Post-communist Eastern Europe and the Middle East: the burden of history and new political realities.

The collapse of the communist system in Eastern Europe and the emergence of a completely new geopolitical and social reality which is strikingly different from its forerunner, probably represented the most important breakthrough in modern world history, by far exceeding the limitations of their regional boundaries and the relatively brief period of time. However, the results for almost all Third World nations were unfortunately, predominantly negative,(1) even though their direct impact on and the importance for those nations varied greatly, depending on the strength and character of their links with the post-Communist region and the available option(s) of other alliances and directions of development. For a number of reasons to be discussed later, the impact of the historic events in Eastern Europe on the situation in the Middle East-particularly in the Arab World and Israel-has been especially dramatic and important, and some of the future consequences are still difficult to predict. In discussing the relations of post-Communist Eastern Europe with the Middle East, I would like to focus on three different and yet strictly interwoven issues:

I. The role of the Soviet bloc countries in the Middle East and the importance of its collapse for the region.

II. Russia and its former Eastern European allies, and the Middle East-the burden of the past and the search for new prospects in the region.

III. The Middle Eastern policies of Yeltsin's Russia - its basic features and directions.

At the very end of this essay, I would like to take a look at Eastern European-Middle Eastern relations from the general historical and geopolitical points of view and to indicate some repeated patterns of the mutual relations between various parts of both regions which, despite all their great differences and frequent mutual hostilities, also seem to have quite a few similarities in their cultures and political history.

THE ROLE OF THE SOVIET BLOC COUNTRIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ITS COLLAPSE FOR THE REGION

The collapse of the Soviet bloc might be seen as one of the greatest blows to the interests and aspirations of all Third World countries. The collapse first of all caused the disappearance of the bipolar international structures which, in spite of all their inherent risks and inadequacies, nevertheless secured a global balance of power and provided smaller and/or weaker states with a freedom to maneuver and the opportunity to defend their own interests. The more radical regimes in the developing countries have now lost their mighty protector and source of military and economic aid and assistance. In the new situation nothing now seems to be able to restrain the power of the only remaining superpower, the U.S.A. and the economic forces of the global market and the international financial institutions which are supported by it.

Because of the special geographical proximity and well established historical links between Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the impact of the changes was particularly important and noticeable in the Middle Eastern region at large from Noah Africa to the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. It is useful to be reminded here that the southern tier of the former Soviet bloc countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia and even parts of Hungary and Ukraine had for centuries been part of the Ottoman Empire, just as the Arab World had been. The historical Ottoman, and at least the partly Muslim background of countries such as Yugoslavia and Albania which were not Soviet allies but still socialist and anti-Western, was even stronger. The northern tier of the former Soviet bloc countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the G.D.R. had far fewer historical connections with the Middle East, but as a part of the socialist camp did not deviate greatly in their policies from those of the other members and basically followed the Soviet leadership without any challenge. Russian links with the Middle East and the Islamic World at large have been unusually deep-rooted and long-lasting. Located on the Eurasian lowland, Russia has always been a territory having a "natural coexistence, mutual influence and interaction between the Eastern Slavic and Turkish, Caucasian and Persian peoples" which, as many Russian scholars argue, "created the foundation for a positive relationship between Russians and Muslims."(2)

Russia's relations with the Arab World have always been particularly friendly. The origins of the Russian diplomatic, religious and commercial presence can be traced back as far as the early medieval period of Kievan Rus when numerous Russian pilgrims, merchants and soldiers had already found their way into the region. One of them, Father Superior Daniel, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1104-1107 and wrote an original and very interesting account of it.(3) Also, in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, the Russian Empire was not involved in the colonial carve-up of the area and its "moral credentials among the Arabs, both on the official and popular level were considerably higher than the West's."(4) As early as 1901, the Emir of Kuwait applied for Moscow's protection, and some other Arab rulers also looked for communication, trade and cultural links with the Russian Empire.(5) Tsarist Russia had generally supported the renaissance of the local Christian Orthodox communities, always siding with the indigenous Arab elements against both the Turkish authorities and the high clergy, who were often of Greek origin and inclined to disregard the vital interests of their faithful.(6)

The Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society established in the second part of the nineteenth century founded schools, hospitals and hostels there and provided substantial material aid to the indigenous population, thus earning their gratitude and general sympathy.(7) After the October 1917 Revolution, the victorious Bolsheviks inherited a strong base to build on and were able to add a new ideological dimension to it. The Communist revolutionary appeal was at that time enthusiastically greeted by many Muslim and non-Muslim peoples of the Middle East and Asia who saw in it a historic chance for the fulfillment of their social and national aspirations which had long been suppressed by the Western Powers' domination. The Bolsheviks condemned their underhanded diplomacy toward the Muslim countries and published a number of secret agreements from the archives of Imperial Russia's Foreign Ministry, including the famous Sykes-Picot Agreement, which particularly compromised France and Britain among the Arab population of the Middle East. Going even further, the Soviet government's appeal of 20 December 1917 to "All the Working Muslims of Russia and the East", which was signed by Lenin himself, officially declared that "the Arabs as well as all Muslims had the right to be masters of their countries and to decide their own destinies as they wished."(8) In 1920 the Bolshevik government consequently refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the British-mandated rule in Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan, and of France in Syria and Lebanon. The very concept of the mandate system was also repudiated by the egalitarian Treaties of Friendship and Brotherhood concluded in 1921 by Soviet Russia and the Muslim countries of Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran. The USSR was the first country to establish full diplomatic relations with Hijaz (after 1932 the name was changed to Saudi Arabia) and in 1926 recognized an independent Yemen.(9) Although the Stalinist period and Stalin's own denial of the progressive values of the national liberation movements had put a long freeze on further Soviet Middle Eastern involvement, by the mid 1950s, Khrushchev's rise to power and the Egyptian President, Gamel Abdul Nasser's political turnabout opened a new period of the USSR's political and military presence in the region.(10)

During the following decades up to the second half of the 1980s, the USSR and her Eastern European allies supported the Arab people's cause, and in practice, all fronts of their national liberation straggle towards economic and social development. Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Libya, South Yemen and, last but not least, the most difficult clients to protect-the Palestinians-had all in their own time received generous diplomatic, economic and even military help from the Soviet bloc countries which, in addition, often protected them in the international arena against threats of direct Western intervention and annihilation. The relations between the Soviet-led Eastern European counties and the Arabs consequently had multifaceted political, military, economic and cultural dimensions and the Soviet leaders did not have economic benefits in mind, but rather the goal of winning Arab support for their regional and global policy.

In the period 1955-1973 only, the USSR provided Egypt with military aid, to the tune of over three billion dollars,(11) and the volume of its trade with the Arab World rose from $50 million in 1956 to 4.48 billion in 1981.(12) Soviet specialists built the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Euphrates Dam in Syria, and helped in the construction of numerous other projects at a time when many thousands of Arab students completed their cost-free university education in Eastern Europe.(13) However, even at the peak of Soviet Middle Eastern involvement and that of their allies, there were some serious limitations to the scale of their engagement and the effectiveness of their influence. Despite its apparent increase, the economic exchange of the Soviet bloc countries with the Arab world was still, in global terms, relatively negligible and much less attractive to the mainly Western-oriented Arab elite. In 1973 at the height of their influence the USSR and its Eastern European allies accounted for only 3.7% of the Arab countries' exports, compared with 47.9% for the European Union, 12% for Japan, and 5.2% for the United States, and only 7.7% of Arab imports compared with 42.3% in the case of the European Union, 10.4% for the U.S. and 7.3% for Japan.(14)

The class structure of Arab societies and the Western cultural influences which were still predominant among their elite, prevented the Soviets from getting a firm foothold there and, as the history of Egyptian-Soviet relations under Sadat would abundantly prove, made them susceptible to the vagaries of local Arab politics. However, the most important limitation was probably the fact that the Soviet's Middle Eastern policy had always been subordinated to their global outlook and requirements. The USSR had never withdrawn its recognition of Israel and had never provided its Arab protegees with its most sophisticated weapons which they had desired.(15) The perestroika period which started after Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985, brought to Soviet politics a completely new outlook and new directions. Following the so-called "new political thinking", and trying both to bring to an end the Cold War with the American superpower and alleviate Soviet economic problems, Gorbachev and his advisors looked for better Soviet-Israeli relations and limited the previous Soviet support for the more radical Arab regimes-especially Syria, Iraq and Libya. Further victims of the new political line were the Palestinians, even though Soviet relations with the PLO. who represented the Palestinians, had in the past always been complex and not free from a certain noticeable ambiguity. During the Iraqi-Kuwaiti crisis in 1990-91 and the Second War in the Persian Gulf, the Soviet Union basically supported the U.S., even though at a later stage of the drama, Gorbachev's envoy, Y. Primakov, tried to conclude some form of agreement between the Iraqi government and the U.S.sponsored coalition, and to prevent its ground military attack. However, his efforts were apparently spurned by the Americans and the collapsing Soviet Union was in fact both too weak and too internally divided to take a stronger position.(16)

