a gradual increase in the homogeneity of the pan-European space. Which is the approach set forth in the thesis of the complementarity of the integration processes in different regions of Europe, that found reflection in the conceptual part of the roadmap for the Russia-EU common space for co-operation on external security.
In the course of the Russia-EU summit in Moscow in May 2005 the concept was approved of the roadmaps for the formation of the three other common spaces as well: common economic space; space for freedom, security and justice; and space for research, education and culture. This success was then consolidated in the course of the London summit on October 4, 2005. A solid foundation has thus been established for deepening our equal strategic partnership with the EU and for further developing our dialogue and cooperation in the international arena, particularly since on key international issues our views are close or coincide.
Important is the fact that agreements have been reached with the EU on visa facilitation for certain categories of individuals and on readmission, which will in the long term permit switching over to a visa-free regime for mutual trips of citizens of Russia and the European Union. It's a real prospect for these agreements to enter into force even in 2006.
At the same time there remain in the Russia-EU relationship a number of outstanding issues, for example, the implementation of the part of the Joint Statement on the EU Enlargement and Russia-EU Relations of April 27, 2004, concerning Kaliningrad cargo transit and the status of the Russian-speaking population in Baltic states. The problem associated with the Russian-speaking population's status in Latvia and Estonia (720,000 ethnic Russians reside in Latvia, and 406,000 in Estonia) has now been discussed in meetings at all levels for many years, but so far the situation, unfortunately, remains unchanged. Our partners, and not only in the EU, ought to understand that protecting our compatriots is a long-term, not a momentary, component of Russian foreign policy and we are not going to relax our efforts in this sector.
In relations with the North Atlantic Alliance, developing in a more advanced Russia-NATO Council format, we have led matters towards reaching the level of operational engagement in the struggle against terrorism and the Afghan narco-threat and in crisis response. We have joined in NATO's anti-terrorism Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean, and from 2006 Russian ships will be going out for joint patrolling.
In relations with the OSCE we accentuate the need for regularizing its activities in the interest of all the member states and for eradicating the practice of "double standards." Of particular concern is the established untransparent system of organizing election observation in the OSCE space under the auspices of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The necessity here is to work out objective and comprehensible monitoring standards, rectify the geographic disbalances, and heighten attention to the combating of the new threats to security and stability. Unless this happens, the relevance of OSCE may be seriously called into question. Without clear-cut uniform standards for electoral monitoring, the Organization risks becoming an instrument of group interests and an object of manipulation in somebody's geopolitical calculations. The events of the year give quite a lot of reasons to think that electoral monitoring under the roof of the OSCE is being used to trigger destabilization of the situation in a particular country depending on its place in the hierarchy of somebody's geopolitical priorities.
Russian relations with Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and other European countries were evolving dynamically. As before, they were distinguished by responsibility, by transparency and by due consideration for mutual interests. They remain a positive, stabilizing factor in the Euro-Atlantic space. The political dialogue with the UK was actively developing. A productive dialogue continued with all those countries of the continent whose role in the European institutions is increasing. A subject of our constant concern was conditions in the Balkans, especially the situation around Kosovo, which still contains a powerful explosive potential.
Russian relations with the US remained an essential element of the maintenance of world and regional stability. We strove to build up trust, steadiness and predictability in them and to expand the spheres of coinciding interests. Both sides have got used to the thought that certain differences still remain between them. But these are honest differences stemming from different visions of a new world pattern. Along with these differences of a general philosophical nature, inevitable are also the contradictions linked to national interests, as each country formulates them independently. This only strengthens the case for a continual dialogue on the whole spectrum of international problems, especially as life itself has made us allies in a number of key areas - primarily in the struggle against terrorism and other new threats.
We shall not always act jointly, but, wherever possible, such engagement can be predicated only upon a joint, without doubled standards, analysis of threats and upon joint decision-making. It is significant that our partner dialogue with the US also helps to bring the philosophical views on some or other aspects of world development closer. Russia is ready for "team play" - on the terms of equality, genuine partnership, mutual respect and consideration of interests. Cooperation has to be based on coordinated, understandable to all and transparent principles. We already have this kind of experience - it is the realization of the Group of Eight's initiative to help build reform across the Middle East and North Africa region. It also offers an example of a mutually respectful dialogue with the region's countries in the interest of gradual changes without a destabilization threat. That concept was agreed upon to a decisive extent thanks to engagement between Russia and the US.
From the results of the year it is possible to conclude that in the overall range of our relations the proportion of the continuing military-strategic link between Russia and the United States, which plays a stabilizing role not only for our countries, but also for the world as a whole, is going to decline in the new circumstances. If we want a stable, forward-looking and productive bilateral partnership, then its base requires substantial modernizing in the spirit of the times. There is a need for a more resolute shift towards a security partnership on the entire spectrum of threats, primarily the terrorist, and in the sphere of the prosperity of our peoples. For our part, we have been consistently seeking a decentralization of Russian-American commercial, economic and investment ties and an increase in the role of regions in them. Special attention was devoted to energy cooperation, which indicates the way for deepening the positive interdependence between us. A useful role in this context could be played by our engagement in the reformation of the UN and in the mobilization of international efforts for war on poverty, illiteracy, natural disasters and epidemics.
An important test for the maturity of the Russian-American partnership is the question of the soonest and nondiscriminatory admission of Russia to the WTO. Any politicization of this question would have the most negative consequences, not to mention the Jackson-Vanik amendment and its ever more ruinous impact on the international reputation of the US.
Russia is a state unique in geopolitical position. Two-thirds of the territory of our country lies in Asia, with which we are united by common historical destinies and by the indivisible interests of security and economic and social progress. Let us not forget that for centuries Russia conduced to the formation of the conditions for creating a "bridge" between Europe and Asia - a "bridge" not primitively geographic, but cultural and civilizational. This acquires special significance now, when the process of globalization is already beginning to acquire an "Asian countenance." The fast-growing Asia-Pacific Region objectively moves into one of the key places in the scale of Russian foreign policy priorities. Our triune aim in Asia is security, stability and development. The most promising vector is participation in the extensive activities of the large multilateral associations there, which produce new formats of multilateral cooperation that are open for Asia, the Americas and Europe alike.
Russia actively helped to develop the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is becoming a system-forming factor on the Asian continent, and then in the world context too. In 2005, India, Pakistan and Iran joined in the activities of the Organization as observer states. Relations have been formalized with the CIS and ASEAN, with which the memorandums of cooperation and engagement were signed. The decisions adopted at the summit in the capital of Kazakhstan in September 2005 and the comprehensive Declaration bring the Organization to a new level, and make for its consolidation and the strengthening of foreign-policy coordination and the economic and humanitarian dimensions.
Continual and rich was our partnership dialogue with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), especially in the light of the first Russia-ASEAN summit in December in Kuala Lumpur, where the drafts of a Joint Declaration of the leaders of Russia and ASEAN on progressive and comprehensive partnership and of a 2005-2015 Comprehensive Program of Action to promote Russia-ASEAN cooperation are expected to be approved.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum is distinguished by considerable reach and by an extensive range of tasks being tackled. This promising association is a platform both for the conjugation of the economic interests of the Asian-Pacific countries and for the development of the principles of multilateral engagement in international affairs. The APEC summit in Pusan in November 2005, in whose work Russian President Vladimir Putin took part, helped to unite further all its participants in combating international terrorism, and contributed to elaborating uniform approaches towards the prevention of technogenic and natural disasters and to creating joint mechanisms for overcoming their consequences.
2005 saw qualitative shifts in our bilateral ties with the leading countries of Asia. There was conclusively formalized the delimitation of the Russian border with Kazakhstan, the longest land border in the world. A Russia-PRC Supplementary Agreement on the eastern part of the state border was ratified, closing the border issue. Thus, between our countries there are no large political problems left capable of complicating the development of multilateral cooperation, which is becoming a major factor of regional stability. Political contacts have reached high intensity. In August the first Russian-Chinese joint military training exercises were successfully held, demonstrating the ability jointly to counter new challenges, above all - international terrorism. Like similar activities with the armed forces of India, they, of course, were not directed against third countries.
Russian relations of strategic partnership with India continued developing. The talks of the President of the Russian Federation with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President APJ Abdul Kalam are evidence of the qualitative shifts in Russian-Indian cooperation. Work was being conducted to elaborate a number of intergovernmental agreements, including those on comprehensive economic cooperation, on collaboration in emergency prevention and elimination and in the fight against the illicit drug trafficking, on visa facilitation, on readmission, and on military technological cooperation. The trilateral dialogue between Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi at the level of ministers of foreign affairs has acquired constancy.
The central event in the year of the 150th anniversary of the establishment of relations with Japan was the official visit to that country of President Vladimir Putin. As a result of the saturated and constructive talks mutual keenness was affirmed to develop bilateral relations on the basis of the Russia-Japan Plan of Action, including the intensification of political dialogue, of defense and law enforcement agency ties and of exchanges between citizens, along with the expansion of trade-and-economic cooperation and coordination on the international scene. A package of 18 related documents was signed. The two countries' leaders concurred that it is necessary to look for a solution to the peace treaty problem on the basis of partnership, mutual respect and trust, in the full awareness that resolving such a complicated problem is unlikely to be easy.
