Moscow and Washington's honeymoon impressive but could be short lived
MOSCOW, Sept 30 (AFP) -
Moscow may have signaled its readiness to cooperate closely with
Washington
in fighting terrorism, but both capitals nonetheless retain numerous
points
of contention that have still not been sorted out, analysts in Moscow
said.
"All that is holding us (Moscow and Washington) together is a common
enemy.
We have a consensus only because it regards questions where it is hard
to
disagree," said Moscow-based defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
The rapprochement between Russia and the United States since the
September 11
suicide attacks in New York and Washington, and particularly over the
past
week, has nevertheless been spectacular.
In an unexpected move, Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled on
September
24 an unprecedented willingness to work hand in hand with Washington,
saying
Russia could take part in "international seek and rescue missions" in
Afghanistan, a country against which the United States is considering
launching strikes.
Washington accuses Afghanistan, mostly controled by the Taliban Islamist
regime, of harboring Osama bin Laden, whom it suspects of having
masterminded
the attacks.
Putin further announced he was prepared to open Russia's airspace to
some US
flights headed for Afghanistan.
He added that all other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent
States
(CIS) -- a loose organization uniting all former Soviet republics minus
the
three Baltic states -- had made a similar decision.
And the White House seemed to reciprocate Moscow's moves Wednesday as
its
spokesman Ari Fleisher called on Chechen separatists to "immediately and
unconditionally cut all contacts with international terrorist groups
such as
Osama bin Laden and (his) al-Qaeda organization," thus echoing a claim
long
made by Russia.
This new climate between Moscow and Washington "could lead to the
settlement
of pending differences," said an analyst with the Carnegie foundation in
Moscow, Alexander Pikayev.
He said that the United States might delay walking out of the 1972 Anti
Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which bars it from building an
anti-missile
shield, a step Moscow strenuously objects to.
Prior to September 11, Washington had announced it was ready to drop the
ABM
in the relatively near future, even if an agreement over this could not
be
reached with Russia.
However, Pikayev went on, this new cooperation mood "is not
irreversible."
The "first test" will come when Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani
visits
Moscow from Monday to Friday, Felgenhauer said.
The question will be whether Washington "asks Moscow once more not to
sell
arms to Iran," as it has done several times before September 11, or
whether
it chooses not to anger Russia, he added.
Yury Korgonyuk, an analyst with the Moscow-based INDEM foundation,
thought
that the new alliance between Moscow and Washington would not
necessarily
last very long.
"Russia and the United States were allied during World War II, but that
does
not mean their alliance remained" after the war was over, he said.
In fact, the Izvestya daily recently wrote, "Moscow and Washington's
honeymoon based on their hatred of terrorism is over."
The United States has let it be known that it will insist on a political
solution in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and on the respect of
human
rights there, whatever it does in Afghanistan, the daily wrote.
But, Felgenhauer warned, "harmonious relations between Russia and the
West
will depend on the West's ability to think in terms of realpolitik,
which
means tolerating Russian war crimes in Chechnya."
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