The political attitude of the former Soviet Eastern European allies - especially Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary-was much more pro-American and anti-Arab. When, in the fall of 1989 both the Socialist system and Soviet influence collapsed, all those countries which were now led by staunchly antiCommunist politicians of a very pro-American and neo-liberal orientation moved swiftly to the Western and pro-Israeli camp. They did not only participate in the economic sanctions against Iraq, but according to some sources their intelligence services made use of their previous knowledge of the area to provide the U.S. and Israel with valuable political and strategic help and information.(17)

At the time when in the fall of 1991 the Americans chose Moscow as their partner in the Middle Eastern peace process conceived by them, the Soviet Union was on the verge of total collapse. It was giving ground on strategic negotiating points and was ready to normalize its diplomatic links with Israel without asking in return for any Israeli concessions.(18) According to an American analyst(19) Moscow might have been motivated either simply by a desire to appease the U.S. or by a wish to cut its own costs by reducing arms supplies to Syria. It might also have been persuaded by the U.S. argument that reassuring Israel would provide a chance for her to have a more positive political attitude toward the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors in general. Whatever the causes, and probably due to all of them, as early as mid 1989 the Soviet authorities had reopened Jewish immigration to Israel, thus greatly contributing to the further transformation of the domestic Israeli and regional balance of power.(20) In October 1991 the USSR helped the U.S. to revoke the anti-Zionist U.N. Resolution,(21) and before the Madrid talks started, it finally reestablished its full diplomatic links with Israel.(22) The USSR thus came to the Middle Eastern peace talks table significantly weakened, both by its domestic turmoil and its waning position as a global and Middle Eastern superpower.(23)

The well known Russian journalist Stanislav Kondrashov then described the Soviet role in Madrid as "the last tango."(24) Another Soviet commentator, Yurii Glukhov, went even further, arguing that it would be better for the USSR to refuse to participate in the Middle East Peace Conference than to be present in a purely ceremonial role, fully submitting to American wishes.(25) The Middle Eastern developments demonstrated once again that the very nature of Soviet-American relations had changed dramatically and the collapsing Soviet Union was desperately looking for the patronage of the only remaining true superpower.(26) But even then, Moscow did not completely forget its Middle Eastern interests and its presence there was widely supported by many otherwise openly pro-American regimes in the region.

In the fall of 1990, in return for Moscow's opposition to Iraq's seizure of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia re-established its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which had been suspended since 1937, and two weeks later Bahrain followed the Saudi example.(27) Just before its end, the USSR had thus achieved an open access to all the Gulf countries-the long-term goal of Russian and Soviet Policy. In the spring of 1991 a prominent Russian scholar even argued that: "The USSR's position in the Middle East is unique today; not having fired a single shot, Moscow has in general retained its influence in the region. . . . The Middle East is the only region of the globe where our country can prove that it has still remained a great power."(28) In September 1991 Gorbachev sent Primakov to the Middle East again in order both to express his personal gratitude to the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran and Turkey for their support during the failed coup and to ask them for economic assistance for the Soviet economy. His later evaluation of the trip was quite revealing for an understanding of the political role and importance of the Soviet Union in the region. According to him, all the countries he visited "clearly did not want the disintegration of the USSR" and saw the need to preserve it as a united economic and strategic area in order to secure its power and influence. As he said to the press on 20 September 1991, "the leaders I have met want the USSR's presence in the Near and Middle East because this would preserve the balance of power. Nobody wants one superpower to maintain a monopoly position there."(29)

Moscow's role as co-chairman of the Madrid Peace Conference was welcomed although by virtually all regional actors,(30) even its real importance would only be negligible. Two months after it was convened, the Soviet Union finally disintegrated and its successor state, Russia, inherited both its close links with the region and most of its political and economic assets which were by then, however, greatly diminished. The vacuum of power in the region had thus increased even more and was subsequently quickly filled by further growth of the apparently unlimited American domination. The roles and importance of Russia and its former Eastern European allies did not, however, completely come to an end there. In fact they were going to be resumed soon even though in different directions and dimensions.

