This is How We Will Stand Up to Russia’s Naked Aggression - G. Brown, PM, United Kingdom
August 31, 2008
As European leaders meet, the Prime Minister says security is linked to the politics of energy
Twenty years ago, as the Berlin Wall fell, people assumed the end of hostility between East and West, and a new world order founded on common values. As part of this, 10 Eastern European states joined Nato and intensified co-operation with Europe and more wanted to follow. But Russia’s hostile action towards Georgia suggests that they are unreconciled to this new reality. Their aggression raises two urgent questions for us: how best to stabilise Georgia now, and how to make it clear to Russia that its unilateral approach is dangerous and unacceptable. War in Georgia also poses a serious longer term issue - how can we best create a rules-based international system that protects our collective security and safeguards our shared values?
At tomorrow’s European summit in Brussels we will first unite to alleviate the suffering of the 100,000 Georgian civilians left without homes. The UK has already pledged £2m, and I will urge partners to meet not only Georgia’s immediate needs but its long-term reconstruction and development needs. We will deploy peace monitors to better judge violations of the ceasefire, appoint a senior figure to drive the humanitarian and political effort, and support the Nato Georgia Commission, with a Nato team sent to Georgia.
Georgia has felt the consequences of the conflict. It is important that the summit also demonstrates to Russia that its actions have real consequences.
No one wants a new Cold War or the encirclement of Russia. But when I spoke to President Medvedev yesterday, I told him to expect a determined European response. As David Miliband has said, there can be no return to ‘business as usual’ unless and until Russia commits fully to Georgia’s territorial integrity and withdraws to its previous positions.
Russia has emerged as a significant economic power, with its trade increasing fourfold. It has done so by reaping the benefits of a stable global order based on agreements that make trade and investment both possible and profitable, bringing greater stability and certainty to international relations. Equally, when Russia fights secessionist movements in Chechnya or Dagestan, it expects others to respect its territorial integrity and not to recognise declarations of independence.
So when Russia has a grievance over an issue such as South Ossetia, it should act multilaterally by consent rather than unilaterally by force. I believe Russia faces a choice about the nature of its responsibilities as a leading and respected member of the international community. My message to Russia is simple: if you want to be welcome at the top table of organisations such as the G8, OECD and WTO, you must accept that with rights come responsibilities. We want Russia to be a good partner in the G8 and other organisations, but it cannot pick and choose which rules to adhere to.
That is why I will argue tomorrow that Russia should accept Georgia’s territorial integrity and international mechanisms for addressing these conflicts, and withdraw troops to their previous positions. And, in the light of Russian actions, the EU should review - root and branch - our relationship with Russia. We should continue to strengthen the transatlantic relationship and may need to meet more regularly as the G7. We are also reflecting on the Nato response. We must re-evaluate the alliance’s relationship with Russia, and intensify our support to Georgia and others who may face Russian aggression .
No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe and the events of August have shown the critical importance of diversifying our energy supply. The tenfold increase in the world oil price in the past decade has demonstrated that diversification from oil is also an economic necessity. The UK will go from being 80 per cent self-sufficient now to having to import almost two-thirds of our gas and more than half of our oil by 2020 - precisely as markets become more volatile as more people chase fewer natural resources. And with states such as Russia increasingly using their energy resources as policy tools it is apparent that the security grounds for this shift are stronger as well.
Without urgent action we risk sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners. That is why we in the UK are putting in law our commitment to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, looking to replace our ageing nuclear power plants, to encourage greener fuels to power our homes and businesses and to transform the way we travel. Europe also needs to take action. Tomorrow’s summit must add urgency to the work on Europe’s energy agenda. We must more rapidly build relationships with other producers of oil and gas. Our response must include a redoubling of our efforts to complete a single market in gas and electricity, a collective defence to secure our energy supplies.
I will also be pressing European leaders to increase funding for a project to allow us to source energy from the Caspian Sea, reducing our dependence on Russia. I will encourage European partners to use our collective bargaining power rather than seek separate energy deals with Russia. And because the environmental necessity is urgent, we must deliver an ambitious 2020 climate and energy package by the end of this year.
More than 10 years ago Alexander Solzhenitsyn - who died just days before this latest chapter in the history of his country - wrote: ‘We were recently entertained by a naive fable of the happy arrival of the end of history, of the overflowing triumph of an all-democratic bliss; the ultimate global arrangement had supposedly been attained. But we all see and sense that something very different is coming, something new, and perhaps quite stern. No, tranquillity does not promise to descend on our planet, and will not be granted us so easily.’ The past few days have seen some of his predictions realised.
