- Despite the problems of the ruble and the weak oil price
in recent months for the Russian economy, the Russian Government is pursuing
a very active foreign policy strategy. Its elements focus on countering
the continuing NATO encirclement policy of Washington, with often clever
diplomatic initiatives on its Eurasian periphery. Taking advantage of the
cool relations between Washington and longtime NATO ally, Turkey, Moscow
has now invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to a four day state visit
to discuss a wide array of economic and political cooperation issues.
-
- In addition to opening to Turkey, a vital transit route
for natural gas to western Europe, Russia is also working to firm an economic
space with Belarus and other former Soviet republics to firm its alliances.
Moscow delivered a major blow to the US military encirclement strategy
in Central Asia when it succeeded earlier this month in convincing Kyrgystan,
with the help of major financial aid, to cancel US military airbase rights
at Manas, a major blow to US escalation plans in Afghanistan.
-
- In short, Moscow is demonstrating it is far from out
of the new Great Game for influence over Eurasia.
-
- Warmer Turkish relations
-
- The Government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has shown
increasing impatience with not only Washington policies in the Middle East,
but also the refusal of the European Union to seriously consider Turkey's
bid to join the EU. In the situation, it's natural that Turkey would seek
some counterweight to what had been since the Cold War overwhelming US
influence in Turkish politics. Russia's Putin and Medvedev have no problem
opening such a dialogue, much to Washington's dismay.
-
- Turkish President Abdullah Gul paid a four-day visit
to the Russian Federation from February 12 to 15, where he met with Russian
president Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and also travelled
to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, where he discussed joint investments.
Gul was accompanied by his state minister responsible for foreign trade,
and Minister of Energy, as well as a large delegation of Turkish businessmen.
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan joined the delegation.
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- Visit to Tatarstan
-
- The fact that Gul's Moscow visit also included a stop
in Tatarstan, the largest autonomous republic in Russian Federation
whose population mainly consists of Muslim Tatar Turks, is a sign how much
relations between Ankara and Moscow have improved in recent months as Turkey
has cooled to Washington foreign policy. In previous years, Moscow was
convinced that Turkey was trying to establish Pan-Turanism in the Caucasus
and Central Asia and inside the Russian Federation, a huge concern in Moscow.
Today clearly Turkish relations with Turk entities inside the Russian Federation
are not considered suspicious as it was once, confirming a new mood of
mutual trust.
-
- Russia elevated Gul's trip from the previously announced
status of an 'official visit' to a 'state visit,' the highest level of
state protocol, indicating the value Moscow now attaches to Turkey. Gul
and Medvedev signed a joint declaration announcing their commitment to
deepening mutual friendship and multi-dimensional cooperation. The declaration
mirrors a previous 'Joint Declaration on the Intensification of Friendship
and Multidimensional Partnership,' signed during a 2004 visit by then-President
Putin.
-
- Turkish-Russian economic ties have greatly expanded over
the past decade, with trade volume reaching $32 billion in 2008, making
Russia Turkey's number one partner. Given this background, bilateral economic
ties were a major item on Gul's agenda and both leaders expressed their
satisfaction with the growing commerce between their countries.
-
- Cooperation in energy is the major area. Turkey's gas
and oil imports from Russia account for most of the trade volume. Russian
press reports indicate that the two sides are interested in improving cooperation
in energy transportation lines carrying Russian gas to European markets
through Turkey, the project known as Blue Stream-2. Previously Ankara had
been cool to the proposal. The recent completion of the Russian Blue Stream
gas pipeline under Black Sea increased Turkey's dependence on Russian natural
gas from 66 percent up to 80 percent. Furthermore, Russia is beginning
to see Turkey as a transit country for its energy resources rather than
simply an export market, the significance of Blue Stream 2.
-
- Russia is also eager to play a major part in Turkey's
attempts to diversify its energy sources. A Russian-led consortium won
the tender for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear plant recently,
but as the price offered for electricity was above world prices, the future
of the project, awaiting parliamentary approval, remains unclear. Prior
to Gul's Moscow trip, the Russian consortium submitted a revised offer,
reducing the price by 30 percent. If this revision is found legal under
the tender rules, the positive mood during Gul's trip may indicate the
Turkish government is ready to give the go-ahead for the project.