RUSSIA AND ITS FORMER EASTERN EUROPEAN ALLIES AND THE MIDDLE EAST: THE BURDEN OF THE PAST AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW PROSPECTS IN THE REGION

From the Middle Eastern perspective, the former Soviet Eastern European allies are now somewhat internally differentiated, but overall are of little political importance. The northern tier-countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary-are in the process of joining NATO and the European Union, and the ruling elite there are greatly committed to Israeli interests and American leadership. It is particularly true in the case of Poland, which wants to distance herself as much as possible from some of her previous anti-Semitic traditions and where previous hostility against the Jews is often directed against the Arabs, Muslims, or brown-skinned people in general.(31) However, the possible problem there might be, how to combine American, Israeli and other Western interests which are sometimes different or even contrasting.(32) Although after 1993/94 the political role of the European Union started to become more noticeable, its real impact is still secondary to the enormous American, or even direct Israeli influences. The more independent Middle Eastern policy of France is in Poland often publicly criticized and disliked,(33) and yet during the tenure of the left of center government from 1993 to 1997, Polish-Palestinian relations have nevertheless improved considerably. In the fall of 1996 Hanan Ashrawi came to Poland and was received by Polish officials, including the Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, and in January 1997 Polish Prime Minister Cimochowicz visited Gaza and met Yasser Arafat.(34) However, the return to power of the right wing government after the September 1997 elections was tending to bring some new changes again.(35) In February 1998 the Polish Foreign Minister, Bronislaw Geremek even declared Poland's readiness to send its armed forces in order to take part in the then-debated American action against Iraq.(36) The main reason for that, however, was the Polish government's ardent desire to get American approval for admission to NATO, and there was little social support for any eventual military involvement in the Middle East.(37) It is also necessary to remember that some Polish right wing politicians are by no means anti-Arab.(38)

The Czech Republic's policy towards the Middle East seems more open and nuance, probably mainly because of the Czechs' well-established economic links with the region. Some role might also be played here by the Czech President, V. Havel, who is personally quite balanced and free from anti-Arab prejudices.(39) Slovakia is still internally too weak and internationally too inexperienced to demonstrate any real Middle Eastern interests and the same is true about almost all the post-Soviet republics including even those whose populations are mainly Muslim in background. Some exceptions might eventually be Ukraine, which is the strongest post-Soviet state after Russia and which demonstrates marked ambitions for an independent foreign policy, and Belorus, whose current pariah state-status makes her naturally closer to the Middle Eastern states, producing a similar situation to that of Iran and Syria.(40) Ukraine has already tried several times to develop close economic cooperation with Iran, but due to American pressures these efforts have not been successful. However, it is still a possibility that due to its geopolitical location close to the Middle Eastern region and certain apparent cultural similarities, Ukraine might play a much more important role there in the future. In marked contrast to the majority of the other post-Communist Eastern European states which, during the December 1998 Angro-American bombing of Iraq expressed their "support," or at least "understanding of the strikes,"(41) Ukraine opposed them outright.(42) On 17 December 1998, Ukraine's Roreign Ministry stated that "Ukraine, which has consistently pronounced for resolving any conflict situations by peaceful political means, cannot agree with force methods of tackling this issue" and warned against "unpredictable consequences [of the strikes] for the region and whole world."(43) Belorussian President Aleksander Lukashenko and his anti-American and populist-socialist regime look for an alliance with Iran, Syria and perhaps some other states in the Middle East, offering them arms supplies and expecting in return energy resources and political cooperation. In March 1998 President Lukashenko visited both Iran and Syria and stressed that his country "favor[ed] a multipolar world" because "only then can [an] international system be stable".(44) President Lukashenko also condemned the December 1998 U.S. and British air strikes against Iraq, calling them "bandit actions" that would never have happened had the Soviet Union existed.(45)

