Gazeta.ru

START Treaty a trap for Moscow and Washington - analyst

A year or so ago the U.S. administration announced its intention to "reset" relations with Russia. By implication the process was to begin with the reduction of strategic offensive arms, writes Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine. Success in this respect was expected to lead to the consideration of other more involved issues. But the facts have proved otherwise: both sides now have a lot of unique experience, but this experience has set up a trap for them.

Talks on this perpetual subject have given rise to a Cold War-type discussion. The logic of strategic stability that has underlain all Russian-U.S. relations since the middle of the past century is inevitably drawing negotiators into a dialogue pre-supposing a confrontation. And the biggest hurdle that cannot be avoided is a missile defense system.

Moscow logically requests one approach to offensive and defensive components of strategic armament. A nuclear shield, even a hypothetical one, will give one side an edge thereby eliminating the principle of inevitable retribution. Yet it is this principle that guarantees the non-use of force.

Washington keeps repeating: a missile shield is not directed against Russia, its purpose is to make the U.S. and its allies safe against attacks from third countries, above all Iran and North Korea, and Moscow can join in the project. This reasoning sounds logical: nuclear security in a multi-polar world is no longer an issue between just the U.S. and Russia, no matter how discouraging it may look to the two nuclear superpowers.

What is there then to discuss in arms reductions talks? How to deal with cuts in opposing arsenals and at the same time negotiate an all-purpose defense system? The first means that Moscow and Washington by a tradition hallowed by many decades are in a state of confrontation. The second is possible only if they do not consider each other to be the main threat and if they assess the potential threat from other sources in a similar way.

Mutual understanding on a missile shield would be more important than cuts and verification procedures for strategic offensive arms as now heatedly discussed by analysts. It would be better to take up missile defense first - by assessing threats, and examining possible coverage, confidence-building measures and the compass of participants. If it were possible to agree on the anti-missile theme, the reduction of arms would largely be a technicality. But this is impossible in the framework of the present negotiating paradigm, which is programmed from the outset to dust off past approaches rather than seek answers to future challenges.

The START treaty is likely to be signed soon. But hopes that its success will encourage progress in other areas are unlikely to materialize. The negotiations have, if anything, only raised the degree of mutual suspicion. Russia and the U.S. have declared that the Cold War is over dozens of times, but they remain hostages of past perceptions of each other and cannot get beyond the START trap.

Gazeta

Japan could replace Russia in nuclear deal with Iran

Iran is trying to negotiate the possibility of uranium enrichment in Japan. If the negotiations succeed, the resulting arrangement may affect Russia's diplomatic influence, because Moscow is seeking to sign a similar deal with Tehran.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani, who is a former chief negotiator on the Iranian nuclear program, arrived in Japan late Wednesday night to negotiate uranium enrichment in that country. The issue came into the spotlight of the talks on the very first day of the visit. Tokyo first proposed the deal to Tehran last December.

Iran had earlier declined a similar offer made by the "five plus one" group (five permanent UN Security Council members - Russia, China, Britain, France, and the United States - plus Germany) and supported by the IAEA.

The initiative called for Iran to ship 70% of its 3.5 percent uranium to Russia and France where it was to be enriched to 20 percent and sent back.

Radzhab Safarov, director general of the Moscow-based Center of Modern Iranian Studies and head of the Russian-Iranian Business Council, said: "Tokyo is not eager to impose new economic sanctions on Iran. Japan is a very important trade and economic partner of Iran and one of the largest importers of Iranian energy resources."

Safarov is confident that Tokyo has every technological and diplomatic means to make a uranium deal with Iran - a deal which would elevate Japan to new levels of international diplomacy on a par with the permanent Security Council members.

At the same time, Tehran is using the negotiations with Japan as a diversion and a tool to force more concessions from Europe and the United States, Safarov told Gazeta.

Russia has traditionally been seen as a key link between Iran and the six negotiators. However, the relations between Moscow and Tehran grew tense in early February. Disappointed by yet another delay in Russian S-300 air defense systems deliveries, the Islamic Republic announced it could enrich its own uranium to 20% and higher.

