|
MOSCOW: Russia earlier this week issued a foreign
policy document proposing a strategic partnership with the United
States and a collective security system across Europe.
But such a good-will gesture
coincided with two separate military exercises by the United States
and Russia near Russia’s southern boarder, and analysts remain
skeptical about whether the so-called Foreign Policy Concept could
heal the lingering Russia-West rifts.
Russia-US strategic
partnership
“It is necessary to switch over
Russian-US relations to the state of strategic partnership, to
overstep barriers of strategic principles of the past,” says the
document posted Tuesday on the Kremlin Web site.
Russia and the United States
should “concentrate on real threats, and where differences
persist, to work on their settlement in the spirit of mutual
respect,” says the paper ratified by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Moscow will work along with
Washington in taking confidence-building measures, ensuring
transparency in space explorations, anti-missile defense and
non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, securing
development of peaceful nuclear power, enhancing cooperation in
countering terrorism and other challenges, it says.
However, the often soft-spoken
Medvedev Tuesday slammed a US proposal to deploy missile shield
components in Central Europe, which have soured bilateral ties since
it was raised in early 2007.
“We will be forced to
adequately react to this. Our American and European partners have
been warned,” he said in a speech to Russian ambassadors.
Also Tuesday, the United States
and Georgia launched a Pentagon-funded joint military exercise in
the South Caucasus region, while Russian troops were taking part in
another drill near the border region.
Both Moscow and Washington have
denied any connection between the war games, which involved some
1,000 US troops near Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, and 8,000 Russian
troops.
Many analysts, however, believe
that the military exercises were held against the backdrop of
deteriorating relations between Russia and the US-backed Georgia
that is seeking NATO membership.
Pan-Europe security treaty
The policy guidelines hardly
diverged from the previous ones during the years under Medvedev’s
predecessor Vladimir Putin and also highlighted Russia’s relations
with its European partners.
Russia hopes to build an open and
democratic collective security and cooperation system across Europe,
it says.
A unified Europe should be based
on equal cooperation among Russia, the European Union (EU) and the
United States, it also says.
Medvedev proposed in a Russian-EU
summit in June an all-European summit for preparing a pan-European
security agreement, which is seen as an effort to reduce the EU’s
security dependence on the United States.
But analysts say that such a deal
is not likely to be reached any time soon as Europe has been divided
into an eastward-expanding NATO-EU bloc, including Georgia and
Ukraine, and the shrinking Russia-CIS Collective Security Treaty
zone.
“Is it a realistic approach?
Not really. I find it hard to imagine a magician-diplomat who could
cobble together a security agreement from this motley crew,” said
Vladimir Frolov, former diplomat and a Moscow-based think tank
chief, in a comment on the Russia Profile.
Security concerns in Europe have
especially heightened due to the unilateral declaration of
independence by Kosovo and the US anti-missile plans.
Medvedev on Tuesday called
Kosovo’s independence, backed by many nations, a “sad” event
that violated international law and said the planned deployment of
US missile defense facilities in central Europe would undermine
security.
Multilateral ties priority
In spite of the confrontations
with the western nations, Russia has repeatedly called for
multilateral cooperation and reform of international institutions to
ensure global security.
“I am convinced that with the
end of Cold War the underlying reasons for most of bloc politics and
bloc discipline simply disappeared,” Medvedev said Tuesday.
“It’s absolutely essential to
identify and resist the attempt of national or group interests to
ignore international law,” said the Russian president who took
power in May.
“The experience of recent
years, especially in Iraq and the Middle East, shows that today’s
global problems cannot be resolved through the direct use of
force,” he said.
“We need reform of
international institutions and a strengthened role for the United
Nations. This position of ours remains unchanged,” he said.
The Foreign Policy Concept also
echoed such an idea by slamming unilateralism and advocating
multilateral cooperation.
The United Nations should play a
core role in adjusting international relations and coordinating
policies, it says.
Russia will actively engage
itself in the Group of Eight, a club of industrialized countries,
the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation and other international organizations, it says.
Russia will also enhance
cooperation with emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil,
it adds.
Only by doing so, can Russia seek
to address its thorny issues with the West and regain its influence
on the world arena, observers say.
--Xinhua
|
