Condoleezza Rice and her partners at negotiations in Moscow (on PHOTO Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov) spoke in the same language of mimics and gestures but they couldn’t find common language with words. Photo: Ilya Pitalev
// The Secretary of State was not understood in Moscow
by Mikhail Zygar and Leonid Gankin April 21, 2005
Yesterday in Moscow, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with President of Russian Federation (RF) Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Rice made several unprecedented statements. She, in fact, admitted that the US will start to inspect Russian nuclear facilities. The Secretary of State demanded Putin resignation in 2008. She also hinted that Byelorussia is to expect “Orange Revolution” and Russia “a bright future.” Her Russian counterparts pretended stubbornly that they didn’t hear anything.
“Improving the Access” Instead of “Full Clarity”
The first visit of Condoleezza Rice in Moscow as Secretary of State started in a nervous atmosphere (as Kommersant wrote yesterday). For several hours she could not get into the hotel because of some anonymous phone calls. Then she finally moved into her room despite the threats and after that she decided to have dinner with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
Yesterday Rice and Ivanov recollected this dinner, but in a totally different way. In an interview with Echo Moskvy, the secretary of state said she was able to get agreement for the American side to get more access to Russian nuclear facilities. “We resolved better access for us for these facilities, but there is some work still left that we have to do,” she said. Rice also expressed hope that before the meeting of George Bush and Vladimir Putin in May in Moscow both sides will “achieve more progress on this issue.”
Responding to those who consider American access to the Russian nuclear facilities as infringing on Russian sovereignty, Rice answered “I do not consider the inspections that have to be done as a question of sovereignty. Nobody wants nuclear materials or weapons to get into the hands of the bad people. As well as the U.S., Russia also confronts very unpleasant incidents connected with terrorism. We know what is going to happen if terrorists will have access to such weapons.” Following the words of the secretary of state, it was understood that the issues of American inspections were discussed during her dinner with the Russian minister of defense on Tuesday.
However, Ivanov did not remember anything like that. He not only refuted Rice’s words but also he let it be understood that the issue of American inspections is not on the agenda at all. “The question of American experts visiting Russian nuclear facilities was not examined. And nobody’s talking about it,” he told the journalists yesterday.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov was using more cautious words. He reminded that in February the presidents of Russian and U.S. during their meeting in Bratislava “brought complete clarity into this issue. They gave specific orders to the organizations of both countries to cooperate in the sphere of security provision for nuclear materials and nuclear facilities.” Lavrov said that he was not present during the Rice and Ivanov meeting and “didn’t hear anything about any new agreements” of access provision of American inspectors to Russian nuclear facilities.
However, it is not clear about the content of the “old” agreements reached in Bratislava and mentioned by Lavrov. As Kommersant wrote on Feb. 28 of this year, right after that summit of both presidents two versions of the joint declaration about nuclear security were publicized. In the text that appeared on the Kremlin Web site was extra paragraph compared with the White House text. This paragraph said that “until July 1, 2005, the Ministry of Defense of Russia will specify the rest of the objects where it is necessary to improve security measures.” And the “visits to the facilities of Rosatom and 12th Main Department of Defense Ministry of RF (supervises all Russian nuclear arsenals) will start before December 2005. It meant in reality that it is reasonable to expect inspection of the Russian civil and military nuclear facilities by American inspectors before the end of this year.
But, on the very next day, this paragraph disappeared from the site. The Department of Press Service and Information of the RF President told Kommersant that the reason for the appearance of this paragraph was “a computer glitch.” Allegedly the site published the text of a preliminary, non-confirmed version of the story.
However, yesterday’s statement of the Secretary of State about “better access on these facilities” completely changes the picture. It cannot be explained anymore by a “computer glitch.” Most likely, already in Bratislava Russia agreed to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. And that was recorded in full (secret) text of a joint declaration of cooperation for security in the nuclear field. And yesterday, the parties just discussed the details of this cooperation.
