Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (left) at the 15th summit of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization in Istanbul on June 25, 2007.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Global Flood
// After Zagreb, Vladimir Putin Flogs Gas in Istanbul as Well
The Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization (BSEC) held a summit yesterday in Istanbul. Kommersant special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov was on hand to watch Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had spent the previous day in Zagreb, tempting his colleagues at the Balkan Energy Summit with gas, to continue his pitch in Istanbul as well.
The day began with a breakfast hosted by Turkish Prime Minister Reyyip Erdogan. While waiting for the Turkish prime minister, Vladimir Putin took in the marvelous view of the Bosphorus afforded by the windows in the hotel where the summit was taking place. Immediately upon entering the room, Mr. Erdogan made a beeline for the Russian president. According to protocol, the Turkish prime minister was supposed to greet each one of his guests at the summit, but he seemed unable to tear himself away from the president of Russia. In fact, the Turkish prime minister spoke so animatedly with Mr. Putin and paid so little attention to the rest of his guests that it was impossible to consider it just a casual error of protocol on his part.
As always, the most trustworthy intelligence came from sources in the Bulgarian delegation. In Zagreb the day before, the Bulgarian president had declared that his country would definitely be signing on to the Yuzhy Potok project. Two days earlier Russia’s Gazprom and the Italian company ENI had announced that the gas pipeline that was originally supposed to be laid along the bottom of the Black Sea to Turkey would now swerve north to the coast of Bulgaria and on to Greece. Another route was Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary. With that announcement, Turkey unexpectedly (especially for Turkey itself) learned that it would not be participating in the project. Clearly, this is the main idea behind the diversification of gas supplies that Mr. Putin is offering to Europe. Gas will flow into Europe from different sides, enclosing it in a veritable ring of gas, but that gas will always either belong to Russia or to some country that Russia rigidly or even ferociously controls.
Not one to stand in the way of progress, Bulgaria's Pyrvanov said in Zagreb that his country will participate in the construction of the Yuzhny Potok project. The Turkish prime minister also clearly doesn't want to stand in the way of progress – in fact, he would have gladly sacrificed himself to progress together with Mr. Pyrvanov or even without him. Apparently, however, no one offered Mr. Erdogan any such chance. Nevertheless, the Turkish prime minister refused to consider his chances hopelessly shot, which was why he was attached at the hip to Mr. Putin, who, thanks to the agreement signed with the Italians, was feeling much better at this forum than he had at many others.
Within a few moments, a fairly large group of leaders of BSEC countries had gathered around the president of Russia and the Turkish prime minister. All of them were discussing something animatedly and gesticulating energetically. In essence, the working portion of the summit, which wasn't supposed to begin until after breakfast, had already started.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev entered the room, looked attentively around, discovered Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in a corner, and, after considering the situation, headed for the Putin-Erdogan group.
Behind the president of Azerbaijan came Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who looked from side to side with exactly the same expression as Ilham Aliyev but eventually made his choice in favor of Mr. Yushchenko. The choice risked turning out to be historic. The presidents of Ukraine and Georgia stood together until the beginning of breakfast, although Mr. Saakashvili occasionally threw a glance sideways at the remorselessly growing group surrounding Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan.
At breakfast, Mr. Putin sat at Mr. Erdogan's right hand. At the Russian president's right hand was Ilham Aliyev, and the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan spent more time chatting than eating. The Bulgarian president spoiled the Turkish prime minister's appetite by spending half of breakfast nattering on enthusiastically about the moral and material advantages that the Yuzhny Potok project will provide to the countries that are participating in it. One unexpected outcome of breakfast was a request from the president of Greece, Mr. Karamanlis, for an unscheduled meeting with Mr. Putin.
