Georgian-Russian Spy Row Preceded Vice President Joe Biden's Visit to Tbilisi

by Alexander Melikishvili

On Tuesday, July 21, on the eve of the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's July 22-23 official visit to Tbilisi, the Georgian television company Imedi aired a news report in which the Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council Eka Tkeshelashvili stated that Georgia refused the entry to two unnamed Russian diplomats, who were supposed to assume their responsibilities at the Russian Federation's interest section* in the Embassy of Switzerland in Georgia as part of the regular cadre rotation. According to Tkeshelashvili, the Georgian government's refusal was based on the suspicion that the two were engaged in espionage activities and were affiliated with the Russian intelligence services. In her comments to Imedi regarding the diplomatic scandal, Tkeshelashvili noted,

"It is a sovereign right of any state to identify those people, who work at the diplomatic representations. Each country has the right to allow or to refuse the entry to diplomats, against whom there may be serious suspicions that they work for other services."

In response, the Russian side ordered two Georgian diplomats, including the Consul of Georgia in the Russian Federation, Zurab Pataradze, who was declared persona non grata, to leave Moscow. According to the Imedi news report, the diplomatic row took place two weeks ago. Although, later an unnamed Georgian government source told The Moscow Times that the reciprocal expulsions occurred in May.

However, the Russian side disputed the details of the diplomatic row and provided a pointed interpretation of why it was publicized by officials in Tbilisi. A Russian diplomatic source told the Russian news agency Interfax that the "exchange of diplomats" occurred in April and that neither of the two Georgian diplomats was declared persona non grata. Officially they were simply recalled and the two sides agreed not to use the incident for public relations purposes against each other, according to a source in Interfax with contacts in Russian diplomatic circles. On July 21, responding to Tkeshelashvili, the official spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Nesterenko stated,

"Any action taken by this side or that, which deviates from customary practice, is, of course, regretful. A diplomat's work entails rotation of cadres and in this regard Russia follows the appropriate agreements. Usually in such cases, if a justification [for expulsion] is not based on logic or diplomatic explanation then, as a rule, adequate steps are taken in order to maintain the normal diplomatic parity."

The significance of the row can also be judged by the fact that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov found it necessary to comment on the sidelines of the 16th session of the ASEAN Regional Security Forum in Phuket, Thailand. Lavrov confirmed that the incident took place "some months ago" and added, "The Georgians had asked us not to publicize it, yet now they did it themselves and I have difficulties telling you why." Finally, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin interpreted the diplomatic scandal as yet another demonstration of the Georgian government's anti-Russian policy timed to coincide with Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Tbilisi. Karasin derisively noted, "The Georgians are clumsily trying to use the spy theme to show their high-ranking guest their presumed strength and resolve."

* NOTE: Since the August 2008 war, diplomatic relations between Russia and Georgia have been significantly downgraded to the level of interest sections which mainly handle consular and limited diplomatic affairs. At present the Georgian interest section at the Embassy of Switzerland in Moscow and the Russian interest section at the Embassy of Switzerland in Tbilisi represent the only diplomatic presence of the two countries on each other's territory.

Russia's Economic Pressure on Belarus Escalates to Trade War

by Alexander Melikishvili

On Friday, June 5, in a three-hour interview given to the chief editors of the mainstream Russian news publications - the newspapers Izvestia and Zavtra and journals Rossiiskaya Federatsiya Segodnya (Russian Federation Today) and Soyuznoe Gosudarstvo (Union State) - the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko presented the list of grievances and focused on the sources of tensions in the bilateral relations with Russia. In a bold move, President Lukashenko spoke openly about the fact that Russia linked the postponement of the $500 million loan to Belarus with Minsk's continued refusal to recognize the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In particular, when asked when Belarus plans to recognize the independence of Georgia's separatist territories and whether this was a painful topic in the relationship between Belarus and Russia, President Lukashenko responded:

"You say that this is a painful topic and question. But to me all Russian leaders tell me: 'This does not really matter. Well, if you recognize - that's good, but if you don't - that's fine too.' First of all, of course, for Russia this is not even an issue. Whether we recognize them or not, say, now, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Compared to what is happening around Belarus - that's not that important. But, yes, we do understand that this recognition would not be redundant for Russia. However, I often say that we have our own history of relationships with those republics, and in particular with Abkhazia. With Ossetia, of course, we almost had no such relations, even though we met with people and so on. This is my position...By the way, when we met within the framework of the C.I.S. [Commonwealth of Independent States] everyone told Medvedev: 'No, we have our own problems.' And I was the last one to speak and I said: 'If you do not want to recognize, do not look for motivation under the table. You simply do not want to do it, you are afraid and so forth. And why should not we express support? This is our only ally, we want a lot from it and so forth.' Ask Medvedev, ask him this question about my position. And I told the Russian leadership how we intend to resolve this problem. They had no more questions. But nonetheless...We reached the point that they arrive and say: if [you deliver on] Ossetia and Abkhazia - this means that there will be $500 million. You know, we do not want to 'sell' any issues and positions. We never had that in our history and we never will. We will resolve this issue by ourselves. More so because we met with the leader of Abkhazia Bagapsh, and after that we met with Kokoity. They do not have any questions for us. They understand our position."

