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Qatar Awaits Kremlin Catharsis
// Vladimir Putin has to pay for Zalimkhan Yandarbiev
The Russian president will receive Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamed bin Jasem bin Jaber al-Thani today at the Kremlin. The Qatari diplomat is here to remind the Russians of the promises they made two years ago when the two Russian citizens convicted of the murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev were returned to Russia. Kommersant has learned that one of those promises – that Vladimir Putin will visit Qatar – may be fulfilled by early next year.
The sheik will begin his visit today with a meeting with the Russian president. Tomorrow he will have talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of the Security Council Igor Ivanov.
Russia and Qatar have plenty to talk about with each other. First, the tiny emirate on the Persian Gulf has 15 percent of the world's proven natural gas reserves. Qatar also has the third largest gas deposit in the world, the North Field Dome. And the deposits are well enough developed that Gazprom would find it a treat to work with them.
In addition, military technical cooperation between the countries is of interest to both sides. Qatar has expressed its readiness to consider naval weaponry, rockets for shore defense and local detection and tracking systems.
Finally, a constant topic of conversation in Moscow for any Arab country is combating international terrorism and the exchange of information between their special services.
The current negotiations have an unseen side to them. Russian-Qatari relations have a strange history. Two years ago, contact between Moscow and Doha took place almost daily, Security Council Secretary went there, and Putin phoned Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The topic of all those conversations then was not very pleasant for either side. The cause of the huge scandal then was the murder of Yandarbiev, the ideologue of Chechen separatism. His jeep was blown up near the mosque he had just been praying in. A month later, Qatari special services, not without a hand from the Americans, arrested three Russians on suspicion of organizing a terrorist act.
One of those Russians, Alexander Fetisov, had diplomatic immunity and was released but the other two, Anatoly Belashkov and Vasily Pugachev, who worked in the Russian embassy in technical capacities, were put on trial and found guilty. They were sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.
During the trial, Moscow made every imaginable and unimaginable effort to free the defendants. Negotiations took place on the highest levels. The Kremlin promised to place their relations on the highest level of partnership and to provide the emirate with the most advanced Russian weapons at preferential prices. Moreover, according to diplomatic sources in Doha, the Russian leader stated that he was ready to visit the emirate personally as part of a regional tour, thereby raising the international prestige of the country.
The Russians were convincing. Doha compromised, and even passed a new criminal code to allow the extradition of convicts to serve their sentences in other countries. Then Moscow and Doha quickly concluded a bilateral agreement. In the final days of December 2004, the convicts were returned to Moscow. Nothing more has been reported about their fate. The Russian Federal Service for the Implementation of Sentencing even stated last year that it has no information about the two Russian citizens convicted in Qatar and extradited to Russia.
Relations between the two countries after the trial for the murder of Yandarbiev remained practically unchanged. Putin did not visit Doha and Qatar has not begun buying Russian weapons. Obviously, the Qatari foreign minister's visit is meant to correct that annoying oversight. The emir seems to have remembered the promises Putin made to him and is now reminding the Russians.
This is good timing for Russia to strengthen ties with Qatar. Moscow is greatly interested in increasing its influence in the Arab world. Evidence of this is the battalion of Russian engineers that has been sent to Lebanon to restore the infrastructure there. They are accompanied by a squadron of Chechen soldiers. That step is meant by the Kremlin to counter anti-Russian stereotypes in the Arab world. Friendship with Qatar might serve the same purpose. The most respect news service, Al-Jazeera, originates in Doha and is personally financed by the Qatari emir. Sources say that sheik's negotiations in Moscow may be very fruitful. The Russian presidential administration is considering a visit by Vladimir Putin to Doha at the beginning of next year.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 17, 2006
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