The EU, Russia’s No. 1 customer and investor, was set to give its neighbor a boost yesterday by resuming cooperation talks suspended after Russia’s war with Georgia.
Critics say it is too soon to forgive Russia because its troops remain implanted and unchecked in the two breakaway Georgian provinces at the core of the war.
But with the financial crisis shaking global markets, officials of the 27-nation EU say reaching out to Moscow is crucial to ensuring stability and to keeping Russia from shutting off its economy to outsiders.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — whose country holds the rotating EU presidency — were to meet in Nice yesterday in a summit expected to formalize the resumption of talks.
“The conflict in Georgia has emphasized the crucial need for permanent political dialogue between the EU and the Russian Federation, while the global economic crisis has underlined once more the interdependence between the EU and Russian economies,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said ahead of the summit.
EU foreign ministers agreed earlier this week to resume talks with Russia, put on hold in September. They aim for an agreement that would increase economic integration, tighten relations on justice and security and boost cooperation in education and science.
Russia recently threatened to install short-range missiles close to EU borders in response to US plans to install a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic — though Medvedev has since scaled back the threat.
“We cautioned the EU and its member states about starting the partnership and cooperation negotiations in light of Russia not fulfilling the ceasefire agreement” ending the Georgia war, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Merkel said in a statement.
In related news, Russia will pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty if ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia are set on the path to NATO membership, Interfax news agency quoted a government official as saying yesterday.
“If Ukraine and Georgia are granted NATO Membership Action Plans [MAP], then the revised CFE treaty will be doomed,” Interfax quoted an official as saying.
“If MAP starts being implemented for Ukraine and Georgia, Russia will not only continue the moratorium it imposed on the CFE, but will ultimately pull out of it.”
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
RSS