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FOCUS OF THE PRESS: RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT LAUNCHED A NEW SESSION
Russia's State Duma, parliament's lower house, has opened its spring session. The Russian press is writing about the schedule of the session and the opening plenary meeting.
The Vremya Moskovskikh Novostei newspaper reads that according to the schedule, Russian MPs will have to consider 613 bills from January to June, with the land and labour codes being the priority ones.
House Speaker Gennady Seleznyov described the land code as the most crucial bill to be adopted during the session, writes Trud. When dwelling on the land code, the speaker said the government-sponsored bill did not provide for sale or purchase of arable land in Russia.
"Agrarian party deputies as well as Communists advocate a complete ban on purchase and sale of arable land. Whereas the right-wingers and the Duma's pro-government factions argue that federal reform will be at a deadlock should lawmakers fail to provide for a free turnover of land. According to Russia's Agriculture Minister Aleksei Gordeyev, the government-drafted land code really lacks provisions on purchase and sale of farm land. However, a separate federal law is to be adopted to deal with the land turnover, which promises heated Duma debates", comments Trud.
According to the newspaper, the labour code as well is going to arise lively debates at the Duma. The outdated Soviet-time labour code which is still in force has been long hampering market reforms.
A bill on political parties sponsored by the President and supported, in principle, by all parliamentary factions is due to be discussed on January 25. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta paper writes that this is the first serious draft law on the Duma's spring session agenda. The bill urges the country's political parties to get more actively involved in public life. The factions and the President do not agree on details only. However, it is details that play a crucial role in lawmaking and, hence, need to be discussed with particular care.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper forecasts sharp debates about a bill on fishing, particularly an article regulating quotas for catching fish in Russia's territorial waters.
On Wednesday, the Duma approved the third reading of amendments to the Russian Criminal Code energetically backed by the Union of Right Forces faction.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta elaborates on the amendments saying that they aim to facilitate confinement conditions for inmates of prisons and pre-trial detention centres. According to Pavel Krasheninnikov, in charge of the Duma legislative committee, thanks to that law as many as 250,000 people will no longer rank among the above two categories.
"The idea is to mitigate punishment and prison conditions for those whose crimes are not considered grave, the Vremya Novostei reads in its comments on the bill. That is why, imprisonment cases are going to be less numerous, while bails, on the contrary, more frequent. And what is more important, the law stipulates that pre-trial confinement cannot last longer than six months." The Duma approved the draft resolution recommending the Cabinet to write off, beginning January 1, 2001, the debts Russia's agricultural sector has accumulated over the past years of reform, the idea that came from the Agrarian party, writes Kommersant.
The State Duma's first meeting following the winter recess was fruit-bearing, sums up the Kommersant newspaper.
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MOSCOW AND TOKYO STEP UP COOPERATION
Valentin KUNIN, RIA Novosti political analyst
Tokyo expects the next Russian-Japanese summit to take place in Irkutsk at the end of February, said Japan's Foreign Minister Yohei Kono during his visit to Moscow.
In the Russian capital the Japanese Minister met and held talks with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov and Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko.
Both Kono and his Russian opposite numbers said that relations between Russia and Japan are now at their highest in their history. In particular Khristenko emphasised that last year was largely a turning point for Russian-Japanese trade and economic relations. Trade between the two countries last year totaled about 5 billion dollars, or 20 per cent more than in 1999. Imports from Japan to Russia grew at a higher pace than exports from Russia to Japan. A representative delegation of Japanese industrialists is expected to arrive in Russia next June. About 100 leading Japanese businessmen will be received by the Russian President and the prime minister and will hold negotiations with their Russian counterparts.
One of the main topics of Kono's Moscow talks was to agree on a raft of measures to follow up the peace treaty statement signed by Vladimir Putin and Japan's Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori last September during the Russian President's visit to Japan.
The main obstacle to signing such a treaty is known to be the ownership of four islands of the South Kuril range. A few years ago officials in Tokyo stuck to one position - a peace treaty cannot be signed until Japan is returned its "northern territories".
