"No" Seems to Be the Hardest Word
The Price of the Question
The visit of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to Russia has renewed hopes for better relations between Moscow and Warsaw which hit the all-time low under President and Prime Minister Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
The Kremlin was more than happy in fall 2005 when the Kaczynski brothers, new people in politics, won the Polish presidential and parliamentary elections. Moscow thought it would be easy to reach agreement with these pragmatic politicians. The Kremlin felt relieved that it will no longer have to deal with former President Aleksander Kwasniewski who played a big part in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. It looked like a godsend. Hoping that something will change in the bilateral relations, Russian President immediately sent a message with his emissary Sergey Yastrzhembsky to Warsaw. It soon became clear that such diplomatic vigor cannot bring the anticipated result. The godsend of the Kaczynskis also happened to bring troubles to Moscow that are not worth repeating.
Once again, a new person has risen to power in Warsaw. Each new leader is another chance for the both parties. But in order not to make the same mistake again, we need to understand what policy Warsaw pursues in relations with Russia. While Polish politicians may argue about relations with the United States and the European Union, as far as Russia is concerned they are unanimous. There is one small thing that explains everything – Prime Minister Tusk took a member of President Kaczynski’s administration with him to Moscow. Relations between the prime minister and the president are so bad that a man of Kaczynski would never be on any other foreign trip of Tusk.
The fact that Polish decision makers prefer to speak with Moscow in one voice has an explanation in the history of our relations. Under Boris Yeltsin, Russia was moving closer to Europe was building partner relations with Brussels, and those strivings matched the sentiment in Poland. Partnership between Moscow and Brussels has been left in words only to give way to competition. The talk about the multi-polar world where Russia sees itself as one of the global centers of power prompted Poland to fear that the resurgence of Russia’s ambitions of a great power could jeopardy the country’s security. In this situation the most difficult thing for the both parties is to build solid partner relations without mutual fears and phobias. As the first step, Moscow should acknowledge Poland’s right to independent principles for its foreign policy such as promotion of democratization in former Soviet countries, close cooperation with the United States and support for the European Union in issues of energy cooperation with Russia. Moscow should also be ready that Warsaw will be saying “no” from time to time. And only then will the Kremlin get “yes” from Poland.
Tomasz Bielecki, correspondent for Gazeta Wyborcza in Moscow
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 08, 2008
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