MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov.) When President Putin meets CIS leaders in Kazan this Friday, he will hardly forget that on the same day preparations will get underway for a G8 summit under Russian chairmanship to take place next summer in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.
Moscow would like the summit to discuss assistance to CIS countries that had once formed the U.S.S.R. and make it a major part of G8 activities next year.
Indeed, after the writing off of African debts, the world community has to help young nations such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Georgia overcome their economic backwardness. There is no doubt that poverty and other acute social ills largely contribute to the fits of political instability that occur in these CIS countries from time to time.
In turn this instability provokes both the West and Moscow to view post-Soviet territories as a battlefield. The bad situation is made worse because Russia's interpretation of the ongoing processes in this region is poles apart from that of the U.S. and EU. In Russia's opinion, the U.S. is blatantly interfering in the zone of its historic interests, trying to make Georgia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics into the US-dominated system of the world. In U.S. interpretation, Russia is wallowing in nostalgia over the time when the U.S.S.R was an empire, and continues, without any grounds whatsoever, to claim the positions of dominance there.
Now Moscow wants to make these phobias a thing of the past. It suggests to the West a totally different approach: to go for a mutually respectful and predictable partnership in order to help the CIS countries develop their economies and democracy. This would enhance Russia's role among the Eight because it is better versed in the problems of countries with transitional economies.
Despite skepticism of some political scientists, Russia and the West have quite a few spheres of potential cooperation.
As usual, the task of countering international terrorism comes first on the list of priorities. Both Russia and the West are interesting in limiting the expansion of radical Islam in the CIS region. Exchange of intelligence data, joint training of regional security forces, and help in the conduct of military reforms would prevent the appearance of terrorist enclaves in the CIS countries.
A common approach to stopping the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe via Central Asia may also produce important results. Moscow, Washington, and Brussels are equally intolerant of drug trafficking but they still have not shut these channels of heroine delivery. In the meantime, stability of the CIS region directly depends on an ability to put an end to drug trafficking, the main source of funds for radical and terrorist groups.
Russia and the West could also cooperate in resisting illegal immigration that is often criminalized. A flood of illegal immigrants from the territory of the former U.S.S.R., through weaker European borders is a formidable threat. Illicit labor immigration from the CIS to Europe largely comes from those countries that had "color revolutions." A tough control over this flood would help protect the younger generations in Western Europe from nihilist and anarchy attitudes of their "revolutionary age mates" in the CIS.
Russia and the West, primarily the EU, could also cooperate in settling conflicts on the territory of the former U.S.S.R. For instance, Moscow does not want to give up its status of a peacekeeper in Transdnestr. Indeed, Russia stopped the military phase of the local conflict. But Russian experts are coming to the conclusion that considering the crawling "europeization" of this conflict, Moscow would make life easier for itself by sharing with the EU responsibility for stability in the region.
In any event, both Russia and the West stand to gain much more from a dialog on CIS problems than secret attempts to divide the spheres of influence.