-
- Russia's market also plays a major role for Turkish overseas
investments and exports. Russia is one of the main customers for Turkish
construction firms and a major destination for Turkish exports. Similarly,
millions of Russian tourists bring significant revenues to Turkey every
year.
-
- Importantly, Turkey and Russia may start to use the Turkish
lira and the Russian ruble in foreign trade, which could increase Turkish
exports to Russia, as well as weakening dependence on dollar mediation.
-
- Post-Cold War tensions reduced
-
- However the main message of Gul's visit was the fact
of the development of stronger political ties between the two. Both leaders
repeated the position that, as the two major powers in the area, cooperation
between Russia and Turkey was essential to regional peace and stability.
That marked a dramatic change from the early 1990's after the collapse
of the Soviet Union when Washington encouraged Ankara to move into historically
Ottoman regions of the former Soviet Union to counter Russia's influence.
-
- In the 1990's in sharp contrast to the tranquillity of
the Cold War era, talk of regional rivalries, revived 'Great Games' in
Eurasia, confrontations in the Caucasus and Central Asia were common. Turkey
was becoming once more Russia's natural geopolitical rival as in the 19th Century.
Turkey's quasi-alliance with Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia until recently
led Moscow to view Turkey as a formidable rival. The regional military
balance developed in favor of Turkey in Black Sea and the Southern Caucasus.
After the disintegration of the USSR, the Black Sea became a de facto 'NATO
lake.' As Russia and Ukraine argued over the division of the Black Sea
fleet and status of Sevastopol, the Black Sea became an area for NATO'S
Partnership for Peace exercises.
-
- By contrast, at the end of the latest Moscow visit, Gul
declared, 'Russia and Turkey are neighboring countries that are developing
their relations on the basis of mutual confidence. I hope this visit will
in turn give a new character to our relations.' Russia praised Turkey's
diplomatic initiatives in the region.
-
- Medvedev commended Turkey's actions during the Russian-Georgian
war last summer and Turkey's subsequent proposal for the establishment
of a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform (CSCP). The Russian President
said the Georgia crisis had shown their ability to deal with such problems
on their own without the involvement of outside powers, meaning Washington.
Turkey had proposed the CSCP, bypassing Washington and not seeking transatlantic
consensus on Russia. Since then, Turkey has indicated its intent to follow
a more independent foreign policy.
-
- The Russian aim is to use its economic resources to counter
the growing NATO encirclement, made severe by the Washington decision to
place missile and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at
Moscow. To date the Obama Administration has indicated it will continue
the Bush 'missile defense' policy. Washington also just agreed to place
US Patriot missiles in Poland, clearly not aimed at Germany, but at Russia.
-
- Following Gul's visit, some press in Turkey described
Turkish-Russian relations as a 'strategic partnership,' a label traditionally
used for Turkish-American relations. Following Gül's visit, Medyedev
will go to Turkey to follow up the issues with concrete cooperation proposals.
The Turkish-Russian cooperation is a further indication of how the once
overwhelming US influence in Eurasia has been eroded by the events of recent
US foreign policy in the region.
-
- Washington is waking up to find it confronted with Sir
Halford Mackinder's 'worst nightmare.' Mackinder, the 'father' of 20th Century
British geopolitics, stressed the importance of Britain (and after 1945
USA) preventing strategic cooperation among the great powers of Eurasia.
-
- F. William Engdahl is author of A Century
of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto
Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (<http://www.globalresearch.ca/>www.globalresearch.ca ).
His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the
New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is doe for release in late
Spring 2009. He may be reached via his website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
-
- F. William Engdahl is a leading analyst of the New World
Order, author of the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century
of War: Anglo-American Politics and the New World Order,' His writings
have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
-
- Reviews of Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction
-
- What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the
world is that it is so real. Although our civilization has been built on
humanistic ideals, in this new age of "free markets", everything--
science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds-- have become weapons in
the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow
travelers. To achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding
soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr. Arpad
Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute Institute,
Scotland)
-
- If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda
--why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World--
you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these
corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must
resist... (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia)
-
- The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible
dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates
have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence... (Anton
Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).
-
- http://globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html
- Seeds of Destruction
-
-
- © Copyright F. William Engdahl,
- GlobalResearch.ca, 2009
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