But in 1998 Tokyo softened its stance. At a meeting with Boris Yeltsin at Kawana the then Japanese prime minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, put forward the argument that a component of the peace treaty must be Russia's recognition of Japan's sovereignty over the Southern Kurils. The Kremlin's counter proposal was that a treaty to be concluded should record that the sides will continue negotiations to find a solution to the territorial issue.
In other words, without denying the existence of such a problem, Moscow at the same time does not believe that it should be an impediment to the all-round development of relations between the two countries. And the more extensive and vigorous such ties are, the more preconditions there will be for finding sensible and mutually acceptable compromises for deciding the territorial issue.
It looks as if such a position has in recent months also started gaining understanding among an influential part of Japanese businessmen and politicians who think that Japan has a direct interest in the development of a lasting partnership with Russia and who emphasise that already Moscow and Tokyo hold identical positions on a series of key issues. These are the need to preserve and strengthen the Soviet-American Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, the struggle against international terrorism, and the role of the UN in maintaining international law. Tokyo cannot but reckon with Russia's growing political influence in the Asia-Pacific region, and its close relations with China, which is gaining in economic and military strength, and vigorous Russian diplomatic efforts on the Korean peninsula.
Also obvious is Japan's interest in the development of economic cooperation with Russia, above all in the fuel and energy area. At the present time the Japanese economy is 90 per cent dependent on oil deliveries from the Middle East, which remains a highly volatile and unstable region. Participation in the development and exploitation of Russian oil and gas resources in Eastern Siberia and on the Sakhalin shelf would enable Japan not only to diversify sources of energy but also to cut down their transportation costs. The Russian market is also no doubt very attractive to Japanese manufacturers of all kinds of industrial equipment, motor vehicles, and household, acoustic and video appliances.
Russia is equally interested in economic cooperation with Japan, in the first place in the import of highly efficient modern technologies, and investments in large-scale economic projects in Siberia and the Far East, such as the Kovykta gas and condensate and Yakutsk gas deposits and construction of power transmission lines.
In a situation when mutual benefits of Moscow-Tokyo cooperation are more than evident, it is quite likely that the upcoming summit in Irkutsk may mark a new point of departure in further acceleration of Russian-Japanese ties.
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ECONOMIC NEWS DIGEST
Moscow, RIA Novosti
* Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a conference on financial matters in the Kremlin, gave two to three weeks in which to solve all problems relating to Russia's external debt and its payments.
Speaking at the conference, the President emphasised that the problems are "temporary and of a technical character and should be resolved by the middle of February through intensive contacts with parliament and with partners in international financial organisations".
* Russia will stick to international law rules in paying the Soviet-era debt to Paris Club creditors, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. He was commenting on remarks made by Germany's First Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser on the possible expulsion of Russia from the Group of Eight should it refuse to pay up.
According to Kudrin, such remarks are nothing less than "turning the heat on us". It is only temporarily that Russia has suspended its payments to the Paris Club. The suspension, the Minister said, is due to the winter months and the need to wind up talks with the International Monetary Fund on forecasts of Russia's financial and economic developments in 2001. An evaluation of the forecasts will be crucial for the future of debt payments to the Paris Club.
* One of the Russian government's main concerns is working with Russian industries. It is industry that determines the prosperity of the people, said Russia's Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
Speaking at a ceremony in Moscow where government awards were given for best quality in production in 2000, Kasyanov remarked that the cabinet was satisfied with its dialogue with manufacturers. The government will go altering taxes to guarantee normal functioning of enterprises. The key requirement for investments in industry and improving the export picture is, the premier said, macro-economic stability and predictability.
Kasyanov said that Russian criteria for selecting winners match those of the European quality prize. The premier stressed: "This makes Russian goods more competitive".
"The winner enterprises perform as leading world companies do," Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov added, noting that "it is a crime to enter the market without high-quality products".
* For Russian steel to enter the European Union markets there must be a partnership and cooperation agreement between Russia and the EU, said Chris Patten, European Union high commissioner responsible for external ties in the European Commission. He is on a working visit in Russia.