At times equally cryptic and combative, President Lukashenko spoke with palpable frustration and provided a number of responses that will surely fuel speculations about the continuing rift in relations between Minsk and Moscow. On the possibility of Belarus becoming another subject of the Russian Federation Lukashenko's remarks actually contained a warning and a veiled threat:

"We, as leaders, must calculate the consequences of such a move. Even I, let's imagine that I make such a decision, and what about tomorrow? Do we have shortage of conflicts in the Caucasus? Today Russia is being 'bombed' for the fact that it 'imperially,' with armed force squashed and subdued...And what about here? From this point of view the President of Russia says: 'Yes, you are absolutely right...This will be absolutely harmful for Russia.' On the other hand - we have our own 'morons,' there are a few of them, even if they constitute two, or, say, three percent, but they are the most active, the most ambitious, the most 'moronic' in any society. They are ready to unleash 'national-liberation war.' They need a pretext. At present everyone makes fun of this. And you think that they will not have anything to fight with? Tomorrow they can receive from Ukraine, the Baltics, mainly from there, from Poland, where they maintain channels. The weapons will surface instantly, explosions, the situation will be destabilized and many in the society will think: listen, they fight for independence, for what is sacred. Here, in Belarus, our people are not dumb, they think exactly the same as the Russians: 'our land, we will never give up, they will tear their shirts and go.' They are similar to Russians in that. Do you want to create one more Chechnya here? I don't."

Meanwhile the ever inventive head of the Russian Federal Consumer Protection Service, Gennadiy Onishchenko (one of the chief architects of the economic embargo imposed on Georgia) announced a comprehensive ban on imports of Belarusian milk products to Russia, which will surely hit Minsk hard economically considering that Belarus exports 40 percent of the milk it produces and 95 percent of it (worth $1 billion) goes to Russia annually. Even though the Russian government went to a considerable extent to deny any political pretext and the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the notion of tacit economic sanctions against Belarus and insisted that the ban stemmed from the concern for the health of Russian consumers, the closer examination of imposed measures clearly indicates otherwise. According to The Moscow Times, the ban on Belarusian milk products is formally predicated on the technicality - the failure by the Belarusian manufacturers to comply with the new regulations for the dairy industry products that went into effect in December, which include requirements to provide additional information on packages. However, the dairy industries of other neighboring countries, including Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine, also, by and large, do not meet the new regulations and yet their products have not been affected by the ban thus far.

Moscow's bullying appears to have produced a rare moment of opportunity for Minsk's rapprochement with the West. At the meeting on Monday with the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives of the Belarusian National Assembly, Valery Ivanow, the special rapporteur on Belarus for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (P.A.C.E.), Andrea Rigoni stated that Belarus was invited to participate in the P.A.C.E. session on June 23, which will include the discussion of the question of restoring special guest status for Belarus. In addition, the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) announced today that the loan to Belarus has been increased by $1 billion to $3.5 billion, which must still be approved by the executive board of the I.M.F. It remains to be seen whether increased Western attention and efforts to engage Minsk will indeed result in the multi-vector foreign policy by President Lukashenko. It is clear though that the ultimate litmus test of whether Minsk will bow to Moscow's pressure will be the issue of the recognition of Georgia's breakaway provinces.

Distrust between Russia and EU builds over Eastern Partnership initiative

The meeting of the EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council on April 28 in Luxembourg presented another vivid example of growing differences over the recently launched EU outreach initiative to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova called the Eastern Partnership (EaP). Conceived by Poland and supported by Sweden, the EaP was formally introduced to the EU in May 2008. It is primarily aimed at forging closer ties between the EU and the six ex-Soviet republics by encouraging democratic changes and free market reforms with targeted assistance programs. The EaP was officially endorsed by the EU on March 20, 2009 and it will be launched at the EU summit in Prague on May 7.

From the outset the EaP caused considerable anxiety in Moscow. At the Brussels Forum in March, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov famously lashed out at the EU for using the EaP as a vehicle for carving out a "sphere of influence" in the post-Soviet space. Lavrov's comments set the stage for his meeting with the Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (Czech Republic currently holds the EU rotating presidency) in Luxembourg. Before the meeting Schwarzenberg dismissed Lavrov's misgivings regarding the EaP when he told the press, "He knows himself it's nonsense." The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt stated that Lavrov's comment in March "speaks for itself that he thinks in terms of influence immediately."

At the meeting in Luxembourg the Russian side apparently sought and, at least according to Lavrov, received assurances from the EU that the EaP will not be directed against Russian interests in the post-Soviet space. At the press conference following the EU-Russia meeting, Lavrov guardedly noted, "We heard an announcement from Brussels that this is not an attempt to create a new sphere of influence and that it is not a process which is directed against Russia. We want to believe in this guarantee but I won't deny that some comments on the initiative made by the EU have concerned us." Schwarzenberg attempted to further reassure the Russians when he told the media, "I am sure Russia will see this time that it's not against them. It [EaP] is purely a development project."

Despite the fact that there is much uncertainty about the EaP to begin with, as demonstrated in this thoughtful analysis by RFE/RL's Ahto Lobjakas, the Kremlin's increasing paranoia of encirclement turns all Western initiatives in the post-Soviet space, however benign they may be, into a zero-sum competition for influence in the best traditions of XIX and XX centuries geopolitics. Furthermore, the EaP implementation in states like Belarus, as David Marples discusses in Eurasia Daily Monitor, will be highly questionable in the long term considering the essential incompatibility between the EU standards and the authoritarian nature of the political system in that country. In sum, the EaP emerges as a major irritant in EU-Russia relations and over time it may turn out to be an insurmountable obstacle.