The silent participation of a third party – Koni the Labrador – was an element of unpredictability in the dialog between presidents Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenko
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Vladimir Putin Agrees on Everything with Aleksandr Lukashenko
// The agenda
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko yesterday in his Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi and agreed with him on a number of questions that, in the opinion of special Kommersant correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov, were not of mutual interest.
Aides to the two presidents were the first to enter the conference room of the residence. Russian (to the marrow) Sergey Prikhodko was wearing sunglasses. I understood Prikhodko's reasons for disguising himself. Who else, if not him, did Lukashenko have in mind when he said a year and a half ago at Bocharov Ruchei that relations between Belarus and Russia would develop despite the efforts of certain Russian officials acting behind the backs of the two leaders and regardless of the “very bad events” that were the result of these efforts?
But whereas Prikhodko arrived in sunglasses, after entering the room and looking around, Lukashenko's aide preferred to conceal himself behind one of the front door panels.
The three main heroes – Vladimir Putin, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and Koni the Labrador [the Putin family dog] – entered the room a few minutes later. The president of Belarus did his best to get the dog's attention. He petted him and kept trying to talk to him (he had obviously given up similar attempts with the Russian president much earlier). Koni put up with these persistent tokens of affection without complaint, but reserved the right not to return the affection.
“He already knows me,” Lukashenko Lukashenko murmured, passing by the journalists and nodding at Koni.
It was as if he wanted to make it clear that nothing special was happening. Not that he was pestering an unknown dog. No, everything was within the bounds of decency. We're friends after all.
The presidents sat in the chairs prepared for them. Koni lay at their feet.
“As far as I know, you and I have no problems, Aleksandr Grigoryevich,” Putin said to start the conversation, pretending that relations between the Belarussian president and his favorite dog were none of his business. He seemed to be giving the dog the right to solve this problem himself.
“Our power company officials have told me that they're in continual contact with their Belarussian counterparts,” Putin continued, pointedly not looking at the dog. “I know that some of them were supposed to arrive in Minsk. Let's get down to the discussion, whether they were there or not.”
At first glance, the Russian president had chosen a strange subject for talks. However, it is quite possible that he simply had nothing else to talk about.
Koni got up and went over to the journalists. Everything was clear to him from the beginning.
“He posed with us and then went to his journalists!” Lukashenko said indignantly.
He didn't like being so plainly used. However, on this trip, he should have been prepared for this right from the start.
“Khoni, come here!”, Lukashenko called with his characteristic aspirate.
The dog turned around and yawned widely in the Belarussian president's face.
Lukashenko turned to Putin for support.
“Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, for the kindness and warmth we always feel on this coast.”
He seemed to imply that there was no place for him on the other coast (in Turkey).
“We really have no more problems,” he said, looking confusedly and even ingratiatingly at Koni.
The dog perked up and once again yawned emphatically.
“I haven't noticed even the slightest problems in our relations, Vladimir Vladimirovich!”, Lukashenko continued, turning to Putin once again as if to arouse the dog's jealousy. “The most important thing in our relations is probably that we really have to give some signal of the good relations at our level, so that people won't think we actually have problems in our relations, and this is why we haven't discussed them, haven't met, and so on…”
In fact, the presidents had not seen one another since last October, but if Lukashenko was planning to continue speaking so animatedly, there was no sense in their meeting in future, because understanding what the Belarussian president meant was definitely impossible even for a keen mind.
“I think,” Lukashenko said, “there is still one question we should discuss and somehow dot all the i's, and look at how to act next in light of events in the world. What is there to hide…”
He suddenly paused and decided to hold back.
“Although, overall there are no special problems in the area of Russian-Belarussian relations.”
Thus, according to the Belarussian president, there were no small problems in relations between Belarus and Russia, only special ones.
Putin suggested talking about these over breakfast.
On hearing about breakfast, Lukashenko's aide appeared from behind the closed door. He seemed to very hungry.
