MOSCOW, October 18 (RIA Novosti) Russian military chief says Putin is wrong about INF treaty/ Race for Antarctic shelf kicks off/ Busted US-Indian nuclear deal may affect Russia/ U.S. business executive heads first private Russian oil pipeline/ Russian company fails in Turkey bid for ethnic reasons
Gazeta
Russian military chief says Putin is wrong about INF treaty
Yury Baluyevsky, chief of Russia's General Staff, yesterday barged into President Vladimir Putin's diplomatic game of global security, also involving the Russian-American treaty on the liquidation of intermediate-range missiles (the INF treaty).
The general warned the termination of the treaty would have irreversible consequences.
Some experts said Baluyevsky and the president are playing a team game. Others argued that the chief of the General Staff can say anything now because he will retire soon.
Five days ago, Putin openly hinted during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Russia might withdraw from the INF treaty unless it was expanded to impose restrictions on other countries as well.
Yesterday his chief of staff spoke up in defense of the treaty. "Breaking this treaty could lead to irreversible consequences, when a large number of countries will equip missiles with high-precision warheads and more exotic types of WMD," Baluyevsky said. "This is what we don't need."
Shortly after Putin delivered his incendiary speech at the Munich security conference in February - in which he did not mention intermediate-range missiles, Baluyevsky said that Russia could reply to the deployment of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in Europe by revising the system of international treaties on nuclear deterrence.
Echoing his boss, Sergei Ivanov, who was Russia's defense minister then, Baluyevsky mentioned the possibility of withdrawing from the INF treaty.
In October, Putin broadly hinted to Rice and Gates at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow that the INF treaty could be used as "an asymmetrical reply" to the U.S. ABM plans in Europe.
This time Baluyevsky hurried to "narrow" the president's hint.
Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Military Forecasting Center at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, said: "I doubt that a high-ranking leader, such as the chief of the General Staff, would make comments without first agreeing them with his bosses. This is a team, not personal, game played against the West."
Sources of the daily Gazeta in the Defense Ministry explain Baluyevsky's sortie by the internal situation in the ministry. "Baluyevsky is a respected combat general popular in the army," a source said. "Generals wanted him to be defense minister after Sergei Ivanov vacated the post."
The newspaper's sources believe that the chief of staff knows about his imminent resignation, which is why he openly pointed to shortcomings in Putin's analysis of the INF treaty.
Vremya Novostei, Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Race for Antarctic shelf kicks off
News has broken that the British government intends to claim sovereign rights over an extensive area in the Antarctic covering a million square kilometers. Experts said that during a recent British expedition scientists were able to discover large deposits of gas, oil and mineral resources within a 350-mile zone in the South Atlantic. Analysts said the motivation for such determined steps to develop the Antarctic partly came from Russia's claims to Arctic areas and a world rush for resources.
In expert opinion, its claims to the Antarctic could create serious problems for Britain, which in 1959, among other countries, signed the Antarctic Treaty, which said there must be no land redivision at the South Pole.
Anatoly Kolodkin, president of the Russian Association of International Law, found the trend of making claims to the Antarctic "highly dangerous" and Britain's intention to stake sovereign rights over an extensive chunk of that unique region "illegitimate."
Set to expire in 2048, the Antarctic Convention bans exploration and mining of minerals on the sixth continent and in its coastal waters. The ban does not cover strictly research activities. Besides, the forty countries that signed the agreement pledged to temporarily suspend disputes over the ownership of any section in the zone south of the 60th parallel.
According to specialists, current mining methods do not lend themselves to depths at which oil and gas deposits occur off the Antarctic. But world powers have been engaged in unacknowledged rivalry for the right to "stake up" as many parcels of land as possible and look for historical and geological reasons for their rights to the Antarctic for many a year now.
Indian scientists, for example, who are setting up their second research station there, recall that more than 100 million years ago part of contemporary India south of the Himalayas and the continental plate of Eastern Antarctica made up one continent - Gondwana. Aside from India, now China and South Korea, as well as Belgium and Estonia, have in recent years set their sights on stations around the South Pole.
Russia, as well as reopening its Antarctic stations, is also using "marking" techniques. Last year Mikhail Fradkov, a former prime minister, gave Russian names to a few nameless peaks on the white continent.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Busted US-Indian nuclear deal may affect Russia
The US-Indian agreement on nuclear cooperation is under threat. Pressed by the country's left-wing parties, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to sacrifice this large-scale foreign policy project in order to prevent earlier elections. As they are saying in India now, "the nuclear deal has been put on hold." Experts say that this affects Russia's interests, too.
Apart from achieving internal political consensus on the deal, India should sign an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on guarantees and exact the Nuclear Suppliers Group's compliance to lift restrictions on supplies of nuclear technologies to India. The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was set up in 1974 to restrict exports of nuclear materials and technologies, primarily to India. The group does not permit its members to supply dual use commodities to countries which are not parties to the non-proliferation treaty.
Formerly, the group forced France to refuse to supply nuclear fuel for the Indian Tarapur nuclear power plant. Allegedly, Russia managed to deliver uranium to Tarapur only in 2006, after coordinating the issue with the United States. Washington enjoys considerable influence in NSG, therefore in the event of the failure of its nuclear deal with New Delhi, the issue of lifting restrictions for NSG members to cooperate with India may be shelved for an indefinite period of time.
