Asia Times: Putin seeks major role in new world order


	September 28, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Putin seeks major role in new world order
By Yojana Sharma

BERLIN - In the latest round of high-level shuttle diplomacy Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Germany seeking a major role in the emerging new order. Putin used the opportunity of his three day-visit to address the German parliament - the first Russian leader to do so - to call for a new climate of trust in which Russia will fight the "upcoming battle" shoulder to shoulder with Europe.

"The Cold War is over," he said to resounding applause by deputies in the Reichtag, the building that houses the parliament, the Bundestag, and where victorious Russian soldiers raised the red flag in 1945.

Moscow is still being excluded from important international decisions, because some Western countries continue to harbor a Cold War mentality, Putin said in the fluent German he acquired as a KGB agent in the former East Germany. "We speak of partnership, but in reality we have never trusted each other," he said. "We are not free of certain cliches and stereotypes from the Cold War ... We must formally declare: the Cold War is over, the world is at another stage of its development. Without a sustainable international security policy, we will never have stability." The Russian leader also called for a "new climate of trust" between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Putin's decision to cooperate with the US-led campaign against terrorism is being seen as a remarkable change in the world's political alignments, and one that finally puts the ghosts of the Cold War to rest. "A global coalition of this kind would have been seen as Utopia only two weeks ago," said Wolfgang Thierse, Speaker of the Bundestag. Just a day before his visit, Putin promised to channel arms to the Northern Alliance, which is fighting the Taliban inside Afghanistan, and share intelligence data with the United States.

"This is a most unusual official visit," noted Wolfgang Leonhard, an historian and author of several books on Soviet-German relations. "There is an absolutely new quality to this visit, it is very different from previous visits." Leonhard said that the visit showed that there is "widespread agreement" between Germany and the European Allies on the one hand and Putin on the other, a meeting of minds which is not merely diplomatic posturing or "out of politesse". "It is not just [verbal] fireworks, but a foundation that can be built on," Leonhard said.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder regards Germany as an important intermediary between the NATO allies and Russia, and nurtures close personal ties with the Russian leader. "It has now become clear that anyone who seeks better security in the world must work closely with Russia," he said. Given the reception accorded to Putin in Berlin, it has been evident that the German government regards this visit as the most significant in the current round of diplomacy, overshadowing the visit of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to European capitals. Mubarak was in Berlin on Tuesday.

Putin's visit is being watched closely for any hints of concessions towards Russia by the West in return, it is thought, for the use of air corridors through the Central Asian states to launch a US-led attack on Afghanistan. Russia has opposed the expansion of NATO into the Baltic States - Russia's own backyard. In a hint that NATO allies might be willing to accommodate some of Moscow's concerns, Gernot Erler, foreign affairs spokesperson for the ruling Social Democratic party noted on Tuesday that he "can imagine different models in the expansion of NATO, which Russia could agree with." Better integration of Russia itself into the Western alliance, and even Russia membership of NATO - unthinkable in the past - could also be a possibility under the "new order".

On Tuesday, Schroeder alluded to the NATO-Russia Council. "If this develops to more - possible NATO entry [for Russia] - Germany will be the last to be against it" he said. "On the contrary we look forward to an ever-closer cooperation. All [NATO allies] are ready to work with Russia - something that has not been quite so clear for every NATO member," Schroeder said, alluding perhaps to Washington, whose attitude towards Moscow cooled after President George W Bush arrived in the White House this January.

But even Bush's attitude towards Russia may be undergoing a sea change after Moscow agreed to the use of its air-space by US planes, launching a possible attack on Afghanistan. Over-fly rights and use of staging posts in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are also put down to the new climate of friendship between Russia and the West.

Russia has also hoped for Western criticism against human rights abuses in Chechnya to be dropped, something which Putin's visit to Berlin appears to have achieved. "As regards Chechnya, there will be and must be a more differentiated evaluation in world opinion" Schroeder said, along with a clear softening of the European Union (EU) stance. Many EU countries have supported the idea of sanctions against Russia because of abuses in Chechnya.

Putin has been describing the war in Chechnya as a struggle against Muslim terrorists and has sought to link the rebels in Chechnya to those who carried out the attacks on America, describing them as "a common enemy". But there may also be other dividends for Moscow, which has opposed Washington's missile defence shield plans. "I'm sure that the discussion in the United States over Nuclear Missile Defence will now switch direction," predicted Karl Lamers, foreign policy spokesperson for Germany's opposition Christian Democrat party.

Such upbeat statements, pointing to a warming of the West towards Russia, are an indication that Putin's strategy of joining the alliance against terrorism has been a well-calculated risk in the face of opposition from many Russian generals. And Putin's reception in Berlin has shown that in Europe at least he is being regarded in the new order as an "equal".

(Inter Press Service)