RUSSIAN MEDIA: "LUKASHENKA IS NOT OF INTEREST"
Charter 97
June 5 2008
Belarus
An article under this title was published today in Russian newspaper
"Vedomosti." The case is in the informal CIS summit, where Dmitry
Medvedev is to have bilateral meetings with his colleagues.
On Thursday Dmitry Medvedev is to visit Berlin On Thursday, and he
is to spend Friday and Saturday at the informal CIS summit in the
frames of the XII St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
The economic themes wil be highlighted, president’s aide Sergei
Prikhodko said. All 11 CIS leaders are to come. Medvedev is scheduled
to meet with all of them except for Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Medvedev had a meeting with Nazarbayev on 22 May during his visit to
Astana. A question on a meeting with Lukashenka is being considered,
a source from the Kremlin said: in any case the presidents will have
a conversation at the session and during the dinner. Moreover, Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin met with Lukashenka on 23 May.
Lukashenka is trying to establish contacts with the Kremlin
administration, Minsk politologist Yaraslau Ramanchuk is sure, but
Moscow has thrown him into a dilemma: either he imposes common ruble
or gas prices will grow from 2009, and conditions of oil delivering
will be severed.
Medvedev will have the most difficult talks with Ukrainian and Georgian
leaders, politologist Fedor Lukyanov thinks. Medvedev sounded the
keynote for a conversation with Kyiv. In late May, after Kyiv’s
statements on unwillingness to prolong presence of Russian Black Sea
fleet in Sevastopol, the Russian president phoned to president Viktor
Yushchenko and cautioned him against unilateral decisions. According
to Aleksandr Chaly, Deputy Head of Ukrainian Pesident’s Secretariat,
an issue of Ukraine’s NATO entry will be discussed besides the fleet.
The Kremlin expects the talks with Georgian President Mikhael
Saakashvili to be "serious, but calm," a source from the Kremlin
says. Saakashvili said he worried about the situation in Abkhazia.
A conflict with Georgia is dangerous , but not deathful, while
problems with Ukraine are more large-scale, because they are caused
by the attempts of Kyiv to change the geopolitical orientation,
Lukyanov concluded.
Medvedev is to discuss Pridnestrovyewith Moldavian President
Vladimir Voronin, and situation in Caucasus and Nagorno-Karabakh with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Though the issue of Karabakh won’t
be a central theme in the talks with Armenian leader Serzh Sarkisian,
a Kremlin official says.
The talks with the Turkmenian President will be devoted to
gas, politologist Andrei Grozin suggests. Agreements on gas with
Turkmenistan weren’t failed, a source from the Kremlin emphasised. But
Medvedev will have to discuss from what reserves the Turkmens will
provide enhanced export commitments, Grozin added.