Mikhail Margelov, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Federation Council of Russia, Federal Assembly of Russia
I was listening very attentively to the in‑depth and detailed presentation of Ambassador Kennedy and I was thinking how easy it is to be a politician and not a career diplomat, because you do not have to remember all the abbreviations; you normally have people to do that for you. I will speak from the perspective of a politician on global arms control and the non‑proliferation regime.
First of all I have bad news. My firm belief is that global arms control and the non‑proliferation regime today is not working at all. I have two hats. One is chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Russian Senate, and I have been doing that for the past nine years; and the other is I am the special representative of the President of Russia for Sudan. I therefore travel to Africa quite often, and Africa is a continent where I see every day when I am there that the arms control regime does not work. Africa is not the only place where it does not work. I was reading when the Obama administration came to office that the United States of America and Russia decided to act according to the old Russian proverb, ‘All the new issues are in reality the well‑forgotten, old issues.’
We still have an institutional memory of how to count warheads, so we decided to reset regarding the issue of non-proliferation and arms control. Actually, Russian and American Reset was not the only reset of bilateral and international relations undertaken by the Obama administration. As I understand it, the Obama administration is resetting its relationship with many international institutions and countries. The Trotsky guys – as I refer to the neoconservatives – have left the administration, and America is becoming more and more internationally-minded, which is good. America is trying to play a more and more important role on the international arena, which is also good; a positive factor. Therefore, we started the negotiations in Geneva, and I found out that we had a problem recruiting people who really remembered the negotiations of the past such as START-1 and START-2. This was a real challenge for both the American and Russian teams, because in neither the State Department nor the Russian Foreign Ministry did you have junior diplomats who knew how to do this job. (Alexander) Sandy Vershbow said to me that he is probably the most junior American diplomat who still remembers the negotiations of the 1970s and 1980s. I think it was important that the politicians were involved in that negotiating process. Senator Kyl and Senator Feinstein were here in Geneva along with Senators Ozerov and Zasohov from the Russian Federation Council who were also involved in the negotiation process. I think that we did a great job on the START-3 agreement.
When I was in Prague with President Medvedev and I saw the procedure of how the treaty was signed, I thought about how difficult it will be to deliver the result on the side of the Russian Parliament and the American Senate. Actually, we started what we call the pre-ratification procedures before the document was physically delivered by the two governments to the US Senate and the Russian Parliament. We started those pre-ratification consultations right after the nuclear summit in Washington. The delegation of the Russian Parliament spent much time in Washington, and in Moscow we hosted several delegations from the Pentagon and State Department. They were also visiting our colleagues in the Duma and the Federation Council. I think we learnt a lesson from the past that if we do not have direct contact and are transparent with each other, then we do not achieve good results. I think that Rose Gottemoeller should be excused for not being here because she is doing her difficult job on the Hill, discussing with senators the ratification of the START-3 agreement.
Our job in Moscow is also not very easy. The reason why I do not believe in simultaneous ratification, as Obama and Medvedev have said, is that we have different procedures. In the United States the ratification is completed by the Senate, while in the Russian Parliament it is completed by two chambers. Today, the START-3 agreement has passed through the Foreign Affairs Committee in the State Duma and it will be on the floor for discussion and voting. I predict that the discussion in the State Duma will not be very easy. The Communist faction has already declared that they are strongly against the START-3 agreement, and the so-called Liberal Democrat faction has said that they strongly oppose it. Mr Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, has already published an article that Konstantin Kosachov and Mikhail Margelov have betrayed their motherland by selling everything to the Americans. For me this is not news; I have been accused of being a Mossad or CIA agent for the last 10 years. I think that it will be a very difficult discussion in State Duma. I believe it may be a little easier in the Federation Council, in the upper house of the Russian Parliament, but it is my firm belief that it will take time. However, I think that we will be successful in doing the job and by the end of the year we will have ratified the START-3 agreement.