"We have some disagreements on steel and iron scrap," Patten noted, commenting on Russian metal exports to the European Union. But, he believes, this issue can be settled.
Earlier, the European Commission extended the operation of its 12 percent restrictive quotas on Russian steel supplies to the EU. The Commission views this measure as a response to Russia's iron scrap export duties. The view in the Commission is that they do not correspond to a steel trade agreement existing between Russia and the EU. The Russian side sees no discrepancy.
* Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was central at the first meeting of the trade and economic council, set up on January 11 under the Russian Economic Development and Trade Ministry. The council examined a detailed package of proposals on access to the services market.
The council is a legal successor to the council of exporting manufacturers under the same ministry. It has been established "to coordinate steps to boost foreign trade", it was noted at the Ministry. It produces nothing but recommendations. Now it is concerned with bringing existing Russian legislation in line with WTO rules.
* Vast sums have been allocated for housing construction in Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation, said Vladimir Yelagin, a government minister in charge of Chechnya's social and economic development. He said the programme "will create many jobs".
Yelagin's view is that the Chechen Republic can itself earn money to finance its social and economic programmes. The republic's oil industry produces up to 1,000 tons of oil daily. The oil money will be accumulated in one account and drawn upon to finance the republic's rehabilitation effort.
* The European Union has appropriated 3.2 million euros as TACIS aid to an information training centre of the Russian aerospace agency, Rosaviakosmos. The centre will draw up standards for Russian and EU air space companies to promote business cooperation on the space launches market.
* Russia's biggest air carrier Aeroflot has signed an agreement on an express cargo line between Moscow and London. Another party to the agreement is Russian-Japanese joint venture Aeroservis. The project provides for prompt delivery of freight more than 0.5 kilogramme in weight from London to Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, and also in the opposite direction. The objective, once the project is launched, is to tap within one year 10 percent of the domestic Russian express delivery market.
* Russia's Finance Ministry has instructed Vneshekonombank to transfer about 320 million dollars to international Citibank for coupon payments on two Russian Eurobond issues. Both issues mature on January 24. Eurobond coupon payments are made twice a year.
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POLITICAL INTRIGUE IN PAVEL BORODIN'S CASE IS OBVIOUS
Prof. Alexei BOGATUROV, deputy Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada /Russian Academy of Sciences/, RIA Novosti
The political intrigue behind the arrest of Russia's prominent official Pavel Borodin by US authorities on request of the Swiss prosecutor's office is so obvious that the whole incident can hardly be referred to otherwise than an unfriendly act against Moscow.
Borodin, the former administrative manager of ex-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the current state secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, was invited to the United States to attend festivities held on the occasion of George Bush's inauguration.
It is disputable whether he enjoyed diplomatic immunity, whether the actions taken by US authorities were lawful in the juristic sense and if the Swiss prosecutor's office had compelling reasons for demanding the extradition of Borodin. The only fact that was clear straight away is that the incident in the Kennedy airport is ungainly from the ethic point of view and does not do credit to those members of the inauguration organising committee who issued an invitation for Borodin. By now, there is little doubt left about the fact that the high-ranking Russian official was lured into a trap and that the arrest was plotted beforehand.
The time chosen to make the arrest proves the deliberateness and the well-organised character of the operation. The old administration is about to resign and is, so to say, at loose ends, while the new one has not yet been invested with full powers, so it seems like no one is really responsible for the deed. Besides, the incident occurs just before the weekend and the Saturday celebration, when top leaders of Russia and the US usually have difficulty in getting in touch with each other. On top of all that, it is absolutely unclear whom to contact in Washington to discuss the situation.
As one analyses the incident, one inevitably concludes that Borodin's arrest looks very much like the United States' response to the Pope case. The US spy was caught in Moscow red-handed and sentenced to 20 years in jail, but later pardoned by President Putin, who was reluctant to complicate Russian-American relations on the eve of the US presidential election and paid heed to the importance US authorities attached to the case. Yet, there is still a substantial difference between the Borodin case and the Pope case. Unlike Pope, Borodin is not a spy and did no harm to the United States. Unlike Borodin, who never suspected anything amiss while travelling to the inauguration, Pope was not lured into a trap.
