What the Russian papers say

Russian Parliamentary Speaker warns: No Duma ratification of START without missile defense agreement / Iran shows the world it is willing to cooperate on its nuclear program / Court injunction could paralyze Russian oil exports / Russia attracted to Venezuela's oil market /

Russian Parliamentary Speaker warns: No Duma ratification of START without missile defense agreement / Iran shows the world it is willing to cooperate on its nuclear program / Court injunction could paralyze Russian oil exports / Russia attracted to Venezuela's oil market /

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

Russian Parliamentary Speaker warns: No Duma ratification of START without missile defense agreement

On March 16, Boris Gryzlov, Speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, issued an unexpectedly stern warning to the United States. He said the Duma will not ratify the new strategic arms reduction treaty (START), unless it was linked with the missile defense issue.

According to analysts, such statements are part of the game being played out between Russia and the U.S.

Gryzlov's statement obviously runs counter to the latest statements made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on this issue and media reports that Russian and U.S. Presidents will be ready to sign the document in the near future.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to discuss the treaty's details with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow today.

Moscow did not sign a new document when the START-I agreement expired on December 5, 2009 after Washington refused to back down on the issue of linking offensive and defensive arms.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insisted that the treaty must not be signed without U.S. concessions, sources said. Putin deemed it important to demonstrate Moscow's resolve in defending its national interests.

Another "moment of truth" has now emerged. It would be strange if the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers, who have failed to reach agreement on nuclear reductions, were to call on other countries to limit their nuclear arsenals at the upcoming Global Nuclear Security Summit, scheduled to be held in Washington this April.

Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), called Gryzlov's statement "very strange."

"The United States does not take debates in the State Duma seriously. Unfortunately, there have been many cases in the past few years when the pro-government United Russia party made a decision one day and then changed it on orders from above the very next day. Nobody in Russia or elsewhere seriously believes that the national parliament is independent," Arbatov said.

Arbatov declined to comment on conjectures that Gryzlov's statement had been coordinated with Putin, the leader of the United Russia party, but admitted that Putin had tremendous influence on security agencies and Russia's foreign policy, including the pace of the talks and ratification prospects for the new START agreement.

Alexei Malashenko, a member of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Research Council, said Gryzlov had coordinated his statement either with Medvedev and Putin or with Putin alone.

"The Prime Minister is therefore showing that he has sensitive diplomatic leverage in influencing the signing or non-signing process. I think the treaty will be signed, no matter what. This is not the first time that such a game has been played in which we see the State Duma first take a particular position, subsequently needing to be persuaded," Malashenko told the paper.

Vedomosti

Iran shows the world it is willing to cooperate on its nuclear program

The Islamic Republic has reached an historic agreement to strike a deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but only on conditions unacceptable to the international community.

Iran demonstrated its readiness to cooperate with the IAEA and six mediators (Russia, China, United States, Britain, France and Germany) on its nuclear program. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, offered to exchange 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium for 120 kg of 20% enriched fuel: the swap has to take place on Iranian territory and be a one-off affair. Salehi disclosed his terms in an interview with the Iranian newspaper Jawan. The enriched uranium is required for a Tehran-based research reactor producing medical isotopes.

An IAEA spokesman told Vedomosti that Iran's offer, made public on Wednesday, had been sent to the IAEA headquarters a month ago. There has been no official response from the six mediators or the IAEA.

Iran's offer does not correspond to the IAEA's initial October proposal that 70% of uranium available in the country should be exported to Russia and France for further enrichment without any compensation by way of finished fuel supplies. It was stressed that such a withdrawal of uranium would halt the nuclear program: it would take a year to enrich the fuel in Russia and manufacture nuclear reactor rods in France.

Now the situation has changed, says Rajab Safarov, director of the Center for Contemporary Iranian Studies: in the fall Iran's uranium resources were estimated at about 1,200 kg, while now, according to IAEA figures, they exceed 2,000 kg. The amount that Iran is willing to part with is below the 70 % requested by the IAEA.

Iran has repeatedly shifted its position on the deal. In February, its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said his country had begun enriching uranium to 20% and had facilities to produce a fuel with a sufficient degree of enrichment for nuclear weapons. This statement made UN Security Council members speak of the need for tougher sanctions against Iran.

The latest Iranian offer, in the view of Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma's committee on international affairs, is not a full and adequate reply to the concerns of the international community. It is rather a continuation of the Iranian leadership's positional struggle.

"Iran's position has changed little, even previously it was prepared to cooperate only on certain terms," Safarov said.