In the Middle East sector of our foreign policy, the interrelated tasks of shaping friendly bilateral relations and advancing in regional conflict settlement were being tackled. Of great political significance were the visits of President of the Russian Federation Putin to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Simultaneously we continued paying the closest attention to the task of untying the Middle East knot, conscious of the enormous significance of a settlement of this conflict not only for the situation in the world, but also for the interests of our country, including its security. A separate important thrust of work was the realization of the initiative put forward by the Russian President in April 2005 for holding in Moscow a high-level international meeting on Middle East problems. For the first time a session of the Middle East Quartet was held in Moscow at the level of ministers of foreign affairs, whose participants accentuated the need for the parties in conflict to move towards the launching of the Road Map. On September 20, another Quartet ministerial meeting was held on the fringes of the 60th session of the UN General Assembly, that summed up the results of Israel's evacuation of Gaza and a part of the West Bank and outlined steps for the further rapprochement of the positions of Israel and the PNA.
Relations with Jordan advanced onwardly, and the working visit to Russia of Jordan's King Abdullah II was productive. Additional possibilities have been created for deepening cooperation with Saudi Arabia and for intensifying contacts, including those at the highest level. Despite the very complicated military-political conditions, the political dialogue was being developed with Iraq, and our economic positions were being re-established in that country. Important changes have occurred there: in November 2005, a meeting of all the principal Iraqi groups, including those in opposition, was held in Cairo at the Arab League's initiative. At its end, the meeting stated the importance of fixing a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and holding in the country a conference on national dialogue, which Russia has been consistently advocating over the last two years.
A striking illustration of the impact of the wind of change on global politics was our relations of constructive and mutually beneficial cooperation with Turkey, which is also a Eurasian state with serious interests in the common regions for us, including the Black Sea region. I shall only mention the participation of President Putin, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Head of the Government of Italy Silvio Berlusconi in the official opening of the Blue Stream Gas Pipeline. This is one more step towards the creation of a unified energy space of Europe, strengthening of its energy security and diversification of energy supplies to the principal users - along with Russia's agreement with the FRG on the construction of the North-European Gas Pipeline.
In 2005 relations with the states and integration associations of Latin America, which play an ever more noticeable, constructive role in the world, developed along an ascending line. New prospects of strategic importance opened up in Russian relations with Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela as a result of the visits to the Russian Federation of these countries' presidents, and cooperation was being strengthened with other states of the continent, with the Rio Group, MERCOSUR, and the Andean Community.
Cooperation was being built up, under the G8 collective strategy inter alia, with the leading countries of Africa, and collaboration intensified in the economic and other fields with the African Union and subregional integration structures of the continent, whose vast potential can exert a tangible impact on the global processes occurring in the world.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs closely cooperated with the Federal Assembly, political parties and subjects of the Federation, and civil society as a whole. In this I see a great plus for our diplomacy. It is undoubted that Russian NGOs can and should make an invaluable contribution to the foreign policy of the country. This would be a major factor of ensuring its proper perception abroad. It is also about conveying more adequately to our foreign partners the assessments and sentiments of Russian public opinion. Hence, in part, the desire to carry out a regularization of the nongovernmental sector in the mainstream of international practice.
So far, owing to the underdevelopment of its individual segments, it often so turns out that presented as the public opinion of Russia are the judgments of the Russian branches of foreign political science centers and foundations largely being financed with the money of foreign taxpayers. The foreign media also quote them abundantly. As a result, a distorted picture is formed, which meets nobody's interests.
By and large it appears possible to assess the foreign policy outcomes of 2005 as positive for Russia. Despite the exacerbation of a number of international and regional problems, healthy processes go on gathering strength in the world, clearing the way for the construction of a new, more secure and equitable world order. It is my belief that the ramified network of close and productive relations in bilateral and multilateral formats that has been formed in recent years reliably ensures a stable international standing of Russia, regardless of global political fluctuations. This I regard as the main achievement of our entire foreign policy work, conducted under the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2006, which does not promise to be an easy year, Russia is to chair the Group of Eight, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization, and the Arctic Council. We have a huge amount of work before us. Of course, we shall closely cooperate with our partners in the CIS and G8 and with our friends and partners in Europe, the AP region, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. The aim of our diplomatic efforts is to achieve real advance towards the construction of a stable system of international relations on the basis of the rules of international law and the priority of multilateral approaches towards the solution of the major problems of our time. Herein lies our national interest, as such developments in the world will be creating favorable conditions for tackling our internal tasks and strengthening the foreign policy positions of the country.
December 5, 2005