Hungary follows a course which is broadly similar to that of Poland, but she has relatively more economic links with the region.(46) As already mentioned, the southern tier of the former Soviet-bloc countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Moldavia, and the independently socialist former Yugoslavia and Albania, are from a cultural point of view much closer to the Middle East, and their economies are also oriented more to the East. Their difficult domestic problems and their subsequent general weakness have, however, now made them virtually unable to assume any meaningful international role whatsoever.(47)

Among all the post-Communist countries of Eurasia, Russia is now in fact the only country that is still willing and able to be an independent and meaningful player in the Middle Eastern arena. In addition to historical traditions, there are numerous other reasons why Russia, as such, independent of her actual political regime, has always been and is also now interested in the broadly understood Middle Eastern region as a whole, including Turkey, Iran, the Arab World and Israel, without even mentioning her previous dependencies (now the "Near Abroad")-the states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

The first and probably most important reason is the geographical proximity of the region to Russia's borders in the south which many Russian scholars and politicians, including Primakov himself, consider to be her "soft under-belly".(48) Any military threat from the region and the presence there of powerful, foreign armies equipped with the most modern arms are apt to cause fears and anxiety in Russia, especially in view of the fact that the Russian Federation is not now guarded by the defense perimeter installations which had been built on the former Soviet borders and that to recreate similar installations around her present borders would be virtually impossible for economic reasons.(49) According to some authors, the Russian military, who are particularly well informed about both the new strategic needs and the costs of fortifying the country's new borders, are thus claiming that it is "Moscow's historic duty to protect the outer borders of the former Soviet Union".(50) Russians are particularly concerned about the possibilities of Western control over Iraq and Iran. According to them, if such a situation happened, it would be very harmful for Russia's interests and threatening to its security.(51) A second reason and one of growing importance, is economic. In the 1970s and 1980s the USSR was undoubtedly a major arms supplier to the Arab states of the region-Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya especially-exceeding Western powers from that point of view. As late as 1988 the USSR supplied the Middle East with arms worth over $14.5 billion, against $1 2.2 billion delivered by the U.S.(52) The commercial value of that trade, however, was questionable. For instance, according to data from 1995, Syria owed Russia $11 billion for arms, and the total debt of the Arab World was calculated at $32 billion.(53) Post-Communist Russia is looking instead for profits and for that purpose wants to preserve as much as possible her control over Caspian Sea oil and its transportation to the West.(54) In that area, just as in the Middle East as a whole, "although the Cold War has ended, geopolitical competition has not"(55), and Russia has to face the growing impact of the Western Powers-especially the U.S.-which now have concrete interests in the development there of the natural gas and petroleum industry. Because of the rise in America's oil imports, from 31% of consumption in 1983 to 52% in 1996, and the political need to find an alternative "prospect of oil supplies from a region that is not Arab or Iranian,"(56) the U.S. government is now showing a marked interest in the Caspian region. Russian fears and anxiety are consequently only to be expected and in order to find a better accommodation with the new realities of the global oil market and international pressures, many Russian politicians want to look for cooperation with the Arab oil-producing countries which are geographically close to the area and which in addition have already acquired considerable experience in dealing with similar economic and political problems.(57)

Another goal of such cooperation is to find customers for Russian industry among those countries which are relatively rich but still poorly developed. Efforts in this direction are presently seen as being more urgent since previous hopes for integration into the Western-developed economy are generally now considered as largely unsuccessful and most Russian commentators are calling for a search for alternative customers and economic partners.(58) With apparent exaggeration and yet not without some reason, Israeli researchers from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University have said that: "Unlike the past economic benefit, not geopolitical strategy, is the driving force behind Russia's Middle East policy."(59) According to them, a clear indication of this was the fact that in 1997 the Russian government concluded a deal worth several hundred million dollars with Israeli Aircraft Industries to equip Russia's Ilijushin aircraft for electronic surveillance operations. The deal was finalized during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's first state visit to Moscow in March 1997. A no less valid example of the new Russian pragmatic attitude is its renewal of trade and economic cooperation with Egypt, including the important fields of electricity and energy.(60)