So far, the main project in Russian-Indian nuclear cooperation has been the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (two power units with a total capacity of 2000 MW). This year, Moscow and New Delhi signed a memorandum of intent to build four more power units for Kudankulam. According to Andrei Cherkasenko, chairman of the board of directors of Russia's Atompromresursy (supplier of equipment to enterprises of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency), the document also allows Russia to build reactors on new sites.
According to Cherkasenko, India was not going to make its entire nuclear program dependent on a single supplier. "Russia may hope to get 25% to 30% of the Indian nuclear power market and build about ten reactors. The cost of a power unit is $2.5-$3 billion now," he said. He is convinced that the US-Indian deal will finally be signed. However, in order to develop nuclear cooperation with India, Moscow wants New Delhi to settle all issues with the IAEA and NSG.
Vedomosti
U.S. business executive heads first private Russian oil pipeline
The shareholders of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), the main route for exporting oil from the Tengiz deposit in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian republic, have elected its board for the first time. Russia received five seats out of 22.
A source close to U.S. oil giant Chevron said Andrew McGraham, Vice-President of the Eurasia Business Unit at Moscow-based Chevron Neftegaz Inc., has been appointed CPC board chairman. An Industry and Energy Ministry official called this a landmark decision. And McGraham declined to elaborate.
The board is needed to manage the CPC more effectively and to settle all routine issues that had previously been discussed at general shareholders' meetings.
Under the new CPC regulations, the new position does not give Chevron the final say or the right to veto any decision, a source told the paper.
From 2002 till 2006, oil industry veteran and Chevron Neftegaz president Ian MacDonald headed the CPC and was subsequently replaced by Russia's Vladimir Razdukhov.
After that, Moscow and Chevron, which was acting on behalf of all private shareholders, became divided on pipeline capacity, tariffs and corporate financial policies.
In 1996, CPC shareholders signed an agreement on swelling the pipeline's annual capacity to 67 million metric tons. However, the Russian government refused to comply for a decade, demanding lower rates on CPC loans and higher oil-pumping tariffs.
Private shareholders found this unprofitable; and the situation changed only after pipeline monopoly Transneft started managing a 24% CPC stake in line with the Russian president's decree.
This September, CPC shareholders met Moscow halfway and agreed to reduce loan rates, to raise tariffs and to expand the pipeline network.
Artyom Konchin, an analyst at the ATON investment group, said private shareholders had agreed to compromise after a Chevron CPC representative was elected board chairman.
Artur Rokhlin, a partner with the Moscow Region Bar Association's law firm YUST, said the post spelled few real advantages for Chevron, unless the regulations stipulated any special privileges for the board chairman.
Rokhlin said the board chairman, who was responsible for setting the agenda, could delay the examination of any specific issue and therefore create problems for Moscow.
Kommersant
Russian company fails in Turkey bid for ethnic reasons
Turkey has denied Transcentral Asia Petrochemical Holding, established by Russian investment company Troika Dialog in Kazakhstan, the right to buy a 51% stake in Petkim, the leading Turkish petrochemical company.
It opted instead for the joint bid by companies from Turkey, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia, even though they offered $10 million less.
Although the Turkish authorities have not explained their reasons, the local media believe the problem is that Troika Dialog's main beneficiary, Ruben Vardanyan, is Armenian by birth.
Transcentral Asia Petrochemical Holding, a consortium set up by Troika Capital Partners (TCP, an affiliated company of Troika Dialog) and Kazakhstan's industrial production group Eurasia and oil producer Caspi Neft, won the auction held to sell the stake in Petkim last summer, offering $2.05 billion.
Yesterday the Turkish privatization authority said it had recommended the council to rule in favor of another bidder, a consortium between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, Turkish Turcas Petrol, and Saudi Injaz OGG.
Batu Aksoy, a director with Turcas, told the Russian business daily Kommersant that the auction had not been cancelled, but "the privatization authority has decided to assign the Petkim shares to the second largest bidder."
Experts said immediately after the auction that the Russian-Kazakh consortium could have problems because of "a mixed attitude to Russian capital in Turkey," where preference is often given to local investors. Besides, Turkish trade unions are very strong and have a negative attitude to privatization. The staff at Petkim also protested against the sale of the stake.
Quite a few major deals to sell Turkish assets to foreign companies, including some involving Russian companies, have fallen through. But in this particular case the reason is the Armenian origin of the head and main beneficiary of Troika Dialog.
According to the Turkish media, after the auction Transcentral Asia Petrochemical Holding was presented as a consortium of Kazakh and Russian investors, but the public was outraged by a rumor that it is supported by the Armenian diaspora. The Turkish media believe that Vardanyan is a member and financier of the Armenian lobby.
Hakan Aksoy, head of the Russian-Turkish research center, said about the public outcry: "An Armenian investor attempted to come to Turkey at a time when the United States was considering recognizing the massacre of Armenians [by Ottoman Turks in 1915] as genocide."
He said the Turks know that the decision to deny victory to Troika was taken for political reasons, rather than because of alleged violations by the bidder.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.