“Centralization of mass-media” instead of “concrete examples”
The dialog, between Rice and Russian diplomats about freedom of the press, was developing in a pretty similar way. Even before arriving to Moscow, still in the plane, US Secretary of State spoke with American journalists and gave them a detailed list of White House complains towards Kremlin. Among those complaints was “absence of the independent media in electronic sphere.” Though Rice made a remark that printed media are doing better with the independence.
It is necessary to notice that Russian diplomacy has been struggling a long time with the State Department trying to prove that there is freedom of the press in Russia. During previous meetings Lavrov was giving Rice compact CDs recorded with several Russian TV programs. In response, the Secretary of State was letting it be known that this digest does not persuade her that TV in Russia is free from state pressure. Yesterday, this topic was raised again between the Russian foreign minister and head of the State Department. Rice stated that “the United States is not the only country which is worried about media conditions in Russia.” And the minister of Foreign Affairs responded skeptically that it is possible to discuss “absence” of the freedom in the Russian media, but “it is very difficult” because we need concrete examples. And according to Lavrov, Rice does not have these examples. Then it was interesting to hear Rice’s interpretation of “absence of the independent media in the electronic sphere.” She was asked what was the reason why she got so scared for the Russian Internet. Rice responded that she didn’t say anything about the Internet. What she meant was “centralization of Russian TV and radio media.” But, she said, freedom of the word exists in the Russian print media.
“Bright Future” Instead of “Orange Revolution”
Yesterday culminated with a meeting between Condoleezza Rice and Vladimir Putin. The Secretary of State was preparing herself well for this meeting. While talking with journalists on the way to Moscow, she suddenly criticized personally the Russian leader. During the flight she accused the Russian president of centralizing power by reducing role of the State Duma and the judicial branch. According to her, all this is very bothersome for Washington. Also, to the list of bothersome moments, Rice added the consolation of the governors’ elections. Finally, to everybody’s shock, the State Secretary expressed the hope that Putin will resign in 2008 and will not try to be re-elected for a third term. “It will be not a positive development of events if there will be some constitutional amendments (meaning that Putin will be able to be re-elected—Kommersant). I think this will not happen. Actually we’ve got Putin’s word.” Until now, no one from the American government made such bold statements about the fate of the Russian president. According to Lavrov, who was reporting the conclusions of the Putin and Rice negotiations, they were talking on similar subjects: first priority was democratization of CIS and the spread of Orange Revolutions in post-Soviet space. All three subjects mentioned by Lavrov were directly connected with revolutions in CIS. According to him, the president and Secretary of State talked about the situation in Kyrgyzstan, Georgian-Abkhazian settlement and Russian complaints toward Organization of Security in Europe, which, according to Moscow, is somewhat biased in its election observation in the CIS.
According to a Kommersant source close to the White House, Rice was trying to raise in Moscow the subject of the OSE. Washington right now is very unhappy right now with the fact Moscow is “dwelling on the necessary reforms of OSE.” And mores so that because of Moscow’s fault, the organization for the first time in this year could not approve the yearly budget and now lives off temporary budget schemes. Rice intended to ask the Kremlin harshly, did Russia change its mind to pay membership fee of the OSE because it got offended by the fact that observers from the organization are honestly doing their work to monitor elections in CIS and Russia. But the Russian minister preferred to interpret her words in a different manner. Noticing only that “American partners recognize the necessity of improvement and reform of the functioning mechanism of OSE.” It is evident that there was no really pleasant conversation about democracy in the CIS between Putin and Rice as well. For instance, several hours before the negotiations with the president, Rice talking with Echo Moskvy said that “people of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan made steps to freedom themselves,” and “Byelorussian people deserve better,” because “nobody’s benefiting from the last dictatorship in Europe which is the Lukashenko government in Byelorussia.” For the question “is she afraid to have an Orange Revolution in Russia,” Rice responded quite evasively by saying that “she’s not afraid for the Russian future and she thinks the Russian future can be very bright.”
Condoleezza Rice and her interviewer in the studio of Echo Moskvy didn’t understand each other even when discussing the only non-political question. Alexei Venediktov asked the state secretary if she is going to run for president in 2008. “Da” (Yes) she said in Russian, but then immediately realized that she most likely misunderstood the question. She hurried to correct herself and said the word “Nyet” (No) seven times.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
