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2 Moscow
beckons Pakistan's Kiani By M
K Bhadrakumar
The phrase coined by the
17th-century English philosopher Francis Bacon is:
"If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then
Mohammed must go to the mountain." So, if Russian
President Vladimir Putin won't come to Islamabad
on Tuesday, then Pakistani army chief Ashfaq
Parvez Kiani will still go to Moscow.
The
Pakistani military spokesman has confirmed the
"historic" visit will take place on Wednesday. The
spokesman said Kiani is expected to meet top
Russian military and civilian leaders to discuss
possibilities of military-to-military cooperation
between the two countries.
Russian sources
explain that when Putin never really scheduled
an Islamabad visit and
none was announced, and the excitement was all on
the Pakistani side, so how could it be deemed that
the Kremlin cancelled the visit? It's a fair
contention.
According to Moscow sources
quoted by the media, there simply wasn't enough
meat for a Putin visit at this point of time in
the Russian-Pakistan normalization, since economic
ties are languishing and there was nothing much in
the pipeline except a couple of memorandums of
understanding that could have been initialed.
But having said that, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov is arriving in Islamabad on
Wednesday on an unscheduled visit, presumably to
assuage any sense of hurt in the Pakistani
civilian leadership over the abrupt cancellation
of Putin's visit.
The enemy's
enemy… Meanwhile, even as Lavrov heads for
Islamabad, Kiani will have set out for Moscow. To
be sure, Moscow's priority will be to sit across
the table with Kiani, as he is the fountainhead
of authority in Pakistan on major foreign and
security policy issues. Also, he is an unusual
Pakistani general, having run into difficulties
with the United States, while pushing for
Pakistan's "strategic autonomy" on the
geopolitical chessboard.
Indeed, the
present moment is pregnant with possibilities.
Russia and Pakistan in varying measure - for
different reasons though - have come under US
pressure. Both appreciate that the US has "lost"
the war in Afghanistan, is pulling out of it and
would have little choice but to negotiate with the
Taliban; both sense a power vacuum could develop
in Afghanistan but also feel uneasy that the US is
yet keeping strategic ambiguity about its future
military presence in the region.
Meanwhile, Russia-Pakistan normalization
through the recent years has reached a point where
it is possible for the two countries to cooperate
on a practical plane. In short, adversities and
opportunities are compelling Russia and Pakistan
to explore if they can swim together.
A
core area of cooperation relates to the transit
routes that supply the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, which
both Russia and Pakistan are providing for the
Western alliance. The Northern Distribution
Network via Russia becomes vital, in principle,
for the US because of the imponderables over the
Pakistani routes. But Washington is also chary of
overtly depending on Russian goodwill. Again,
Russia has supplied helicopters for the Afghan
army and is maintaining them - they are paid for
by the US, apart from training Afghan security
personnel.
Evidently, Moscow has
tenaciously finessed an Afghan "trump card" to
play in the bigger game of the US-Russia reset.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko
was quoted as saying last week that Moscow is
ready to expand its joint projects with NATO
concerning Afghanistan and "bring other players
into them, too", but strictly within the framework
of a mandate from the UN Security Council.
However, the US is easing itself out of
the straitjacket of the UN Security Council
mandate to conduct its activities without the
Russians holding a veto over them. In reality, the
US has all along been cherry picking, taking help
from Moscow on a case-by-case basis but
consistently keeping Russia at arm's length from
the Hindu Kush. The US has repeatedly rebuffed the
Russian attempts to insert the Collective Security
Treaty Organization [CSTO] even remotely as a
provider of security for Afghanistan.
Washington's obduracy has only helped
deepen the Russian suspicions regarding the US'
long-term intentions, especially the establishment
of permanent American military presence in
Afghanistan. Grushko articulated the Russian
angst:
One may suppose NATO will be turning
to the Security Council for permission to train
the Afghan cadres for the interior agencies and
the armed forces. There should be no other
military functions and everything that spreads
beyond the task of facilitating the Afghan
stabilization will undermine regional security
and generate an even greater uncertainty.
The plain truth is that among the
regional powers, it is only Pakistan - aside of
course Iran - which would feel genuine empathy for
the Russian angst. Beijing may have reservations
over a long-term US military presence but then it
also has its well-honed methods (with Chinese
characteristics) of harmonizing with the US (and
NATO). To speak of the Central Asian elites, they
have been beneficiaries of the lucrative war
contracts and could be loathe to see the US forces
depart.
As for India, it positively views
a long-term US military presence as a factor of
regional security and stability. It is Pakistan
that feels threatened, like Russia, given the
tense state of its relations with the US (and
India). Both Russia and Pakistan have reason to
worry about the deployment of a US missile defense
system in Afghanistan.
A slap on the
face Clearly, the backdrop cannot be
overlooked - the US-Russia relationship has run
into headwinds. Writing for the official Novosti
agency, its weekly columnist Konstantin von Eggert
assessed Moscow's recent decision to shut down
USAID activities in Russia:
This week, Vladimir Putin laid to
rest the reset policy ... The reasons given by
the [Russian foreign] ministry's spokesman were
couched in language reminiscent of the Brezhnev
era. In a nutshell, USAID was kicked out
because, in the Kremlin's view, it tried to
influence Russian politics ... The Russian
president seems to have decided that it is time
for the era of niceties in US-Russian relations
to end. This is surely the first time since
Gorbachev came to power that official Russia has
slapped official America on the face so hard.
He [Putin] is irritated by President
Barack Obama's stance on ballistic missile
defense deployment in Europe ... What this show
of force testifies to is the utter shallowness
of US-Russian political relations. In the last
ten years it has whittled down to just a few
perennial topics ... Russia became an irrelevant
second-tier policy issue for the Americans quite
some time ago. Until fairly recently, the
Russian leadership had responded by using the
so-called nuisance factor - ie making life
difficult for the US without crossing any red
lines that might prompt an unpredictable US
reaction. No more.
The point is,
Washington is hitting hard at Russia's first
circle of strategic interests in the so-called
post-Soviet space. A telltale sign of the enormous
loss of Russian influence in the Central Asian
region surfaced over the weekend when Moscow
admitted the failure of its protracted diplomacy
in wrapping up an agreement with Tajikistan for
the extension of the lease of the Russian military
base in time for Putin's visit to Dushanbe slated
for Friday.
Only 10 days back, Russian
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who was
deputed to Dushanbe to prepare for Putin's visit,
had exuded optimism that the two countries were
"very close" to signing an agreement. However, the
commander of the Russian Ground Forces, General
Vladimir Chirkin, retracted on Saturday that the
negotiations may continue for months.
"I
believe the countries' leaders will sign the deal
on the base's continuing stay [in Tajikistan] in
the first half of next year," Chirkin said.
He admitted that Moscow is having problem
persuading Dushanbe to agree to a 49-year lease
and that the Tajiks are demanding US$100 million
in an annual fee for the base (which used to be
provided without fee). The Kommersant newspaper
reported that Dushanbe is demanding $250 million
as the annual fee.
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