The talks that started over breakfast had still not ended over lunch. The presidents talked for nearly five hours. On going out to the journalists at about five in the afternoon, they told much of what they had already learned in that time. Putin announced that the two of them had agreed on absolutely all of the questions under discussion.
I immediately calmed down, because it was clear that this was utterly impossible. The Russian president seemed to be giving a sign not to take seriously anything else he was about to say.
What happened subsequently confirmed my guess. Lukashenko said that the sides had agreed to preserve the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It looked as though they would not be able to agree on this with anyone except one another.
“I'm confident that this organization will still prove useful to all of us,” Lukashenko intoned.
In other words, they decided to hold the CIS in reserve. It would simply be a shame to throw it away.
Lukashenko had received some unpleasant news in Geneva, where the UN Commission on Human Rights was trying to pass an anti-Belarussian resolution and mount an anti-Belarussian campaign. But Russia, China, and India were opposed to this. It is interesting that here in Russia, we knew nothing about this. Our diplomats did not inform the public. Apparently, it's not in their interests. Are they maybe feeling a little embarrassed about this?
Everyone was interested in question of introducing a common currency. Some time ago, Lukashenko suggested postponing the introduction date for a year, that is, to January 1, 2006. There was a faint hope that we would hear something specific about this.
“We discussed the question and decided not to set an exact date. The idea hasn't died,” Putin said reassuringly. “We've decided to continue the work.”
The key word in this statement was the word “died”.
In response to a question from a news agency journalist as to whether Putin had by any chance signed the law On the House of Commons, the Russian president conveyed the sense that he had, in fact, just signed it this morning.
Lukashenko also decided to answer a question on the common currency. He talked about the unparalleled work of the experts who “prepared a first-class agreement.” Technically and legally, the monetary system of both countries has been prepared for this event for a long time. But the Belarussian president was not morally ready for it. He probably thought it worth agreeing to a common currency, and very soon (no one would notice) Russia and Belarus would be headed by a single president. But that person would not be Aleksandr Lukashenko.
Lukashenko appeared to drive himself into a corner by saying there were no technical obstacles to the introduction of a common currency. But he didn't think he had. He decided to explain why he had doubts. It turned out that after the collapse of the USSR, Belarus suffered more than anyone else from the disappearance of the common currency.
“The money supply remained in Belarus, but goods were taken out,” he said.
There was the impression that it happened very fast. As a result, no one needed Soviet money anymore, but conversely, everyone needed goods. But Belarussians did not profit from the lesson.
“We started preparing for the introduction of a common currency with Russia. Then some concerns arose, then some questions, and then the situation hardly changed at all… But this problem has never been taken off the agenda and never will be,” Lukashenko promised.
Which means it's not worth dreaming about the introduction of a common currency.
One obstacle between the two countries up to now has been Beltransgaz, which Russia wanted to acquire for a reasonable price, but Belarus was opposed, because it did not consider the offered price reasonable. But it turned out that this was no longer a problem either. That is, they just preferred to forget about it.
However, Lukashenko did speak gratefully about how Gazprom decided not to raise gas prices for Belarus this year. His gratitude included the following.
“Gazprom asked for the lease of land for transfer stations and the pipeline,” Lukashenko specified. “In addition, Gazprom asked for tax concessions for the construction of gas infrastructure.”
Lukashenko said he had satisfied this request. However, the Russian president didn't like what he said. Putin claimed it was about concessions for the delivery of processing equipment and nothing more. He did not want to give the impression that Russia was somehow doing Belarus a favor. He wanted to give the opposite impression.
After that, Putin talked about how the sides had agreed that they would keep each other's interests in mind when acceding to the WTO. That appeared to be the end of the real agreements resulting from these talks.
Finally, the Russian president made a desperate effort to interest the news agencies of both countries by telling them that an agreement on problems connected with intellectual property in the area of the development of air defense systems would be signed in the near future.
That is, there is still no agreement. But they would really like to have at least something. This leads to a nagging feeling that there won't be anything.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 05, 2005
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