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Ivanov: Russia intends to punch its weight on world stage
Resource-rich Russia is not seeking confrontation with the West, but the resurgent country still intends to punch its weight on the world stage, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Sunday.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:21 February 11, 2008
Munich: Resource-rich Russia is not seeking confrontation with the West, but the resurgent country still intends to punch its weight on the world stage, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Sunday.
In a speech to the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy - where President Vladimir Putin last year gave a speech blasting the United States - Ivanov played down renewed tensions.
"I am sure that everyone here clearly realises that the process of Russia's revival objectively combines our ambition to occupy an appropriate place in world politics and commitment to maintain our national interests," he said.
"We do not intend to meet this challenge by establishing military blocs or engaging in open confrontation with our opponents," he said.
Russia and the United States must lead efforts to replace existing arms limitation rules with an international, legally binding regime, Ivanov said.
"As I see it, this is precisely an area of international relations where Russia and the United States not merely could, but are directly obliged to show leadership," Ivanov said.
"Today there are several nuclear powers in the world and even more countries with a strong missile capacity ... Sooner or later, we will have to start working in a multilateral format," he said.
Moscow and Washington are locked in disputes that echo their Cold War sparring, before Russia was temporarily floored by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Bones of contention include Washington's plans to set up an anti-missile shield on Russia's European doorstep, which the United States says is needed to preempt attacks from "rogue states", chiefly Iran, but which Moscow has dubbed a security threat.
Pointing missiles
Russia has said it could point missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic, which are expected to host bases for the shield.
Moscow has also warned it will step up its weapons programme: Putin on Friday said Russia would respond to the "new challenge" with "new weapons that are qualitatively the same or better than those of other countries".
On the same panel as Ivanov, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana signalled Western concerns. "I was not very happy with the speech of Mr Putin on the subject of the arms race. I don't think it was very constructive," Solana said.
Washington and Moscow have fallen out over Russia's softly-softly approach to Iran's contested nuclear programme, and over US support for the independence for Kosovo, which the Kremlin deeply opposes. In Europe, concerns have been growing about Russia's energy market clout, but Ivanov downplayed the issue. "Getting richer, Russia will not pose a threat to the security of other countries. Yet our influence on global processes will continue to grow," he said.
Ahead in numbers
Russia's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov took a dig at the west, noting that four candidates were running in Russian presidential polls, but only two will do so in the United States.
"We have four candidates, not two as in your country," Ivanov said when questioned about the lack of democracy in Russia by a US delegate attending an international security conference in the southern German city of Munich.
Russians go to the polls on March 2 in a contest that is seen as a sure-fire win for President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, the chairman of the state-owned gas giant Gazprom and, like Ivanov, a deputy prime minister.
'Pandora's box'
Russia on Sunday said that Europe risked opening a "Pandora's box" if it went ahead and recognised the independence of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.
Moscow has supported Belgrade in opposing Kosovo's secession from Serbia and blocked a UN Security Council resolution that would have granted the territory supervised independence.
"We want to stay in the framework of international law," Ivanov said.
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