Russian President Vladimir Putin made United Arab Emirates President Khalifa Bin Zaid Al-Nahayyan a number of interesting proposals in exchange for the $500 million Russia owes his country.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Vladimir Putin Props Up Arab Defenses
// Part of Russian debt to the United Arab Emirates will be paid in weapons
Russian President Vladimir Putin completed his visit to the United Arab Emirates yesterday. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov notes that he began the visit by talking about the sword of the Zulfiqar with the Emirate minister of culture and proceeded to a discussion of modern Russian weapons with the emir.
At the beginning of his visit, Putin viewed the Treasures of the Moscow Kremlin exhibit in the hotel where he was staying. It's a wonder they didn't hold the exhibit in his room. There would have been enough space for it. The presidential suite at the Emirates Palace is 650 sq. m. It would have been even more logical for the president of Russia to view an exhibit called the Treasures of the Moscow Kremlin in Moscow. But, it was not that simple.
There were mainly objects from the vaults of the Moscow Kremlin museum. All the objects – helmets, shields, chain mail, saddles – had some relation to the East. Putin saw a replica made in Turkey in the 17th century of holy sword Zulfiqar, won by the Russians in a fair battle.
“But we took it from the Poles, not from the Arabs,” the Russian president explained to the Emirate minister of culture. “It fell into dependable hands.”
“The main thing is that it has been preserved,” the minister observed.
Putin was clearly unwilling to compromise bilateral relations over meaningless details before the negotiations even begin, all the more since the negotiations would be even more delicate.
According to information received by Kommersant, Putin proposed during his conversation with Emirates President Khalifa Bin Zaid Al-Nahayyan an interstate agreement on cooperation in the use of the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system. That agreement, I learned from a member of the Russian delegation, is already being prepared, and the UAE is mostly interested in using GLONASS for military purposes. They were told that they could. That will be recorded in a closed appendix to the agreement.
Interestingly, Putin suggested that part of the Russian supplies to the UAE be made against the Russian debt to that country. Russia now owes the UAE about $500 million. Deputy Finance Minister of Russia Sergey Storchak signed an agreement yesterday on settling that debt, and that agreement also has a closed section that concerns of Russian military deliveries.
“Yes,” Storchak confirmed, “we will give back part of the debt in products of heavy industry, including heavy equipment and you-know-what.”
Also, I learned that Putin argued in the negotiations for a contract to create an air defense system for the UAE. That is not simply the delivery of weapons complexes, but a multifunctional, multistage defense system of facilities and forces. That system is to include close- middle- and long-range means. The value of the contract is estimated at $4 billion.
That was the most difficult part of the negotiations and no agreement was reached on it. It could not be reached because the UAE is now choosing between proposals made by Russia, the United States and a French-Italian project, and the decision will be made later. But the presentation of the Russian project was made at the highest level.
In the evening negotiations, the Russian president also lobbied for the inclusion of Russian oil companies in a project to develop the Emirate's capital, Abu Dhabi. The Emirates president, a native of that emirate. All the presidential family lives there, 4000 people in self-containment. The family members guard each other, cook for each other, photograph each other… The Emirates president is jealous of the rapid growth of the emirate of Dubai and intends to make Abu Dhabi a competitor of that city. To do that, he needs money, which means radically increasing oil production. Putin holds that Russian companies help increase the region's oil production from 2 million barrels to 4 million barrels a day. His ideas were carefully heard.
The Russian president did not speak about any of that at the press conference after lunch at the presidential palace. Instead, he said that restrictions on Russian investments in the U.S. and Europe are worrying him more and more and “if it goes farther like that, we too will be forced to take measures of a restrictive character.”
All the same, Putin has not lost hope of influencing U.S. plans to place a missile defense system in Europe.
“The chances are not lost and we have a certain amount of optimism,” he said, and that meant that the chances are lost and there was no optimism ever.
He confirmed his invitation to U.S. President George W. Bush to go fishing in Russia. “We have a lot of places for fishing – Lake Baikal, Siberia, the north of the European part of the country… George Bush loves to fish and I am sure he will enjoy it.”
Prince Albert of Monaco's trip to Tyva is beginning to fade before this big story…
When asked if he intended to “work at the same pace as now” (or slow down and think a little) after the end of his presidential term in March 2008, Putin responded, “Almost everyone in our country's favorite sport is hockey. We know that professional plays to the last second. I will work that way myself and do everything possible so that the ministers and administration also worked that way.”
That doesn't mean that nonprofessionals can't be fired at any second, however.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 11, 2007
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