To MFA in the Whole World
// Dmitry Medvedev urged Russian ambassadors to be more aggressive
Yesterday Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev delivered his foreign policy concept and addressed Russian ambassadors with a keynote speech. According to Kommersant interlocutors, who heard the part of the address behind closed doors, the President demanded “strictly, in Putin’s style” that the diplomats become more aggressive. However, according to the new concept, it’s the government of the Russian Federation, rather than the head of state, that is to realize the foreign policy ideas outlined by Mr Medvedev. Vladimir Solovyov and Mikhail Zygar report the details.
The new hero
While waiting for Dmitry Medvedev in the premises of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the chiefs of Russian embassies hugged and kissed one another, and loudly shared their impressions of their foreign lives. In the noisy company there was the hero – Russia’s Ambassador to Georgia Vyacheslav Kovalenko. He was greeted so warmly as if he’d just been back from the front line and no one had expected him to return. As they saw Mr Kovalenko safe and sound, some of the diplomats were able to utter only, “Well done, Slava, keep it up!” The Ambassador would smile proudly. When asked to tell us in more detail about his heroic work, Vyacheslav Kovalenko modestly refused, “I can’t scold Georgians, otherwise I’ll be expelled, just like it was last time.”
The President began his speech with the main thing, “Russia has really got stronger and is able to take more responsibility for addressing both regional and global challenges.” Moreover, the rest of the world hasn’t merely taken account of Moscow’s stance, it’s waiting for “some decisions.” Then Mr Medvedev called on those present to be more decisive – “give an estimate or sometimes rebuff any attempts of securing national or group interests at the expense of international law.” He called Kosovo an example of trampling on the basics of international relations.
“Perhaps, it would be easier for us to keep away from this problem saying that Kosovo for the European Union is practically the same as Iraq for the USA. But there is a far more important thing: international legitimacy has been violated once again.”
When the President uttered these words, a deathly silence settled in the hall as if the diplomats were going to observe a minute of silence in memory of international law. But Dmitry Medvedev went on. Without calling the names, he censured those states whose governments “prefer, pushing historians aside, to reshuffle history as a pack to meet their short-term needs.” “We cannot put up with the attempts, which some certain countries make, to pluck out the theses about the “mission to civilize and set free” devised by fascists and their adherents,” Mr Medvedev added so that no one would have any doubt which republics were implied.
The new concept
In his address, Dmitry Medvedev several times mentioned the new foreign policy concept published shortly after his speech in the Russian Foreign Office. Its first provision reads that it develops and adds up to the concept signed by Vladimir Putin eight years ago. Comparing the two texts, you can conclude that the government’s philosophy has changed drastically within the eight years. For example, the authors of the previous document criticised the unipolar world pointing out that “Russia will press for a multipolar system of international relations.” The new document states that this goal has been successfully accomplished. Its authors say about “a prospect of the West’s losing its monopoly on global processes.”
Yet a few more changes in Russia’s foreign policy have been outlined in the “Regional priorities” chapter. Eight years ago “strengthening the alliance of Russia and Belarus” was called “the prime task.” Now the Kremlin virtually verifies the death of this body mentioning only “the creation of conditions for a gradual transition to market relations” between Moscow and Minsk. Out of the CIS countries, only four states have been honored with mentioning in the text: Kazakhstan and Belarus – in a positive way – as Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) active members, and Ukraine and Georgia – as those heading for NATO (eight years ago the latter were not mentioned at all).
The new foreign policy concept seems to bury the OSCE. Eight years ago Russia was “interested in a balanced development of this organization,” whereas now Moscow demands that an alternative body should be set up, in particular it stresses that it’s necessary to conclude a new “agreement about European security, which could be launched at the forthcoming European summit.” The President gave a detailed description of this project to the diplomats, and according to the information of Kommersant, he is going to lobby this idea during today’s talks with the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
Eight years ago Great Britain, Germany, Italy and France were called Russia’s major European partners. Now the list is the following: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands and Norway – roughly, these are Russia’s partners in the gas sphere. As to Britain, Russia hopes that cooperation with it will be “channeled the same way.”
The new concept pays much attention to the necessity to develop relations with Russia’s strategic partners: India, China and Brazil. Interestingly, unlike the previous concept, this one mentions Iran in passing – in the company of such countries as Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Pakistan (the main buyers of Russian weaponry).
But the key difference of Medvedev’s foreign policy concept from the one of Vladimir Putin is revealed in the last chapter “Forming and realizing foreign policy.” There, a special provision points out that “the government of the Russian Federation takes measures to realize foreign policy.” Eight years ago, as the concept was signed by Vladimir Putin, there was no role of the government at all in the document.
The new deal
After the meeting behind closed doors in the MFA, its participants were leaving the hall a bit confused. Kommersant found out the reason for it. It turned out that the might Russia acquired during the previous eight years of stability hasn’t been realized because of the diplomats.
“He severely criticised them,” one of the government members, who was invited to the venue, told Kommersant, “But he was right on the whole. They must move some certain parts of their bodies.” The official explained that the claims of the President boiled down to the fact that Russia’s ambassadors are not aggressive enough asserting Russia’s national interests and they don’t rebuff criticism the way they should.
All interlocutors of Kommersant repeated the word “aggressive.” “Medvedev is a modern person. He’s a good manager, and he wants to see the effectiveness and aggression in the work of the diplomats,” Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin shared it with Kommersant, “He urges that a single management strategy be followed in foreign policy, and the old school is not ready for that.” Answering a question of Kommersant whether one can expect a reshuffle in the Foreign Office, Mr Rogozin put it bluntly, “Yes, I’m sure.”
One of the State Duma MPs told Kommersant that the President “strictly, in Putin’s style lectured on the way diplomats must react to attacks against Russia.” However, Head of the Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee Mikhail Marguelov doesn’t have a negative impression of the meeting behind closed doors, “There was no thrashing. The President just gave ambitious tasks.”
According to officials Kommersant spoke with, Dmitry Medvedev also listed the failures of Russia’s diplomacy in the near abroad direction, namely the CIS. And he also required them to be aggressive as well. “He urged us to be more active and aggressive, so that non-regional states, for example, the USA, wouldn’t oust us from there. He simply told us, “You shouldn’t delegate it to someone else – you are to rebuff attacks yourselves. We became strong, and we have every opportunity to pursue our own policy,” a high-ranking official told Kommersant. “It’s the reason for the creation of the Agency on the CIS affairs within the MFA, by the way.”
To somehow comfort the diplomats, Mr Medvedev promised to take care of improving their well-being: He’ll introduce a bill in the Duma about the peculiarities of overseas state service in the Foreign Ministry. Nevertheless, it didn’t cheer up those present. “It won’t get better. It was once better – in the Soviet times,” one of the ambassadors complained to Kommersant. “And it won’t get worse. Because now it’s worst of all.”
Vladimir Solovyov, Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of July 16, 2008
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