Nevertheless, China, alone among Security Council permanent members, remains opposed to a sanctions resolution. Its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said following Wednesday's talks with his British counterpart David Miliband that Tehran's moves are increasingly worrying for China, although Beijing does not consider tough sanctions a solution.

RBC Daily, Vremya Novostei

Court injunction could paralyze Russian oil exports

Russian state oil major Rosneft faces an export deadlock after bankrupt rival Yukos won U.S. and British court injunctions making cash payments in U.S. dollars to Rosneft in the West very complex, market sources told Reuters.

Analysts warn that this could have a very unpleasant effect on European consumers.

The bone of contention between Rosneft and Luxembourg-registered Yukos Capital is four loans worth a total of 11.233 billion rubles ($384.82 million), which Yukos Capital lent to Yuganskneftegaz, an oil producing asset of Yukos, back in 2004. Rosneft, which bought Yugansk at an auction after Yukos had been declared bankrupt, refused to pay its debt to Yukos Capital.

The court injunctions will complicate Rosneft's operation, if not paralyze it, said Alexander Khrenov, a partner at the law firm Yukov, Khrenov and Partners. The problem could be solved if the right to trade in oil were turned over to a third party not directly affiliated with Rosneft.

"However, this implies a major change in the company's export policy and large financial outlays," Khrenov said.

Viktor Mishnyakov, an analyst at Uralsib Capital, said the only problem Rosneft could encounter is a freeze on its bank accounts in Britain, which has so far not happened. He said Rosneft has nothing on its accounts in the Netherlands or the United States, where oil export payments are made through traders.

"Rosneft is a major exporter. Last month it exported 4 million tons of crude oil worth $2.3 billion at current prices," said Vyacheslav Bunkov, chief analyst at the investment company Aton. "Therefore, the injunction may not affect the company but could affect its European consumers."

Vitaly Gromadin, a senior analyst at Arbat Capital, shares that view. He said the injunction, which concerns a vast sum of money, could spur prices.

"Nobody will pay the money," he said. "The government will fight to the bitter end to prevent this budget loss."

Gromadin said that the Yukos-Rosneft confrontation has reached a scale where a solution can be found only at a political level.

Vedomosti

Russia attracted to Venezuela's oil market

International oil corporations have mostly lost interest in investing in Venezuela after President Hugo Chavez announced the nationalization of the oil sector. But Russia is willing to take their place in a country Prime Minister Vladimir Putin describes as "an attractive and valuable market."

According to Reuters, Shell, Europe's largest oil company by market value, did not bid in a licensing round last month to develop projects in Venezuela's Orinoco belt, despite being openly courted by Chavez.

London-based BP has also decided against investing in Venezuela. ExxonMobil, the world's largest private oil and gas company by market value, and the U.S. third largest oil producer, ConocoPhillips, left Venezuela in 2007 after four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco belt were nationalized.

The country has a bad credit history and often reviews the terms of contracts with foreign companies, said Valery Nesterov from Troika Dialog.

Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research at Oppenheimer & Co., said confiscation of resources is a serious investment risk, and that it would take Venezuela years to restore its reputation.

However, strong political ties between Russia and Venezuela could cut the investment risk, he said.

Last year five Russian companies - Rosneft, LUKoil, Surgutneftegaz, Gazprom Neft and TNK-BP - formed a national oil consortium to develop Venezuelan projects.

Vladimir Putin will visit the country in early April. "Venezuela is an attractive and valuable market, and we have good prospects in its different sectors," said Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov. "The departure of foreign companies doesn't frighten us. Some go and some stay; there is nothing fatal in that."

Venezuela is indeed a very interesting market, although it is difficult to properly assess its projects, said an employee of a Russian oil company. Development of its fields is expensive, and so companies are unlikely to want to increase their presence there.

Russia decided to promote friendship with Venezuela during the George Bush administration, as a symmetric response to U.S. interference in Russia's zone of strategic interests, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Moscow-based magazine Russia in Global Affairs.

The first package of contracts for the supply of Russian weapons worth $4.4 billion to Venezuela was signed in 2006, said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

"In the summer of 2009, Russia and Venezuela signed a second package of contracts worth some $4 billion, part of which is to be paid with a $2.2-billion loan Moscow promised to grant in late 2009," Makiyenko said.

The interstate loan has so far not been issued, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin told this newspaper. "We have forwarded the loan terms to Venezuela, which has not responded yet," he said.

RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.

MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti)