The heads of state of the world's leading industrialized nations meet at the G8 summit in Heilegendamm, Germany on June 7, 2007.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Putin and Bush in Defense of Europe
// Azeri Radar Station Will Protect Europe From Iranian Missiles
Yesterday the leaders of the G8, despite opposition from anti-globalization activists, discussed the issues of climate change, met with the leaders of the youth G8, and managed to chat amongst themselves. At least one of these meetings – between the presidents of Russia and the United States – proved fruitful. Vladimir Putin and George Bush, to the satisfaction of everyone else in attendance, agreed to resolve the problem of the American missile defense system in Europe at a meeting in July at the home of the American president's parents. The only casualty in this story was Kommersant special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov.
Yesterday morning, the anti-globalization protestors, who had gathered the evening before about eight kilometers from Heiligendamm to put on their own amateur talent show, came to their senses at about nine o'clock and remembered why they were there. Some Russian photographers who were traveling in two cars from the vicinity of Rostock to Heiligendamm became witnesses and even victims of one of the crimes against humanity that were committed in Heiligendamm not only by the protestors but also by the leaders of the G8. Several dozen young people carrying armfuls of brushwood burst out of the woods, threw the wood into the middle of the road, and set it alight. It took them all of a few seconds. Another few seconds passed before the police arrived, accompanied by special machines for clearing the roads of debris. Within three minutes, the road was clear. The police, with smiles on their faces, dispersed to their cars and drove on.
The German police here are behaving themselves astonishingly amicably. The police officers are cheerful and easy-going. They look after the anti-globalization protestors like nannies keeping an eye on small children in a kindergarten: they pick up after them, lead them away by the hand to safety, drive them across the road (those that they succeed in catching there)…
Two hours later, when Greenpeace launched a reckless attack on Heiligendamm from the sea, several police boats intercepted them (on the beach, journalists were setting up for a photo shoot of the G8 leaders) – and there was no hysteria, no warning shots, no desperate cries into megaphones… The police boats simply crashed into the Greenpeace boats, spilling most of their contents into the sea (all of the Greenpeace activists were wearing lifejackets). One of the police boats knocked a slightly smaller police boat into a Greenpeace boat so that the police boat swamped it completely. And all without a single casualty. And everyone, judging from their happy faces, was calm and satisfied (and I'm not even talking about the journalists, for whom these demonstrative maneuvers at sea were a real water show).
Meanwhile, the leaders of the G8 countries had finished the first round of talks and gone to meet the young G8 delegates, who were holding a roundtable discussion while waiting in a building not far from where the adults had held their meeting.
At the G8 session, Mr. Putin made several statements. When the program of climate change was being discussed, he declared that concrete joint action will be essential after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires, "and other countries that are CO2 emitters should participate in this action." In other words, Mr. Putin unexpectedly took the side of the Americans in their standoff with Germany and the other EU countries, who have proposed fixing concrete target emissions values in the summit's concluding statement.
Vladimir Putin also reminded the assembled leaders of the stable economic growth that Russia has been enjoying for the last year, and he added that, while "the financial deficit is growing in some developed countries," "Russia occupies the number three position in the world in terms of reserves and investment abroad." Mr. Putin thus let his colleagues know yet again who they are and who we are, which, of course, finally reconciled them to the inevitability of Russian missiles being deployed to target Europe.
When the heads of state had already left their talks and were heading for the meeting room that was full of young men and women, German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked around and noticed with alarm that two people out of her group of eight had gone missing.
She was apparently counting heads, and she quickly figured out who was missing. At that moment, Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy were just leaving the building where the talks had been held, and the French president had his hand on the Russian president's shoulder. Then they broke out into long and infectious laughter at something (or possibly at someone). Noticing the journalists standing near the road, Mr. Sarkozy turned Mr. Putin towards them and in a tone brooking no opposition suggested that he wave to them. The Russian president didn't resist.
Then Nicolas Sarkozy took a mobile phone from his pocket and shot a pleading glance at Vladimir Putin. It was clear that he wanted to call someone and had asked Mr. Putin to say a few words to whomever it was.
After a moment, Mr. Putin nodded. With a triumphant look on his face, the president of France dialed a number, exclaimed something into the mouthpiece in French that even the Russian could follow – "Honey, I'm giving the telephone to Putin!" – and handed it over.
"Fine," said Vladimir Putin diligently into the receiver in English. "How are you?"
Having listened to the reply, he nodded his head in satisfaction (which the person on the other end of the line sadly missed out on).
Nicolas Sarkozy was over the moon. I think he had had a tiff with his wife over whether Putin would call her. And now the president of France had seized success by the tail (I was later able to ascertain that it had in fact been Madame Sarkozy on the line).