This is why the changing global order cannot be governed by institutions designed in the middle of the last century. We now know how much more we have to do to create an effective system of international rules. We must strengthen the system of global governance to meet the challenges of our interdependent world. We must reshape our global architecture to meet the new challenges: climate change, energy security, poverty, migration. And in doing so we must stand up for both our vital interests and our essential values .
Source: The Guardian - Observer, August 2008
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/31/russia.georgia
Russia Promises Military Aid to South Ossetia
August 31, 2008
Russia’s president said Sunday his country will give military aid to the two separatist regions at the center of the war with Georgia — signaling Moscow has no intention of backing down in the face of Western pressure.
Dmitry Medvedev also warned that American domination of world affairs is unacceptable, though he insisted that Russia did not want hostile relations with the United States and other Western nations.
Medvedev’s decision Tuesday to recognize the Georgian breakaway provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent drew condemnation from the West. Though no other countries have followed Russia’s lead, Medvedev reaffirmed the decision on Sunday.
“We have made our decision, and it’s irreversible,” he said in a speech broadcast on Russian television.
The war began Aug. 7 when Georgian forces began heavy shelling of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, hoping to retake control of the province. Russian forces poured in, pushed the Georgians out in a matter of days and then drove deep into Georgia proper.
European Union leaders planned an emergency meeting Monday to discuss how to deal with an increasingly assertive Russia, but they are not expected to impose sanctions. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has angrily warned Europe not to do America’s bidding and said Moscow does not fear Western sanctions.
Medvedev said Sunday the world would be more stable if the U.S. was less dominant.
“The world must be multi-polar; domination is unacceptable,” he said. “We can’t accept the world order where all decisions are made by one nation, even by such serious and authoritative nation as the United States. Such a world would be unstable and prone to conflicts.”
Still he insisted Russia does not want to distance itself too much from the West.
“Russia doesn’t want to isolate itself,” he said.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said the EU summit was a sign of a strong global support for Georgia.
“Russia today has found itself more isolated than the Soviet Union ever was,” he said in a televised statement.
Georgia asked the EU and the U.S. to impose sanctions on companies and individuals that do business in Abkhazia and South Ossetia without its permission.
Medvedev said Russia was preparing to sign deals with the two provinces that will detail Moscow’s obligations on economic, military and other assistance to them. He said the agreements will lay the foundation for “allied” relations.
“We will provide all kinds of assistance to these republics,” Medvedev said. “These international agreements will spell out our obligations on providing support and assistance: economic, social, humanitarian and military.”
Medvedev also said Russia will protect what he called its “privileged” interests in the former Soviet nations and defend its citizens and the interests of its businessmen abroad.
He said Russia may consider economic sanctions against unfriendly nations, but would like to avoid it.
Medvedev’s predecessor and mentor Putin cautioned European nations against adopting the tough U.S. stance on Russia and “serving someone else’s political interests.” Speaking to Russian television Sunday, Putin voiced hope that the Europeans will “look out for their own skins.”
Putin, who was speaking during a visit to Russia’s far eastern region, said Russia will diversify its energy exports and expand sales to booming Asian markets. His comments appeared to be a response to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s call in an article published Sunday for Europe to adopt a united energy policy and avoid dependence on Russia.
Russia supplies the EU with about a third of its oil and about two-fifths of its natural gas, and can turn off the tap if it chooses.
Putin said, however, that Russia’s plans to expand energy exports to Asia doesn’t mean that it would cut supplies to European markets.
“We aren’t going to impose any restrictions. We will fulfill our contract obligations,” Putin said. “But we will expand and diversify our opportunities in exporting hydrocarbons. The global economy, and, particularly, the rapidly growing Pacific region, need that.”
Georgia has severed diplomatic ties with Moscow to protest the presence of Russian troops on its territory. It claims, as does the West, that Russia is violating an EU-brokered cease-fire mandating that both sides return their forces to prewar positions. Russia has interpreted one of the agreement’s clauses as allowing them to remain in security zones, now marked by Russian checkpoints.
Georgia appears likely to be hosting tens of thousands of refugees for a grindingly long and expensive time. How much aid the small and struggling country will need to support them is to be among the top issues of the EU summit on Monday.
The United States has sent substantial aid to Georgia following the war, using naval ships and military aircraft. Russian officials speculated that the United States was trying to restore Georgia’s armed forces, which had received massive military aid from Washington in recent years.
Source: The Associated Press, August 2008
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080831/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_russia
Money Continued the Westward Flight
August 31, 2008
The money is flowing out of Russia; the amount was at least $3 billion past week, showed the August 22 estimate of Russia’s foreign reserves that was released by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). The interbank rates peaked to the August 11 record yesterday on profit tax payments. The problem of liquidity is acute and the RF Finance Ministry and CBR will probably attempt to sort it out also by extending duration of the budget deposits in the banking system.