The third reason for Russia's Middle East involvement is cultural and religious links which, in Russia's case, are much stronger than is the case for other parts of Europe.(61) Those links might be seen as a reflection of the fact that Russia, at least in its cultural traditions, is predominantly Eastern Orthodox, but is also a Muslim country, and its Jewish community has been one of the most numerous, and in cultural terms, most active in the world. At present about 15% of the Russian population (about 20 million people) are of Muslim cultural background.(62) Although after the long period of Communist persecution, relatively few of them still practice their inherited religious traditions, they are nevertheless differentiated from the rest of society by their special social culture and from the political point of view they are both anti-Western and anti-Israeli.(63) In the view of the Deputy Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexei Tchistiakov:

The Muslims living in Russia are more numerous than in some Muslim countries. The impact of 'Middle East Islam' has already made itself felt. The existence of a large Jewish community in Russia and numerous emigrants from [there] in Israel draws the situation in the Middle East and Russia closer together, strengthening their interconnection. There is also reason to forecast a stronger role for Orthodoxy in relations between Russia and the Middle East.(64)

Since the early 1990s Israel is not only Russia's major trading partner, second after Turkey in the Middle East, but over 800,000 Israeli citizens who came from the former USSR have developed an unusually strong cultural bond between the two nations.(65) Israel is in fact the place of the biggest Russian diaspora outside the former Soviet Union and the new Israeli political party made up primarily of Russian immigrants (Yisrael B'Alyah) wants to promote further development of Russian-Israeli relations. This party, which is led by the famous former Soviet dissident, Nathan Sharansky, is now a part of the ruling coalition.

In addition to all these traditional ethnic and religious connections, Russia's cultural links with the region might also be seen as an outcome of its Eurasian character-acceptance of which is increasingly popular in Russian society, and since 1993 has found repercussion even in President Yeltsin's official pronouncements.(66) In fact a major shift in the direction of the Eurasian orientation which has been noticeable since 1993 has coincided in time with changes in Russia's new policy toward the Middle East. Although in view of some observers Russia's geopolitical position "has prompted the formulation of Eurasianism as an ideology of interaction and integration between the cultures,"(67) Eurasian ideas "may subsequently serve as an ideological basis for its future foreign policy".(68) However, the final shape and international role of that policy, just like its Middle Eastern implications, are still far from certain and subject to volatile changes and intrinsic development. Although Eurasianists want to stress Russia's distinctive national interests based on "its unique geographical and historical position straddling Europe and Asia",(69) they are nevertheless not necessarily anti-Western. Their real goal is rather to preserve the country's freedom of action and to defend its interests even when this produces some discomfort in the United States or other Western countries.(70)

Since its very beginning in December 1991, up to the first months of 1998, post-Soviet Russian foreign policy has nevertheless undergone substantial transformations and some of its goals and directions might now be discerned and analyzed.

Compared with the Soviet period, its first and most striking feature is its weakness. Despite its still enormous territory, in 1992 Russia's population numbered only about 50% of the previous Soviet population, and its economic potential has also been reduced by more than 30%.(71) The political and military implications of this were even stronger because of the total loss of influence over its former Eastern European allies and the Baltic states, and the continuing economic and social decline. For instance, in 1995, in comparison with the 1990 figure, the GNP of Russia itself amounted to only 62%, and similar figures for many of the other former Soviet republics were even lower.(72) As a result of the collapse of the USSR and the ensuing unprecedented economic crisis in 1995, Russia's GNP was more than ten times smaller than that of the U.S.A., and in 1996 it dropped 7% more.(73) As a Russian scholar admits: "Now it is getting clear that the Cold War ended by a victory of one side-the U.S.A and the total collapse of the other-the USSR".(74) Since the new economic crisis in August 1998, the Russian average

per capita income has decreased again from $160 U.S. to $50 U.S. per month and the cost of imported goods has risen 3.5 times compared with July 1998.(75) The present-day economic crisis in Russia and the population's misery are shocking and staggering, even in view of the long and tragic history of this great country.