The official part of the summit was surprisingly pointless. The organizers of the forum helped me to come to that conclusion by broadcasting all of the participants' speeches live in Turkish only, meaning that not even the original language was audible. Of course, the organizers still didn't manage to completely conceal the meanings of the participants' speeches. Mr. Saakashvili praised the BSEC for providing an opportunity to build bridges between Europe and Central Asia. The other participants listened to him with some amazement, in my opinion, because they appeared not to have suspected that their organization was in the business of doing things like that.
Mikheil Saakashvili spent a lot of time expressing strong support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union, and he talked about it so passionately that it sometimes seemed as though his own country had long since learned all there is to know about the pluses and minuses of membership in the EU and now was fully within its rights not only to recommend the EU to Turkey but also to decisively influence Turkey's accession to the organization.
Before that, Mikheil Saakashvili talked about the furious speed of Georgia's economic growth, and the example that he offered most often was the city of Batumi. Another example that figured often in his speech was South Ossetia: according to the Georgian president, South Ossetia's economic situation a few years ago left much to be desired, which gave rise to ethnic tensions. Now that the economy of the region is developing at a fairly lively speed, its ethnic problems have automatically faded away. If someone unacquainted with the current political situation in Georgia and South Ossetia had listened to Mikheil Saakashvili's speech, I am certain that he or she would have had no doubt that South Ossetia is one of the most flourishing and integral parts of a prosperous, unified, and indivisible Georgian nation.
Meanwhile, much fuss was kicked up at the summit over the publication yesterday in Kommersant of Mikheil Saakashvili's proposal to Vladimir Putin that the ineffective (in Mr. Saakashvili's opinion) president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokojty, be replaced by the much-esteemed (in Mikheil Saakashvili's eyes) Dmitry Sanakoyev, who is said to be ready to show himself in his best light as the leader of South Ossetia at any moment convenient for Mr. Putin.
A highly-placed source in the Russian Foreign Ministry who participated in the discussion of this proposal with his Georgian colleagues said while the main participants in the summit were breakfasting that Kommersant's information is true and that this is what concerns him most of all, since the Russian and Georgian sides had agreed that the information would not be publicly disclosed. Now the integrity of any negotiations on that topic are under question, although the source did let it be known that there was no future for the idea from the very beginning.
Vladimir Putin allowed himself to depart from his prepared text only once during his speech: "Any projects, whether small or large, should be well worked out in advance and provided with sufficient resources," he said.
Clearly, he was responding to anyone and everyone who had attempted to undertake diversification by any means whatsoever without Russia's participation. Presumably, their reply won't be long in coming.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko announced, "Friends! The hour of a Black Sea free trade zone has come!"
He ended on that note and sat down under the polite gaze of his colleagues.
At the end of the day, a report that al-Qaeda had planned to assassinate several leaders at the summit in Istanbul, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, hit with the force of an exploding bomb. According to the Turkish newspaper Sabah, five terrorists were successfully detained and are busy giving evidence at a police station
According to a senior member of the Russian delegation, however, there was no real danger for the participants in the summit, since "otherwise the summit wouldn't have taken place here." The source did not rule out the possibility that the Turkish authorities really did arrest someone in conjunction with the threat: "They arrest ten people every day, and then they let fifteen people go."
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin was chatting with the president of Greece, who had been asking for a meeting with the Russian president since that morning. After the meeting, it emerged that Greece had also decided to participate in the construction of the Yuzhny Potok pipeline.
"Greece, having considered the proposal (in other words, the Greek president was letting it be known that although it was he who had asked for a meeting with the president of Russia, the proposal that the gas pipeline go through Greece wasn't his doing), is prepared to advance towards its implementation together with Russia, Bulgaria, and Italy. Greece…" – Mr. Karamanlis was unable to keep himself from being swept away by the passion that was overtaking him – "is truly becoming an international distribution center for energy resources."
After the meeting, it was easier for Mr. Putin to keep himself in check.
"Gazprom," he explained, "is wrapping up its old contracts. New contracts are being agreed upon, and these are new contracts for new infrastructure projects."
Because really, that Turkmen gas has to have some pipes to go through.
Andrei Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of June 26, 2007
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