Two ball game

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “played along” with Russia by opposing new US defense initiatives. Nevertheless, the UN Human Rights Commission, chaired by Nepalese Shambu Ram Simkhada (pictured), issued a tough resolution on Chechnya (Photo: AP )

The ball is in your court. The ball is in your court. This English expression, which can also be translated as “Your pitch,” comes to mind time after time in connection with the latest stories from Russian-American relations. It is no coincidence, apparently, that the President of the Russian Federation recently gave his version of this aphorism. “The puck is now on the American side,” he said in connection with the ratification of New START, giving priority to national sports.

However, the football players were the first to respond to the president’s call. The friendly football match between the Russian and US national teams at the Dynamo stadium, which ended in the victory of the Russian team with a score of 2:0, evoked many associations with events on other geopolitical fields. We won the football game with a clean sheet, although, according to the general opinion of sports commentators, we played poorly. It was just luck.

We are trying to play more carefully in foreign policy. We ratified the START II Treaty, narrowing Washington's room for maneuver in resolving the issue of a new missile defense system, the fate of which remains unclear. Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week made a statement that sounded like it was written by someone from Smolensk Square: “Growing pressure from some states to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems poses a threat to the 1972 ABM Treaty, the cornerstone of strategic stability.” “The ball is definitely in our court,” US State Department spokesman James Rubin was forced to admit at a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

Indeed, in the “geopolitical football” with Washington, in which the ball is the ABM Treaty, Russia is clearly seizing the initiative. But in another game, where the parties exchange angry remarks about Chechnya, everything happens the other way around. Here, after the “big bath” at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, which did not make the right impression on the Russian authorities, but on the contrary, only embittered them even more, we continue to miss goals. And the problem of Chechnya dispels the illusion that, by adhering to the same hard line, we will be able to finally convince the West of the advantages of Putin’s new style of diplomacy, which is so much talked about today.

25:7 - with this score last week Russia lost in Geneva at the UN Commission on Human Rights during the vote on a draft resolution condemning “large-scale violations of human rights, including in filtration camps” in Chechnya. The resolution was approved by 25 countries with 7 against (19 abstained). The UN "Geneva Bath" turned out to be hotter than the Strasbourg one. This document, submitted to the commission by the European Union and the United States, is replete with extremely harsh expressions: “continued use of violence,” “indiscriminate” actions of the Russian military, etc. The resolution urgently calls on Russia to station representatives of the UN, the Council of Europe and the OSCE in Chechnya.

It is significant that, in addition to Russia itself, only six countries voted against the resolution - China, India, Sri Lanka, Cuba, Madagascar and the Republic of Congo. The logic of the Chinese is clear - they have never particularly cared about human rights, and they will do the same as Russia if something similar starts to happen, say, in Tibet or in the Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. India is haunted by the ghost of its own “Chechnya” in Kashmir, and Sri Lanka on the Jaffna Peninsula, where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are fighting. Both Indians and Sri Lankans are “wiping out” their separatists in the toilet. By the way, it’s been more than a decade now, but everything has been unsuccessful. The Cubans probably voted simply to spite the Americans. One can only guess about the voting motives of Madagascar and the Republic of Congo.

These, in fact, are all our allies in the Chechen issue. There are no others and there never will be. Let us recall that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, recently returned from Chechnya. The Geneva resolution was adopted after the commission discussed its report. The position of the West is becoming even more consistent and consolidated. Previously, only legislators and individual parties condemned us, which allowed many commentators in Russia to say with regret that “hot heads” had gained the upper hand at the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg, and the Council of Europe would not leave us anywhere. Now, apparently, this explanation no longer works. The vote in Geneva showed that the Russian position does not find understanding not only of the legislative, but also of the executive power of those states that make world politics. The same James Rubin, who recognized the vulnerability of the American position on the ABM Treaty, spoke in a different tone when it came to Chechnya. He called the disagreements between the Russian Federation and the United States on the Chechen issue fundamental and said that Russia was generally isolated.

Moscow's response to the UN Geneva resolution followed immediately and was no less harsh. In a statement, Igor Ivanov’s department refers to it as “an attempt to create a mechanism for intervention” in the internal affairs of Russia. Members of the Russian delegation in Geneva demonstrate their conviction that this is a purely political action, which is dictated not at all by concern for human rights, but solely by opportunistic considerations. Diplomats in Moscow are ready to go further: they say the resolution on Chechnya was adopted in order to deprive Russia of the disarmament trump cards that it received after ratifying START-2. They say that when losing a match for ABM, the White House throws a smoke bomb onto the field to divert attention from the successes of Putin’s diplomacy.

One can, however, just as well assume the opposite: it was we, losing the “match in Chechnya,” who placed a smoke bomb on the field in the form of the unexpectedly ratified START-2.

Be that as it may, there is a lot of smoke - more, in any case, than games. Football referees in such a situation usually interrupt the match and then start again, often on a different field. Of course, the players and fans of each team loudly complain that their victory was stolen from them. Diplomats and politicians, of course, are more restrained people: from one side or the other of the court they serve new balls - excuse me, new initiatives.