As far as the interests of justice go, Borodin has already declared his willingness to answer any questions Swiss or US investigators might have. Apparently, his readiness to cooperate makes his arrest all the more unlawful and senseless.
Should the Borodin case turn out a lengthy one, it will hardly be able to help the Kremlin and the White House establish normal relations. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that the scandal created by Borodin's arrest will soon be settled. The firm position taken by the Russian foreign ministry, which demands the immediate release of Borodin, should help Washington realize the riskiness of the provocation and Moscow's resolution to stop it.
In the meantime, it looks like Moscow and Washington may start their 21st-century dialogue with a discussion of an extremely unsavoury business, which could evolve into a much too unsavoury blot on the yet empty page of bilateral relations in the new century.
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VLADIMIR PUTIN SUPPORTS TROOP CUTS IN CHECHNYA
While commenting on Akhmad Kadyrov's programme for settling the situation in Chechnya, presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky announced during a Moscow press conference that President Vladimir Putin had supported a proposal made by the head of the Chechen administration to reduce the number of federal troops on Chechen soil and had suggested to representatives of the power structures that the appropriate steps be taken.
Yastrzhembsky stressed that there were no specific parameters for a withdrawal of federal troops. The aide emphasised that responsibility for the situation in the republic currently laid with the joint staff and if the decision to reduce the military presence were taken, then the issue of transfering responsibility to another ministry would be raised.
Yastrzhembsky also remarked that the military operation had ended long ago and that the large-scale and medium formations had been routed, while more than 50 field commanders had been eliminated. He stressed that the problem of Maskhadov, Basayev and Khattab would be dealt with in the course of special operations.
At the same time, Sergei Yastrzhembsky announced that Russian forces would nevertheless be based in Chechnya on a permanent basis. The 42nd motorised infantry division had already been formed consisting of 14-15,000 servicemen, along with a brigade of Interior Ministry troops (6-7,000 men). Moreover, the Ministry of Internal Affairs would be soon established in Chechnya.
Akhmad Kadyrov announced at the press- onference that MVD structures numbering 5,000 men would be formed this year at a cost of 370,000,000 roubles.
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VISIT OF THE DUTCH PRIME MINISTER W.KOK TO RUSSIA (18-19 January 2001, Moscow)
On 19 January this year in Moscow a meeting took place between the Russian and Dutch prime ministers Mikhail Kasianov and Wim Kok. In the course of the negotiations a wide range of issues was discussed concerning bilateral relations between Russia and the Netherlands in political, economic and other spheres.
According to Mr. Kasianov, “Russia and the Netherlands enjoy a long-term cooperation. We have never had any major disagreements in politics”. The Prime Minister mentioned a “considerable improvement of economic cooperation” between the two countries. In 2000 the Russian-Dutch volume of trade, according to estimates, reached USD 5 billion. The Dutch direct investments in the economy of Russia amount to USD 1 billion.
Mr. Kasianov also emphasized that Russia “appreciated very much the fact that the authorities of the Netherlands supported the Dutch businessmen’s initiative and established the Kursk Foundation. Since the first days of the tragedy and until now the Dutch government has supported Russia. We are very thankful for such an attitude”.
Mr. Kasianov said that during the negotiations the issue of cooperation between Russia and the EU was raised. Two sides agreed that the energy security is an important element of cooperation in the energy field.
Mr. Kok, from his part, stressed a conclusion he arrived at on existing “great opportunities to enlarge and enhance the economic relations between the two countries. The further development of the Russian economy will give us more chances for cooperation”, he pointed out.
The Dutch Prime Minister said that in the course of his visit he met with the President of Russia V.Putin. It was agreed at the meeting that Queen Beatrix will pay an official visit to Moscow in coming June. It is supposed that a document on cooperation in different fields will be signed.
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