Russia opens door to better relations with Poland

PHILIPPA RUNNER

11.09.2008 @ 09:37 CET

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has suggested Moscow and Warsaw could improve relations, despite Poland's decision to host a US missile shield. But a new argument has broken out over the deployment of EU monitors in Georgia.

"If the US and Poland are really interested in guaranteeing that the anti-missile base won't be directed against Russia, we are ready to consider concrete proposals," Mr Lavrov wrote in a statement in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza while visiting Warsaw on Thursday (11 September).

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The visit - originally cancelled after Poland signed the missile deal in the heat of the East-West confrontation on Georgia - could see Poland invite Russian monitors to the future US base in return for Polish visits to Russia's Kaliningrad region, Polish diplomats told Russian media.

Mr Lavrov's Gazeta Wyborcza statement underlined that Poland "has become party to a very dangerous game" on the US-Russia nuclear deterrent, with Russian generals still threatening to target Poland with ballistic missiles earlier this week. But he added "We are leaving the door open to serious negotiations."

The foreign minister's message painted Poland as a potential Russian partner in the EU, if it accepts Russian foreign and energy policy lines on non-interference in the post-Soviet sphere and the building of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

He reiterated that Russia's foreign policy principles are "readiness to develop friendly relations with all states, including Poland; the protection of the life and dignity of Russians, wherever they are and special focus on regions in which Russia has privileged interests."

"Producers, consumers and transit countries are in the same boat and can create [energy] security ... We can easily find a common language with those who share this view."

Mr Lavrov took a hard line on the status of Georgia's rebel enclaves, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia has recognised as independent states.

He said Georgia's attack on South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali "put a cross through Georgia's territorial integrity" and urged other countries to "accept new realities" in the region.

The foreign minister also attacked the credibility of potential EU sanctions if Russia does not comply with the Georgian peace accords. "The isolation of Russia is impossible ... just as impossible as the isolation of the US, Europe, China or any other leading country."

Georgia letter

The Polish visit comes as tension flared again over the South Caucasus, where a Georgian policeman was shot dead near a Russian checkpoint on Wednesday (10 September) and where a new row has broken out over the deployment of EU monitors.

Automatic weapon fire "from the direction" of a Russian roadblock on a road leading to South Ossetia hit the policeman half a kilometre away, the Georgian interior ministry said, AP reports.

The EU plans to deploy 200 monitors inside the South Ossetia buffer zone, and a similar area near Abkhazia, by 1 October leading to the withdrawal of Russian forces 10 days later under an accord brokered on Monday.

EU top diplomat Javier Solana told MEPs on Wednesday that the EU mission will head to Georgia "with the spirit that it can deploy everywhere." EU leaders this week also gave Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a letter saying the first stage of deployment will be inside the buffer zones but that monitors would also go inside Abkhazia and South Ossetia down the line.

Russia, which aims to keep 7,600 soldiers inside the rebel enclaves, denies there is any deal to let the EU team go beyond the buffer zones, however.

"Additional international observers will be deployed precisely around South Ossetia and Abkhazia and not inside these republics," Mr Lavrov told Russian press on Wednesday. "We have no interest in the pieces of paper [the EU letter] which Mr Saakashvili takes out of his pocket and shows to journalists."