Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) with Chinese President Hu Jintao (center) and Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, August 16, 2007
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Shanghai Summit All Smiles
// Peace-loving summit in Bishkek
The heads of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met yesterday in Bishkek. Revolutionary announcements of the organization's expansion and new challenges addressed to the United States were expected, but those expectations proved false. Kommersant correspondent Vladimir Solovyev says the U.S. deserves big credit for one of the most peaceful SCO summits yet.
Bishkek was swept and polished for the summit. The trunks of the poplars along the roadway from the airport to the city greeted the guests with a new coat of white paint. But only on the side visible from the street. The six leaders saw themselves starting down from innumerable billboards around Bishkek. Peace was guaranteed with 60,000 police on hand to maintain it.
The closed session of the council of heads of state was planned for 9:30 a.m., but summit host Kurmanbek Bakiev appeared in the halls of the Ala Archa state residence early, as though he were anxious to pass the reins of the summit to the next president in rotation, Tajikistan's Emomalii Rakhmon. Bakiev waited for his colleagues glancing at his watch.
The first of the presidential guests to arrive, ten minutes early, was Kazakh President Noursultan Nazarbaev. He was followed by Chinese President Hu Jintao. Bakiev and Hu shook hands at length and with inspiration, in spite of the fact that they had already had the chance to do so more than once before. (They had had comprehensive talks on Wednesday.)
Bakiev had things to be grateful to his Chinese guest for. Concern arose in the spring that Bishkek would be unable to maintain the appropriate level for the summit, and Kazakhstan even offered the summits its shelter. But Chinese authorities came to the aid of Bishkek. They sent garbage trucks worth $1.3 million to Kyrgyzstan, along with 300 buses and 30 cars to transportation the delegations during the summit.
Rakhmon arrived third, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He greeted his host quickly and entered the meeting room. Uzbek President Islam Karimov followed on his footsteps. Bakiev opened the session with a full audience. Journalists held their breath, expecting him to rebuff Washington, which, in spite of Bishkek's demands, is taking its time closing its airbase at Manas Airport. But the Kyrgyz president began by announcing his readiness to “increase cooperation in a wide circle of issues, from defending the values of a multipolar world to cooperation in economic development and mutual cultural enrichment.” He concluded completely pacifistically, saying, “I suggest that we are on the right course intensifying our ties with other international structures, particularly the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Also important is improving contacts and cooperation in the near future with European structures, particularly the European Union and OSCE, which have shown more interest in our region recently.”
Suspense over the American airbase was mercilessly dispelled. That was not surprising. According to a source in the Kyrgyz government, Bakiev intended to raise the question of the base at the session, but the Americans headed him off. Not long before the summit, they accepted Kyrgyzstan into the Challenges of the Millennium program, at the second stage even. Bishkek received $16 million through the program, which was enough for Bakiev to find the airbase no longer annoying, at least for the time being. The rest of the speakers were a little selfish in their speeches. Besides the standard words of praise for the SCO, each of them added something about their own favorite topics. Nazarbaev spoke passionately about energy integration. “A system of pipelines throughout the SCO, connecting Russia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and China,” he said. “The Asian energy strategy project developed by Kazakhstan includes the creation of a unified SCO energy agency and actual trade operations on the market for energy resources could be carried out on a Shanghai Organization energy exchange.”
Hu's speech boiled down to fighting for peace in the world, so that “a more just world order” could be established.
Putin talked about strengthening a multipolar international system that guarantees equal security and development opportunities to all countries. “We are convinced that security is inalienable in a world undergoing globalization, and any attempt to solve regional or global problems alone is hopeless!” he exclaimed. “Thoughts of blocs are fading into the past and new centers of influence and economic growth are emerging.”
The Russian president did not hesitate to say those words within one of the blocs that are eager to show the world their military might, as is happening now at the SCO military exercises in Chelyabinsk Region.
Rakhmon and Karimov spoke mainly about the problems of their own countries. Rakhmon said that an investment fund should be set up by the SCO, though which the richest member states could funnel economic aid to the neediest. Rakhmon obviously considers his country one of the latter. Karimov complained that some countries (with a strong hint at Tajikistan) want to use transnational rivers in their interests alone, but leaving their neighbors without water is obviously impermissible.
None of that fits the image of the SCO as one of the world's most anti-American organizations. New attacks on the U.S. were expected at the summit, especially since it had angered several of the most influential member states with its missile defense plans. But there was no longer the unanimity with which they demanded in Astana two years ago that Washington close its military bases in Central Asia.
The only speaker who gave resistance to “American aggression” was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country is an observer at the SCO. No one expected anything else out of him. “Unfortunately, there are still states in the modern world that are accustomed to speaking from a position of force and threat!” he exclaimed. “And that is at a time when our world needs peace and security based on the principles of love and mercy.”
Without uttering the villain's name, Ahmadinejad made its identity clear. “The intention of certain countries to place missile defense systems in certain point in the world is a threat not just to one country,” the Iranian shouted to increase his persuasiveness. “It concerns the Eurasian continent and the members of the SCO.”
Not a muscle twitches on the faces of the other SCO leaders faces as Ahmadinejad spoke. The topic of the American missile defense system evoked no passion at all.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov appeared among the last speakers as an honored invited guest and also took pains to emphasize his love for peace. “We are in favor of cooperation with all international organizations. The political course of our country is based on the charter of the United Nations, with consideration for Turkmenistan's neutral status,” he said. He stressed the work “neutral,” clearly indicating that his country was not eager to join the SCO, as experts had been predicting, but was holding to its own course. It is possible that Washington helped build up his confidence in that course.
Just two days before the Bishkek summit, Ashgabat was visited by a U.S. State Department delegation headed by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan, who inaugurated the Imamnazar border checkpoint between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, built with American money. Sullivan praised Turkmenistan's policy of “positive neutrality” while he was there and Berdimuhamedov in turn assured his guest that Turkmenistan will maintain “the multi-optionality of routes for the export of Turkmen energy resources to world markets.” That means that Ashgabat does not plan to export its natural gas along the routes sketched for it by Moscow alone.
The finale of the summit consisted of the signing of eight documents, the main one of which was called the Agreement on the Long-Term Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation of the SCO Member States. A curious document signed yesterday was the Bishkek Declaration. In it, the member states note that “stability and security in Central Asia can be guaranteed most of all by the efforts of the states of that region on the basis of the confirmed regional international organizations.” That was perhaps the only mention of the two-year-old ultimatum issued unanimously by the SCO to the U.S. to remove its military bases from its zone of influence.
Vladimir Solovyev, Bishkek
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 17, 2007
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