This was all the more interesting given that the evening before, when Angela Merkel hosted a dinner in Heiligendamm for the leaders of the G8, Madame Sarkozy had spent almost the entire evening in conversation with Mr. Putin. She left Heiligendamm the next morning, claiming to be a novice in such matters as diplomacy (after all, her husband has been president of France for all of three weeks).
"But no one could ever tell you're a novice," Lyudmila Putina told her as they parted.
Meanwhile, it became clear fairly quickly that Mr. Sarkozy would not be easy to deal with. Yesterday evening, the French president had an official meeting with the president of Russia. Nicolas Sarkozy arrived ten minutes before Vladimir Putin and wandered with curiosity around the room, taking in the journalists and the Russian president's aides. A man of shorter than average height, he was wearing boots with thick heels. As soon as Vladimir Putin walked up to him, the French president opened a fat yellow folder that he had brought along and began to explain something at length to the Russian president, who barely managed to stop him. Then the Russian president delivered a short, perfunctory speech that contained nothing noteworthy. As soon as Mr. Putin finished speaking, Nicolas Sarkozy signaled to his bodyguards to shoo the journalists out of the room. The bodyguards fulfilled his instructions with great satisfaction. The French president obviously didn't want whatever he had to say to be heard either in his own country or in Russia. And it became clear why not when he was overheard to say, as we were leaving the room, "I am sure that the world needs Russia, and I'm not proposing a full-fledged cooperation without Russia! My heart is open, I understand what Russia has gone through…" Clearly, Mr. Sarkozy found it awkward to speak such words in the presence of journalists – never mind that he had already managed to say so many other things.
The meeting between the leaders and the young G8 delegates seemed to be extraordinarily laborious. The teens had already adopted their concluding statement and each one was now describing his or her section, although for the most part the focus was on providing assistance to suffering Africa. Gleb Nikitin from Russia also pulled down the problem of Africa. He was about to describe it when Vladimir Putin requested the floor. Mr. Putin thanked a girl from Great Britain who "touched on the problem of the social responsibility of companies abroad."
"I myself wanted to touch on that problem," said the Russian president, who then began to speak about the investments of Russian companies abroad.
Incidentally, it was understandable why. Right before the summit, Tony Blair said that he would not recommend that British companies invest in businesses in Russia. Apparently, that statement had made a profound impression on Vladimir Putin. That morning, in a more select company, he had wanted to say a few words on the subject and had obviously now decided to say these words for the whole world to hear. He said that Russian companies have invested $140 billion in businesses outside of Russia and are even suffering for that much differently than British companies are in Russia.
"They are encountering tragedies; not long ago in Nigeria, six employees of our company were kidnapped," said Mr. Putin.
Then he realized that it might be better to talk about social responsibility in business. Rolling the topic out was not easy, but he did his best, saying that if these companies did more for the residents of the places where they operate, tragedies might not occur.
Gleb Nikitin, a rosy-skinned youth with a lock of dyed hair that fell over his forehead, suggested to the G8 that it support the development of small businesses in Africa with the help of microcredit loans and lower import tariffs for African goods on the global market.
After him, the topic of aid to Africa was taken up by US President George Bush.
"I'm sure," he said, "that the more they're given, the more they'll ask for."
Clearly the Africans will have big problems getting the US to decrease import tariffs for African goods.
As the teenagers continued with their presentations, European Commission chairman Jose Barroso appeared to have fallen asleep. And too bad for him: one of the presenters was an American girl who, in my opinion, had previously been a contestant not in the young G8 but in an American beauty pageant, and she had simply gotten the addresses mixed up on her way to the Miss Universe pageant.
The same thing appeared to be true of a young Japanese girl: the whole time she was speaking, Nicolas Sarkozy sat with his mouth hanging open, unable to take his eyes off her. The overall feeling at the meeting was summed up by a boy from Tanzania, who had been invited, it seemed, especially to demonstrate the lamentable state of affairs facing children in Africa.
The US president paid the most attention to the boy from Tanzania. After the meeting, he clapped him on the shoulder with such force that he left the boy gasping for breath, and then, making him look into a video camera, he grabbed the boy's hand and shook it with such force that the poor kid seemed to be receiving an electric shock… In the end, I bet he went home with a great feeling of relief, swearing to himself that he will never ask for assistance for Africa ever again, and I'm sure he will also advise his countrymen never to do so under any circumstances.
Around half an hour later, back at the press center in Heiligendamm, I asked Gleb Nikitin what he had talked with Vladimir Putin about when they took a walk along the edge of the water after the meeting.
"Oh, about everything!" he said happily. "About the weather, the mood, about how the summit was organized."
"And what did the president say?"
"That it's good!" said the young man just as sunnily. "But that the Petersburg one was better organized."
"And what did you reply?"
"I agreed and told him that we, the young people, for example are living on a boat, 20 people to a cabin. And that it's not very comfortable. We're living like…" he had some difficulty choosing a word.