What was also important in the 1992-94 period was that the people who surrounded Yeltsin were mainly of neo-Liberal and occidentalist orientation. They wanted to reject the Soviet heritage as much as possible and as the first Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev put it, to join the "civilized world".(76)

Behind this pro-Western orientation also lay widely shared expectations for generous economic help from the U.S. and its allies, and their recognition of Russian interests in the former Soviet bloc area.(77) Due to both the weakness of the country and the political attitude of its leadership, the Russian foreign policy of the first two-year period, with the partial exception of Bosnia and Iran, was in general quite pro-American and avoided any confrontational approach or even following an original direction. It participated fully in the sanctions against Iraq and Libya and enthusiastically supported the Arab-Israeli peace process which was sponsored by the Americans.(78) At that time some voices were even heard saying that the Middle East as a whole is outside the range of Russia's national security interests and overall, "Russian mass consciousness has tended to pay less attention to the region."(79)

The disappointment of their excessive hopes for Western assistance was nevertheless soon destined to cause a reaction, which was simultaneous with a new growth of nationalist and communist influences. In the fall of 1992 the acting head of Moscow's Institute of African and Arab Studies and a prominent Russian Orientalist, Alexei Vassiliev, spoke on the country's increasing disillusionment with "putting all its foreign policy eggs in one Western basket."(80) He also characterized Russian Middle Eastern policy as being in "a state of limbo".(81) By December 1992 the opposition to the pro-Atlantist foreign policy, which was symbolized by Andrei Kozyrev, started to be voiced more by the supporters of the Eurasian orientation, nationalists and communists in the Russian parliament-Duma. In early 1993, even President Yeltsin, addressing a session of the Foreign Ministry Collegium, criticized the Ministry for many errors and blunders, excessive timidity toward the West whilst allowing relations with the Third World to weaken".(82) When on 27 June 1993, the U.S. Air Force bombarded Baghdad, despite the Russian government's official approval, the Russian press was unanimous in its condemnation of the operation. "The most deplorable thing is that American piracy was justified by Russian leaders" wrote the Communist Pravda.(83) The liberal Izvestia described it as "an act of retribution which looked more like muscle-flexing" and expressed an opinion that "our multipolar and interdependent world" should not give any state "the unlimited right to act as supreme judge and bearer of the ultimate truth".84 In a similar vein, Komsomalskaya Pravda suggested that "the White House needs an enemy" and indicated that "had Saddam Hussein been killed, the U.S. would have had to find a new villain."(85)

In an expression of a growing mood of renewed self-assertion and defiance towards U.S. hegemony, by the summer of 1994 Russian officials had begun to call for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq. On 18 July 1994 a Russian representative told the U.N. Security Council that it should look into "the swiftest possible establishment of a restricted control period at the end of which it should be prepared to examine the question of lifting the oil embargo"(86)

In the period between August to December 1994, the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, was received three times in the Russian capital. In October and November of the same year, the Russian Foreign Minister himself, Andrei Kozyrev, visited Baghdad twice and addressed a session of the Iraqi Parliament. As an official outcome of his visits the Iraqi government declared its readiness to recognize Kuwait as a sovereign state and to accept its present boundaries in return for the prospect of the sanctions being lifted.

Although Minister Kozyrev was very proud of his achievements,(87) some Russian journalists immediately indicated that his diplomacy "enabled Saddam to drive a wedge between Moscow and the West".(88) The reactions of the United States and Britain to this modest success of Russian diplomacy were predictably quite negative,(89) As the Russian press then indicated, in addition to the unwanted Russian presence in the region, the Russian initiative also exposed American intentions to continue sanctions until the total collapse of the present regime took place, independently of its political concessions.(90)

Despite negative American reactions, the Russians continued their contacts with Iraq and still supported her goal of weakening or even ending the sanctions. In February 1995, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Victor Posuvaliuk, went as far as to suggest that if the U.N. Security Council did not take into account the positive actions of Iraq, the situation in the Middle East would deteriorate further.(91) Even earlier, another example of Russia's new-found self-assertiveness in the region was her reaction to the tragic Hebron massacre of Palestinians by an Israeli settler in February 1994. The Russian government, then acting for the first time independently of the Americans in the matter of the Arab-Israeli conflict, called for a second plenary meeting of Madrid's Middle East Peace Conference and asked the U.N. Security Council to give "serious attention" to the idea of international protection for the Palestinian population in the Israeli occupied territories.(92)

During the whole period in question following the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Russian arms trade and friendly relations with Iran have never been disrupted-even though because of U.S. pressures they have sometimes been submitted to serious limitations.

