Arrangements with participation of the presents and the future presidents are to become main events of this week in Russia. On Monday, there will be a solemn celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of Gazprom, where Medvedev, Deep Purple, Vladimir Putin and Tina Turner are expected to appear.
On Tuesday Vladimir Putin is to give a big press conference, during which one expects to hear some significant statements similar to that he has uttered during his address to the State Council. On Friday and Saturday in Kranoyarsk an economic forum will take place, where Dmitry Medvedev has promised to share economic part of his program.
For the time being one has an impression that there is a tendency to moderateness. The future president abated the definiteness of the liberal position as compared with his debut in Davos of last year. At the same time, he increased social notes and displayed skills of a stern manager (for example, on term of bringing into service of the first stage of “East-Siberian Pacific Ocean Pipeline” (VSTO)). On the other hand, Vladimir Putin during his address to the State Council and especially Sergei Ivanov in Munich relaxed appreciably the rhetoric.
The situation, when one should carefully listen to shades and accents in speeches of the leaders to catch the hint on what will be soon, can hardly make one happy. But insufficiency of public discussions can be imputed rather not to the power, but to politicians, public figures and experts who often shut the stable door when the horse if stolen and are not able to sort with the changing situation and what is more – to influence on the nature of these changes.
All this doesn’t conflict with the fact that the inertia of internal confrontational processes which have been already run, is still rather strong. It seems that the situation with Vasily Aleksanyan has found its solution, but then the Eurpean University in St. Petersburg has been closed. This week the situation is to clear up.
Claims of firemen can be hardly a real cause for closing the university. The St. Petersburg European University can irritate for many reasons. It is strongly integrated in the international scientific and educational community, it can find grants to implement its projects, it studies election observers and it is not quite built into the community of traditional Soviet educational institutions.
The question is, whether the fear of anything strange and not controlled wins or desire for having in Russia good education and science prevails.
The diplomatic week began on Sunday with arrival in Moscow of a Jordan king Abdalla II. On Monday he is to meet with Vladimir Putin. Last year Vladimir Putin visited Jordan, and now a return visit takes place. But it is not quite a formality, but a substantial event.
Jordan is an Arabic state created on a part of a territory of a mandated Palestine. It takes an active part in the reconciliation with Israel, contributes to the adjustment in Iraq. When it purchased arms from Russia, it doesn’t cause such a watchfulness, as it does, when Syria, which supports Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups, does the same. Jordan’s nuclear power engineering collaboration with Russia doesn’t cause anxiety, which has arisen in connection with Iran. In spite of a radical Arabian nation, the government seems to control the situation rather well.
Among main matters of the conversation there are military and technical collaboration, nuclear power, adjustment of problems in the Near East.
On Monday the Minister of Foreign Affairs of neighbor to Jordan Iraq is to sign up a document on writing down of the debt of the country. Unlike more controversial situations when the military-industrial complex lobbies unilateral writing down of debts in exchange for getting new orders that nevertheless can be never paid for, in this case the writing down of the debts occurs within the boundaries of the Paris Club; and there was no real possibility to act differently.
There is a hope that this writing down will help Russian oil industry to return to Iraq but one had to create a system of inheritance of Iraq’s economic liability just after the beginning of the war. This would have provide juridical grounds for return to old contracts. In the current situation Russia’s activity seems to be quite accurate, except useless demands to name the exact date of withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.
This week an interesting story will unfold in Ukraine. On Tuesday the Ukrainian president is to come to a bilateral commission Putin- Yushchenko. At 10 A.M. gas delivery to Ukraine can be stopped. Timoshenko calms people down, referring to Sergei Ivanov, who has alleged that gas would not becut off, but she has never been notable for citing accuracy. The conflict is a puzzling interlacing of several games. In the result it can turn out so that Victor Yushchenko and Gazprom will come to be on one side of the barricade. The first one is interested in not to make a destabilization and not to add popularity to the premier minister and his future rival. The second one doesn’t want to revise already concluded arrangements.
The future visit of the president in Moscow, in case it is successful, will devalue the expecting visit of Timoshenko.
At the same time the premier is not allowed to the control under state property. Her plan of a large-scale privatization, which is designed to be a source for social payments that are to raise her rate, won’t be realized. The present confrontation makes to doubt, whether the president is really so satisfied with his decision to dissolve the Vekhovna Rada.
All this doesn’t cancel an interesting bargaining, which Yushchenko will start after Ukraine’s entry into WTO.
On Tuesday one expect new victories of Barack Obama during the primary in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. It becomes even more possible that just he will be nominated from the Democratic Party. That means, that Russia should establish contacts with the milieu of John McCain as far as possible. Extremely radical rhetoric in the beginning of Reagan’s governing hadn’t impeded to bridge a gulf between the USSR and the USA even before a new team came to the White House. One should not dash aside from ‘anti-Russian’ statements if McCain and place a unique bet on Obama, whose final victory is far from being indisputable.
Soon opposition actions in Georgia can resume. The ultimatum of the opposition hasn’t been fulfilled; and it is time to begin an election campaigning.
On Wednesday the government of Australia is to apologize to the aboriginals for their forcible civilizing, when children have been taken from parents in order to bring them up in state educational institutions. So a ‘stolen generations’ have emerged, which don’t exist in the traditional culture but at the same time can’t integrate entirely in the modern world. Attempts to isolate children from the culture of their parents are not unique. A similar situation was in the USSR. Although this problem has been discussed already for a long time, until now nobody made up one’s mind to adduce public excuses in the name of the state.
On Sunday two event connected with the problem of reintegration of countries can take place. In a Greece part of Cyprus presidential elections will be hold, and Kosovo can declare its independency. The last even can also happen on Monday in connection with the meeting of heads of the EU Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
On of the most unreasonable actions of the EU of late was a decision to accept in the Union a Greece part of the island without that belonging to Turkey. Consent to consolidation had to become a condition of the entry. In the result the leadership of a Greece commune was not reasoned enough to accept a weighed plan of the consociation and failed t on the referendum. Thus now there are no incentives, which could constrain the Greece community to compromise.
The similar situation is in Kosovo. The government of the province have no reasons to reach a compromise with Serbs. The only ‘punishment’ for their non-compliance could become a realization of the Ahtisaari's plan, which is rather convenient for them. As one had expected, the elections of the president didn’t become a conflict resolution. But it was a surprise that a moderate nationalist Kostunica revolted even against a signing of a document on the beginning of the integration with the EU, having declared it to be a document on a consent with the province’s independency. Thus the EU has driven itself into a corner and it is rather difficult to improve the situation. Moreover, it is not clear, whether the complicacy of the current situation has been realized. The EU just expressed regret for the non-sighing of the memorandum on February 7. Nothing more than that.