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Hostage crisis adds fire to Russian foreign
policy
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - In the wake of the deadly hostage drama
in Moscow, Russian diplomacy appears to have taken a
more pro-active approach.
Notably, at the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Los
Cabos, Mexico, Russian diplomats managed to have the
hostage crisis included in the APEC denouncement of
"terrorism" along with that which has struck Bali and
the Philippines. The APEC leaders' statement condemned
"in the strongest terms" recent terrorist acts in the
APEC region, including the seizure "of a large group of
people in Moscow, the Russian Federation, on October 23,
2002".
The Russian authorities have been keen to
substantiate links between separatist violence in
Chechnya and the US-led global war on terrorism, and
Moscow scored a foreign policy success on Wednesday when
the official foreign emissary for the Chechen
separatists was detained in Denmark.
Chechen
separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov's envoy, Akhmed
Zakayev, was detained by Danish authorities after Russia
claimed that he may have been involved in the planning
of the Moscow theater attack. Russia had earlier accused
Denmark of "solidarity with terrorists" because it
allowed the Chechen World Congress in Copenhagen to go
ahead despite the hostage crisis. Russian President
Vladimir Putin canceled a state visit to Denmark
scheduled for November 11 over the Danish hosting the
Chechen congress, which ended on Tuesday.
Right
from the early hours of the Chechen rebels storming the
Moscow theater, the crisis was understood to be capable
to having international repercussions. Notably, on
October 24, Putin stated that the attack had been
planned in terrorist centers outside Russia. Moreover,
Russian media claimed that the hostage takers had
allowed Georgian nationals to leave the seized theater,
hence hinting at alleged complicity between the
terrorists and Georgia.
Even before the crisis,
Russia had long accused Georgia, the former Soviet
republic bordering Chechnya, of harboring alleged
Chechen terrorists. Not surprisingly, Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze pledged more security cooperation
with Russia and supported the Kremlin's tough stance,
and Georgian officials rushed to avoid accusations of
complicity in the hostage taking.
Furthermore,
on October 28, Putin ordered the General Staff of the
Russian armed forces "to review plans of armed forces'
deployment". "Russia will respond adequately in all
places where terrorists and their ideological and
financial backers are based," Putin was quoted as saying
by RIA news agency. As the "places" are yet to be named
- and the Russian army surely was not going to strike
Copenhagen - the chances remain that Georgia may
eventually find itself between Russia's crosshairs on
the grounds of alleged ties with "Chechen terrorists".
Moreover, not only Georgia was keen to divert
Russia's ire. During the crisis, Azeri authorities
quietly shut down the Chechen cultural mission in the
capital Baku, without giving any official reason for the
closure.
Azerbaijan's move promptly earned
Russia's praise. On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov told his Azeri counterpart Safar Abiyev in
Moscow that "with a backdrop of a growing threat of
international terrorism, military cooperation between
Russia and Azerbaijan is becoming increasingly
important." Ivanov thanked Abiyev for shutting down the
mission in Baku.
He also hailed a bilateral deal
over the renewal of the lease of the Gabalinskaya radar
center in Azerbaijan, which Russia uses as the base of
its joint staff for a southern advanced post of NATO. On
Wednesday, the State Duma, the lower house of the
Russian parliament, ratified an agreement with
Azerbaijan on the lease of the center, built in 1985 as
an electronic hub to detect incoming ballistic missiles.
The deal on the lease arguably indicates that Moscow is
still determined to have its military muscle felt in the
strategically important Caspian region.
On the
other hand, Moscow has been keen to enlist Azeri and
Georgian border guards in the drive against Chechen
separatists. On Wednesday, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei
Livantsov, spokesman of Russia's North Caucasus Border
Guard Department, announced that Russian, Azeri and
Georgian border guard services had agreed on trilateral
maneuvers later this year.
The hostage crisis
has also echoed in regions quite remote from Chechnya.
On Tuesday, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev
ordered law enforcement agencies "to strengthen the
country's security". "The president outlined concrete
tasks of safeguarding political stability and
inter-ethnic accord," a presidential statement read.
Presumably, as part of new measures to increase
domestic political stability, on Monday Kazakh police
arrested journalist Sergei Duvanov. Known for his
criticism of government corruption, Duvanov was
scheduled to travel to the US for a series of meetings
on the topic of corruption in Kazakhstan, but instead he
was detained on charges of raping a minor. Elizabeth
Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch's
Europe and Central Asia division, said in a statement
that Duvanov's record of criticizing government policy
raised suspicions that this has all the makings of a
politically motivated case.
Last July,
prosecutors brought charges against Duvanov for his
Internet postings about government attempts to silence
journalists covering Swiss and US investigations into
alleged corruption by Nazarbaev and family members. On
August 30, Duvanov was attacked by unknown assailants
who inflicted head injuries and knife wounds.
However, Moscow has rarely had any scruples
about human right abuses in friendly former Soviet
states, and Duvanov's case remained unnoticed by the
Russian media. Conversely, on Wednesday, Russia's
Federation Council ratified four agreements with
Kazakhstan on a long-term lease of Russian military
facilities in the Central Asian republic. The deals,
originally signed in 1996, involve the "Central
state-run testing site, the Sary-Shagan and Emba testing
sites, as well as the Airforce testing site".
Kazakhstan ratified the agreements in 2000, yet
Russia has been hesitant, presumably due to disputes
over lease payments. On Wednesday, the head of the
Federation Council's budget committee, Yevgeny Bushmin,
announced that Russia had agreed to pay US$1.22 million
a year for the Central site, $19.97 million for
Sary-Shagan site and $1.8 million for Airforce site. The
price of Emba site was not revealed. The deal indicates
that Moscow is prepared to pay a price for continued
military clout in Central Asia.
Russian
officials are also taking advantage of the current
climate to take care of the lucrative business of moving
oil from Central Asia. On Tuesday, deputy Prime Minister
Viktor Khristenko announced that in 2003 Kazakhstan
would funnel 19 million tonnes of crude oil through
Russian pipelines, compared to an estimated 17.5 million
this year. According to Khristenko, Turkmen oil transit,
meanwhile, is to reach 2.5 million tonnes next year
compared to 1 million in 2002.
Coincidence or
not, earlier this week Russian energy companies scored
something of a breakthrough in gas-rich Turkmenistan. On
October 27, Igor Makarov, the head of Russian gas
company Itera, announced that Turkmen President
Saparmurad Niyazov had approved a plan to create a
Russian consortium, including Itera, Rosneft and
Zarubezhneft, to explore hydrocarbon deposits in the
Turkmen Caspian shelf. The announcement comes as a
surprise because the authoritarian leader, who styles
himself 'Turkmenbashi', or leader of all Turkmens, had
previously declined to depend on any Russia-dominated
oil and gas institutions.
In recent days, then,
Russia has made progress in relations with a number of
nations. It remains to be seen whether the hostage
crisis will allow Moscow to continue to with this
pro-active diplomacy.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
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