"Like in a barracks," I supplied. "Is that something you need to think about? Will you go into the army?"
"No, I'll probably go to university," said Gleb Nikitin, shrugging his shoulders.
"Do you participate in the young people's movements?"
"I don't have time," he said.
"And if you did? Would you join Nashi or Maria Gaidar?"
"Nashi," he said after thinking for a moment, "though I'm sometimes skeptical about them."
After that, the bilateral meetings began. Vladimir Putin met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. During the meeting, Mr. Harper's aides and his bodyguards sat in the next room. At some point, several of their American colleagues entered the room and asked them to clear the premises. Within 20 seconds, the room was empty. Without a single question. Is it really necessary to mention that the alarm was false and that George Bush, whose meeting with Vladimir Putin was scheduled to take place in that building, never even entered the room? (It later turned out that his approach was the reason for the Canadians being asked to leave, a request that they never would have thought to refuse.)
In any case, Mr. Bush was patient when he had to wait for four minutes while Mr. Putin wrapped up his conversation with his Canadian colleague.
The meeting between Vladimir Putin and George Bush lasted for more than an hour. We waited for them outside on the lawn next to the exit from the little house where the meeting was taking place. At first they didn't plan to make any statement, but then they apparently decided that they had something to say to the world. As it turned out, that really was the case.
Mr. Bush, looking slightly listless on that unbearably sunny day, said that they had spoken mainly about the missile defense system in Europe.
"[The Russian president] expressed his concerns to me. He is concerned that the missile defense system is not an act that a friend would do. He made some interesting suggestions. As a result of our discussions, we both agreed to have a strategic dialogue, a opportunity to share ideas and concerns between our State Department, Defense Department and military people. This will be a serious set of strategic discussions. This is a serious issue and we want to make sure that we all understand each other's positions very clearly. As a result of these conversations, I expect there to be better understanding of the technologies involved and the opportunities to work together. I told Vladimir we're looking forward to having him up to my folks' place in Maine the beginning of July…"
This was already nothing short of a sensation. The very act of saying it represented a concession to Russia.
"I have not said that friends do not act this way," replied Vladimir Putin, as if to make it clear that these concessions mean little to him. "But we have differences…"
He went on to say that he had carefully looked over the proposals from the American side. In the end, he came up with his own (the American ones apparently failed to satisfy).
"The first proposal is to use the radar station rented by us in Azerbaijan, which is called Gabala," said the Russian president.
I saw how Mr. Bush, while still smiling affably, shook his head with barely noticeable irritation. It seemed that he did not want it to already become known that Vladimir Putin had offered to sublet him a radar station in Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin was forging ahead enthusiastically:
"The existing agreement with Azerbaijan makes it possible for us to do this. And the President of Azerbaijan has stressed that he will be only too glad to contribute to the cause of global security and stability. We can do it automatically, in an automatic regime. And in this case, the system will be able to cover not only part of Europe but all of Europe without any exceptions. This will completely prevent the possibility of missiles falling on European states, because they will fall in the ocean. This will make it possible for us retain our stance on not targeting our missiles at Europe…This will make it impossible – unnecessary for us to place our offensive complexes along the borders with Europe, and it will make unnecessary to place the appropriate American complexes in outer space," he said.
"But we hope that these consultations will not serve as a cover for any unilateral actions… Because as soon as a country, for instance, Iran, carries out its first test of its long-range missile, our reconnaissance and American reconnaissance systems will register this immediately. Three to five years will be necessary from the first test until the [Iranian] missile is operational. This time is sufficient to deploy any ABM system. Therefore, no matter how long our talks last, we will not be too late," concluded Mr. Putin.
Shouts were heard from all directions, from both the American and Russian journalists. I also wanted to yell out a question, to ask how much more complicated the situation regarding Kosovo had become after that meeting (I figured that the Russian and US presidents had invariably talked about that and that the conversation was not likely to have made anyone's day).
But then Mr. Bush took the initiative and said that each president would respond to one question before heading off to a meeting, and he pointed to a journalist.
"President Putin, are you saying now that you do not consider the missile defense issue a serious threat to your country anymore? And were you satisfied with what President Bush presented to you in this meeting?" she asked. In reply, she got a rehashing of what he had already said.
Meanwhile, having figured out who was running this press conference, I waited until Mr. Bush looked at me and then signaled to him that I would ask the next question. I was slightly surprised when he laughed and nodded energetically. But just before he could say it, Alexei Gromov, the Russian president's press secretary, leapt into action, stole the words that were about to fall from Mr. Bush's lips, and gave the question to some interloper. I was, of course, offended.
Although what both presidents had just said was sufficient to keep the offense from becoming fatal.
Andrei Kolesnikov, Heiligendamm
All the Article in Russian as of June 08, 2007
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