The RF foreign reserves (former foreign exchange and gold reserves) amounted to $581.5 billion as of August 22, having added no more than $0.4 billion from August 15 to set off the previous week’s decline of $16.4 billion. The capital outflow is the basic reason of this movement.
The week’s outflow could be from $3 billion to $4 billion, said Alexei Moiseev from Renaissance Capital. Some $8 billion to $20 billion flew out of the country August 8 to 15 on military clashes with Georgia.
Although political risks are the key factor fueling the outflow, there are a few other reasons that couldn’t be neglected. Quite a number of loans given to Russia’s companies mature in August; Rosneft alone paid $9 billion to creditors.
The liquidity of banking sector has suffered material decline. As of yesterday, the amount of correspondent accounts of banks and deposits with the CBR was no more than 659.5 billion ruble. Therefore, the interbank rates are high today. One-day MosPrime was 7.92 percent Thursday, although it usually fluctuates from 3 percent to 5 percent. The banks go to the CBR for liquidity at large. One-day turnover of REPO transactions totaled 168 billion ruble.
And last but not least, huge tax payments (due to high prices for crude oil) have collided with capital outflow. According to Renaissance Capital, the severance payments reached 270 billion ruble as of August 25, and from 210 billion ruble to 220 billion ruble was paid as the profit tax yesterday.
Source: Kommersant, August 2008
www.kommersant.com/p1017623/International_reserves/
Russia to Cut Oil Supplies to Europe In Response to Sanctions
August 31, 2008
Russia’s government may prompt at least one oil company to cut supplies of crude oil to Europe in response to the threats to impose sanctions in the wake of the conflict with Georgia.
It is rumored that supplies via Druzhba pipeline that meets oil requirements of Poland and Germany will be probably reduced and that the LUKOIL leadership has been given the notice.
The reduction might happen already starting from September 1, the sources speculate. People in LUKOIL, however, say they know nothing about the plans to cut down supplies, and people in the Kremlin declined to comment.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner declared yesterday that the EU was deliberating whether to impose sanctions on Russia in the wake of events in South Ossetia and Georgia. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the idea the product of deformed imagination, while the RF Envoy to the EU Vladimir Chizhov warned that the sanctions could negatively affect the EU and the extent will be equal or event bigger than for Russia.
Source: Kommersant, August 2008
www.kommersant.com/p-13142/Sanction_supplies/
South Ossetia, Abkhazia to Recognize Each Other, Ink Military Cooperation Agreements
August 31, 2008
South Ossetia and Abkhazia are willing to seal agreements on recognizing each other and on military cooperation, South Ossetia’s Ambassador to Abkhazia Robert Kokoev told RIA Novosti.
“Any state has allies, and given the world situation, in which we are living, this [signing the agreements] is of high priority. Avoiding it is impossible with the neighbor that we have,” Kokoev reasoned. The republics recognized each other even earlier, but they are willing to seal a new agreement in capacity of the recognized states.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev declared August 26 that he inked decrees on recognizing independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Georgia and Russia Cut Diplomatic Ties
August 31, 2008
The Georgian government broke off diplomatic relations with Russia on Friday and Russia responded by doing the same.
While the move was expected in the wake of the war this month, it was a significant political ripple in post-Soviet politics. Never before has Russia severed formal diplomatic ties with any of the other 14 republics that became independent states in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The countries will retain consular offices in each other’s territories, handling such matters as issuing passports and assisting their citizens with legal affairs, but the political ties will now be handled through intermediaries, a spokeswoman for Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said.
Georgia is now in talks with several countries as possible candidates to represent Georgia in Moscow, the ministry spokeswoman said, in the way, for example, that the Swiss Embassy in Tehran represents American interests in Iran, a country with which the United States has no diplomatic relations.
The Georgian Parliament passed a law on Thursday instructing the government to sever ties with Russia as one of seven points of protest to the Russian Army’s occupation of two separatist regions and a security zone around them, and Russian government recognition of the two regions as independent countries.
The law does not prohibit Russian and Georgian diplomats from meeting on the territory of third countries.
The other points abrogate all treaties allowing Russian troops to be present in Georgia as peacekeepers, with the exception of the European Union-brokered cease-fire accord that ended the war, and instruct the attorney general of Georgia to investigate allegations that Russian troops drove ethnic Georgians from villages in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”
The law, called “On the Occupation of Georgian Territories by Russia,” also characterizes the militias of the separatist regions as illegal armed formations.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the severing of diplomatic relations would harm efforts to reach negotiated settlements. “Without such a channel for contacts, we will have difficulties trying to bring our points of view to each other’s attention,” the ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The diplomatic breach between Georgia and Russia was the first for Russia with a former Soviet state since 1991, according to Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, the director of the Polity Foundation, a Moscow research group.
In another diplomatic development, Abkhazia, which Russia recognized Tuesday, asked Russia on Friday to represent its interests abroad, Interfax reported. The region’s president, Sergei Bagapsh, said this provision would be included in a so-called friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance treaty that the enclave is preparing to sign with Russia. Russia is offering a similar agreement to South Ossetia.
Also on Friday, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, pressed for support for Russia’s military actions in Georgia from Central Asian leaders, whose countries’ ties with the West are now seen as more tenuous as their future energy exports are unlikely to travel in a westward direction, through Georgia. That leaves Russia, China and Iran as potential export routes.
Mr. Medvedev promised the Tajik president, Emomali Rahmon, Russian investment in hydroelectric plants and natural gas fields. He added that Tajikistan’s “reputation and role are significant and invariably belong to the sphere of Russia’s strategic interests,” Interfax reported.
The former Soviet president, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, issued a plea for calm calm as tensions rose between Russia and the West. “Stop, stop and again stop,” Mr. Gorbachev said Friday. “It is important to save everything that has been done in recent years.”
Source: The New York Times, August 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/world/europe/30russia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Pressure Mounts on EU to Isolate Russia
August 31, 2008
Splits in EU mean tomorrow’s emergency summit is unlikely to result in tough sanctions on Russia
Calls mounted today for Russia to face greater international isolation because of its invasion and partition of Georgia as European leaders prepared for an emergency summit on the Caucasus crisis and to review the basis of Europe’s relations with Russia.
France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the EU’s current president, who negotiated a ceasefire agreement between Moscow and Tbilisi more than a fortnight ago, has convened the first EU emergency summit since February 2003 in the run-up to the Iraq war in order to concentrate the minds of leaders on their policies towards Moscow.
Gordon Brown today took a tough position, indicating that Russia’s membership of the G8 grouping of big industrial democracies could be frozen, an option that found some support from Germany.
But France is worried that any tough action agreed by 27 European leaders at tomorrow afternoon’s summit in Brussels will provoke Russian retaliation and undermine its chances of playing the peacemaker in the Caucasus.
Diplomats and analysts say that a one-off meeting scheduled to last three hours is unlikely to bring about any radical steps in Europe’s relations with Russia, but that temporary diplomatic penalties could be approved, such as having the G8 meeting without Russia or postponing negotiations between Brussels and Moscow on a new long-term strategic pact governing the relationship.
In an article in the Observer today, Brown delivered his toughest message on Moscow to date, following last week’s broadside condemning Russian behaviour by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, in a speech in the Ukraine capital, Kiev.
“In the light of Russian actions, the EU should review — root and branch — our relationship with Russia,” said the prime minister. Russia’s unilateral action in recognising the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was “dangerous and unacceptable”.
Brown said he had told Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev at the weekend to “expect a determined European response”.
But today Medvedev told Russian TV reporters that Moscow would provide military aid to Georgia’s breakaway provinces. Medvedev said that Russia was preparing to sign deals with Abkhazia and South Ossetia that will detail Moscow’s obligations on economic, military and other assistance to the two regions - showing that he had no intention of backing down in the face of criticism from the west.
A senior figure in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party also called for Russia’s membership of the G8 to be frozen, but the divisions in the German government reflect the splits evident at the European level, with the foreign minister in Berlin, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, opposing action that risked escalating the crisis.
“We need a strong and considered European role to return to reason and responsibility,” he said.
While Britain is more closely allied with the former communist countries of the Baltic and central Europe in supporting tough action, Germany, France, and Italy are more reluctant to penalise Russia too harshly.
Rather than sanctions against Russia, tomorrow’s summit is more likely to offer stronger support for Georgia in its conflict with Moscow, pledging reconstruction aid, easier visas for travel to Europe, greater trade and pledges reaffirming Georgia’s territorial integrity.
Rather than resulting in strong action against the Kremlin, tomorrow’s summit is more likely to open a lengthier process of rethinking European policies towards Russia. Officials in Brussels said a single meeting was unlikely to decide on “radical new changes to our relationship with Russia”.
The summit will demand that Moscow, too, restore respect for Georgia’s borders, meaning Moscow would need to take the highly unlikely step of reversing its recognition of the two breakaway regions.
Sarkozy’s letter to European leaders convening tomorrow’s summit said that the meeting had to agree “a clear and united” message to Moscow.
“Russia’s commitment to relations of friendship and cooperation with the rest of Europe is in question. It’s up to Russia to make a fundamental choice in this respect,” said Sarkozy.
Behind the diplomatic calculations in Brussels and European capitals lies Europe’s vulnerability to Russia’s energy weapon, since it depends on Russia for a third of its oil and 40% of its gas. Brown said this addiction had to be broken.
“Without urgent action we risk sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners,” he wrote. “No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe.”
Source: The Guardian, August 2008
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/31/russia.georgia1
The Week that Buried the New World Order
August 31, 2008
The fall of the Berlin Wall seemed to herald the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a single superpower. A resurgent Russia’s actions in Georgia have shattered that illusion.
When Gordon Brown sits down tomorrow at the conference table with the 26 other EU premiers in the glass-fronted Justus Lipsius building on Brussels’s Rue de la Loi, the significance will not be lost on any of those present. The last time they sat in emergency session was in 2001, immediately after al-Qaeda’s attack on America.
This time, they will be meeting to consider Russia’s military actions in response to Georgia’s attempt to retake South Ossetia. Those present are likely to agree with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who declared last week that a new era in international relations was upon us: the post-post Cold War, as former US Secretary of State Colin Powell originally framed it. Russia’s intention to absorb both South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Russian Federation is being treated as a move of that magnitude.
Georgia Tightens Visa Regime For Russian Citizens
August 31, 2008
Georgia will tighten visa requirements for Russian citizens following the Kremlin’s decision to recognise two Georgian rebel regions, the government said on August 30.
Previously Russian citizens were granted visas to enter neighbouring Georgia at the border. But from September 8 they will only be able to get visas at Georgian consulates and diplomatic offices, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Applicants will have to provide a letter of invitation and visas can be granted for family, business, or humanitarian trips.
The move follows Tbilisi’s decision on August 29 to cut diplomatic relations with Moscow over its backing for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where pro-Russia separatists threw off Georgian rule in the early 1990s.
The Foreign Ministry said it would inform the Russian ambassador of the decision to cut diplomatic ties in writing, before recalling its diplomats from Moscow. Russia announced it would close its embassy in Tbilisi.
Russia and ex-Soviet Georgia fought a brief war over South Ossetia this month, wth Russia pouring tanks and troops over its southern border to repel a Georgian offensive to retake the region.
Source: RFE/RL, August 2008
www.rferl.org/content/Georgia_Tightens_Visa_Regime_For_Russian_Citizens/1195025.html
British PM Says West Won’t Be Held Ransom To Russia
August 31, 2008
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the West will not be held to ransom by Moscow and vowed a “root and branch” review of relations between the European Union and Russia.
Writing in the British weekly “The Observer,” Brown sent a message to Russia: “If you want to be welcome at the top table of organizations” such as the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and World Trade Organization, “you must accept that with rights come responsibilities.”
Russian troops entered Georgia on August 8 following Georgian troops’ attempt to restore control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Moscow has halted a five-day offensive into Georgia but failed to withdraw all its troops from deep inside Georgia. On August 26, Russia recognized South Ossetia and another separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, as independent states.
Brown said he would argue at the September 1 EU summit in Brussels that Russia should accept Georgia’s territorial integrity and withdraw its troops to the positions they occupied before the military action over South Ossetia.
He also urged NATO to reevaluate its relationship with Russia and intensify its support to Georgia and other states that may face “Russian aggression.”
The British prime minister said Russia’s actions in Georgia had underlined the urgent need for Europe to find alternative sources of oil and gas to avoid “an energy stranglehold.”
Brown said he had warned Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a telephone call on August 30 “to expect a determined European response” on the issue of Georgia.
In an apparent conciliatory gesture, the Kremlin quoted Medvedev as saying during the conversation that Moscow was in favor of the deployment to Georgia of additional monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The OSCE has said it would send up to 100 observers to Georgia. Some 20 observers are currently on the ground.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia was concerned about calls for sanctions or other harsh measures from some EU governments. Speaking to Germany’s ARD television, Putin urged EU leaders to show “common sense” at the summit.
Georgia announced on August 30 it would tighten visa requirements for Russian citizens. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Eter Kamareli said the new visa regime would take effect on September 8.
Tbilisi announced on August 29 that it was cutting diplomatic relations with Moscow. But it said consular ties would be maintained.
Source: RFE/RL, August 2008
www.rferl.org/content/British_PM_Says_West_Wont_Be_Held_Ransom_To_Russia/1195188.html