Why is this so important? It is important because the START-3 agreement is the first stage of resetting Russian-American bilateral relations. After the START-3 agreement Stage 2 will come, which will include Russia’s WTO (World Trade Organisation) accession, the ratification of the 123 Agreement which concerns Russian-American cooperation in the nuclear sphere, as well as other agreements. This includes my favourite, the Jackson–Vanik amendment, which is a dinosaur from the political Jurassic Park. I would like to remind my American colleagues on the Hill that two years ago Russia and Israel abolished the visa regime; you can now fly from Moscow to Tel Aviv as easily as you can fly from Moscow to St Petersburg. However, the Jackson–Vanik amendment still exists.
I think that the ratification of the START-3 agreement will be a very important signal to both political elites in Russia and US. It will mean that both President Medvedev and President Obama are serious about resetting our bilateral relations and paying more and more attention to global arms control and the non-proliferation regime.
Russia is not the second edition of the Soviet Union; we are different. In our nation building we face the task which we have never come across before. We are building a democratic and sovereign nation state. Under the tsars and the Bolsheviks we have always been an empire. We know that it is not efficient to be an empire today. That is why our approach to foreign policy and international security is different from the approach of the Soviet Union. I can say that probably almost all the main goals of Russian foreign policy lie inside Russia. We have to put our house in order and concentrate on our internal tasks. That is why we need friendly or at least neutral neighbours on our borders. This is not an easy goal to reach. When Iranian Coast Guards were shooting our fishermen in the Caspian Sea three years ago for the first time since 1921, it was a signal which was heard in Moscow. When North Korean rockets were launched in the direction of Vladivostok three years ago, that was another signal which we also heard. We have difficult neighbours, but we are ready to be involved in all forms of political negotiations in order to make our neighbours more transparent, predictable and respect the voice and position of the international community. There are a lot of complaints about many international institutions which still exist but do not work efficiently. I share almost all of these complaints, but we have to remember that all the international institutions and all the regimes, so to speak, that we have today, we have inherited from the Cold War.
One of my grandfathers went to New York with Andrei Gromyko in 1944 to open the Soviet Mission to the United Nations. When I was a student he told me that the first discussion on the reform of the United Nations was held in New York in 1944. Well, the reform is still ongoing. They decided to start it with rebuilding the premises at the East River. That was probably a wise step, but it does not change the substance. However, in all my criticism of the United Nations, that is the only universal, international institution which can provide a kind of docking mechanism for international negotiations and consultations on all the security issues. I do not think that other institutions are efficient either. For example, if OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) was really efficient we would never have had the tragedy in August 2008 between Russia and Georgia. Unfortunately the OSCE regime did not work efficiently. I think that if we are successful in ratifying the START-3 agreement, and I think we will be, that will mean not only for Russian-American bilateral relations but also for all the international community that it is time to speak seriously about a new post-Cold War approach towards all the security mechanisms. I remember Angela Merkel’s surprised eyes on 7 June 2008 when President Medvedev shared his idea of the new European security treaty with her. She did not understand what he was talking about and I do not think that many people in Moscow today understand what we are talking about. However, we have to talk about a new security regime in Europe, and we in Russia do not know how to solve the problem of European security. We just want our neighbours, our American neighbours and our European neighbours, to be involved in that discussion and to rethink the existing security mechanisms in Europe which have to be efficient and have to be modern. We have to accept the reality that the Cold War is over and rethink the security mechanisms according to this new reality.
Again, referring to Russian-American bilateral relations during the last 15 years, we failed to work out the positive post-Cold War agenda in our bilateral relations. That is why when we cooperate, we cooperate on the limited number issues like peace in the Middle East, non-proliferation, new challenges and threats, and that is all. This is not enough. I am sick and tired of resetting Russian and American bilateral relations every 4 or 8 years; we have to have a normal, stable, dull relationship and I want to tell my wife that there is nothing to write home about. That is the way we have to treat ourselves. There is only 52 kilometres between us, the Bering Strait is a narrow channel, and I was in Alaska and saw Russia like Sarah Palin with my own eyes. We have to be serious when dealing with each other.
With that I shall conclude my introductory remarks and I will be happy to take questions. Thank you.
Mark Fitzpatrick
Thank you Senator Margelov for that vision of boring Russian-American relations in the future.