"The enrichment talks between Iran and Japan is also a signal to Moscow. Tehran is showing Russia it is no longer an exclusive mediator in the nuclear crisis," Safarov concluded.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

New Ukrainian president has to rebuild the country - analyst

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was inaugurated on Thursday, will lead the country at a difficult stage of its development. A ruined economy and regional disagreements tearing Ukraine apart are the main problems that Yanukovych faces, writes an influential Russian analyst.

Sergei Zhiltsov, director of the Moscow-based CIS Center, says Ukraine is plagued by cyclic economic crises. The recession of the early 1990s gave way to the 2000-2004 economic recovery. The economy posted 12-14% annual growth, low inflation and a cost-effective industry.

However, all these achievements were wrecked by Viktor Yushchenko and his supporters who gained power after the November 2004 - January 2005 Orange Revolution. The timid attempts at structural reforms, launched under his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, were trampled on as political infighting took precedence over the economy.

Ukraine's political elite failed to overcome internal disagreements, consolidate and develop a national idea that all regions could accept. The division of resources was prioritized in the ensuing chaos. The Ukrainian state was weakened by repeated attempts at political modernization. The Government's legitimacy was called into question after it started passing illegal decisions.

Although Ukraine's economy and political squabbles require prompt and tough decisions from the new President, this is almost impossible in the current situation, the analyst writes.

The 2004 constitutional reform shifting the center of power to the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) was a strategic mistake. The parliamentary model leaves Ukraine unable to overcome the economic and political crisis.

Despite the parliamentary model's merits and drawbacks, the cultural-linguistic stand-off between Ukraine's western and eastern regions that has existed since Soviet times remains the key problem. This issue became an important factor affecting the mood in the country after it gained independence, the analyst writes.

The results of the latest presidential elections confirm Ukraine's division along regional lines. Eastern and western regions supported their own candidates. This process reflects various differences in terms of their world outlook, historical experience, geopolitical aspirations and cultural orientation.

A reversion to the presidential model stipulating broad powers for the head of state could create favorable conditions for improving the economic situation and attaining stability. Otherwise any effort by the new Ukrainian President and his political opponents will merely facilitate an endless power struggle, only benefiting third forces.

President Yanukovych and his supporters have inherited an unenviable baggage. Ukraine has already depleted the reserves built up during the Soviet-era, while political vacillations give it a bleak future and make it possible to implement various geopolitical projects with regard to the Ukrainian state, the analyst writes in conclusion.

Kommersant, Gazeta.ru

Russia to deploy Iskander missiles near Estonia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday in an interview with France's Paris Match that Russia does not see NATO as its main military threat.

However, the same day Gen. Alexander Postnikov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, said that the Iskander tactical missiles, which Russia planned to deploy near Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, would be dispatched to the border with Estonia.

When U.S. President Barack Obama terminated the previous administration's ballistic missile defense plans, Russia said that it would not deploy new missiles in the Kaliningrad Region. But it appears, according to Gen. Postnikov, that it will not return them to the Penza Region either, instead planning to dispatch them to the border with Estonia.

If the 26th Missile Brigade, located in the southwest of the Leningrad Region, receives the Iskander missiles, their range will cover the entire territory of the Baltic NATO countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The missile has a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles).

Gen. Postnikov emphasized that deploying the Iskanders in the Leningrad Military District was unrelated to U.S. plans to dispatch the Patriot systems to Poland. He said the deployment of the new tactical missiles in northwest Russia was part of the country's military development plans.

Mikhail Barabanov, editor-in-chief of Moscow Defense Brief, said the deployment of Iskanders in the Leningrad Military District will be a "geographical compromise" between plans to deploy modern missile systems inside Russia and the harsh rhetoric regarding their deployment to the Kaliningrad Region.

The Russian Defense Ministry has decided to start by deploying them somewhere in the middle, the analyst said.

Officials in the Leningrad Military District refused to comment on Gen. Postnikov's statement, although some officers said the information was a surprise to them.

"This could be a deliberate leak, because there was much talk of deploying these Iskander missiles in different places," a source in the military district's staff told Gazeta.ru.

Kommersant's military sources said they have not seen any instructions regarding the Iskanders' deployment at Luga, but welcome the idea. "The brigade should have been rearmed long ago," they said. "It is not just about deploying new weapons, personnel need to be trained to use them."

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MOSCOW, February 26 (RIA Novosti)