Although in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union many people in Russia considered Islamic fundamentalism as one of the major political threats to the country,(93) even at the peak of the Russian-American "honeymoon" in 1992, Yeltsin was ready to endanger U.S.-Russian relations by the sale of arms to Iran.(94) Although, due to American pressure in May 1995 during his summit with U.S. President Clinton he had to back down on some equipment which allegedly might have contributed to Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons, the promise to sell her other nuclear installations was still to be respected.(95) As one Russian commentator indicated then, "Russian society is arriving at a consensus on the question of national interest. The political elite will not allow the President to yield to pressure from the West"(96)

In the period from 1994-95, despite all the political and economic weaknesses of the country, and even partly because of these, Russian foreign policy, both Middle Eastern and global, was apparently turning away from its initial Euro-Atlanticist direction toward an avowedly more independent and balanced orientation. Though not socialist or revolutionary any more, Russian leaders are nevertheless now calling for a multipolar world which would not be based on U.S. hegemony(97) and they perceive similarities between Russia's international interests and those of the many Third World countries of Asia and the Middle East.(98) The main features of their new foreign policy have thus slowly emerged and crystallized, even though its definite shape and stability are still far from being certain.

In January 1996 the replacement of Andrei Kozyrev by Yevgeny Primakov-a prominent Arabist and former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Agency, as the new Foreign Minister of the country, had both real and symbolic importance and inaugurated its far more articulated and independent period of international involvement.

PRESENT RUSSIAN MIDDLE EASTERN POLICY - ITS BASIC FEATURES AND DIRECTIONS

Since he assumed his post as the new Russian Foreign Minister, Y. Primakov adopted the motto, "Russia was and remains a great power. Her foreign policy should correspond to that status".(99) The policy he introduced still has broad social support in the country and should be analyzed as a further stage in the development of post-communist Russia's global and regional role and importance.

What are its basic features and present directions?

Expressing a wide consensus among the Russian political elite and following trends which were already noticeable during the last two years before his coming to office,(100) Primakov wants to stress both the greatness and global political interests of Russia. As he stated during his first press conference as Russian Foreign Minister, Russian foreign policy should correspond to its great power status and be active "in all azimuths".(101) He has already repeatedly indicated that his policy is not intended to be anti-American and even less anti-Israeli, but rather one in which Russia will seek to "diversify" its perceptions, and that the Arab World will have a "considerable place" in it.(102) He certainly does not want, and in fact he is simply even unable to look for, a confrontation with the American superpower. However, he also does not want to continue the mainly pro-Atlantist policy of his predecessor in its previous form and meaning. Instead he wants his country to be more assertive politically in regions where the Russians think their interests lie and where they can use the remnants of their power. According to the prominent Russian political analyst Aleksei Pushkov, the policy which can be defined as the Primakov doctrine wants to "promote and advance relations with the West, while playing an independent game in other fields . . . and is essentially about interacting with the main world players without joining anyone too closely."(103) This obviously needs to include the Middle East(104) where, as in October 1997 one senior Israeli official said, after his meeting with Primakov, he "made [it] clear that he wants Russia to demonstrate its sense of being a power in the region"(105)

Between 1992 and 1997 Russia had already moved from a period of virtual submission to the U.S. on almost all Middle Eastern issues (its arms sales to Iran were here the only meaningful exception), to a position of an active and independent protagonist in the area. By the middle of 1996 there were already several pieces of proof that Russia had again started an active and independent policy toward the region.(106) They included, among other things, its renewed and increased diplomatic effort to limit or even lift the sanctions against Iraq, to independently mediate in the Israeli-Hezbollah confrontation in southern Lebanon and its reinforced links with Iran.(107) This trend was later to continue and develop much further, culminating in Russian efforts to mediate in the two new stages of the Iraqi crisis in November 1997 and January and February 1998. Primakov visited the region even before the first stage had developed in the last week of October 1997. His efforts then were directed mainly toward Arab-Israeli relations and the assertion of the Russian presence in the region. He blamed the Israeli Prime Minister, B. Netanyahu for the stagnation of the peace process and promised Yasser Arafat that Russia would recognize a Palestinian state as soon as it was proclaimed.(108) He has also suggested Russian mediation to the Israelis and Syrians and in an example of shuttle diplomacy he himself tried to narrow the gap between Damascus and Jerusalem. By the very end of his Middle Eastern visit in Cairo, in a 12-point declaration he once more stressed that: "There can be no forward movement toward a Middle East peace settlement unless each country complies with the agreements it has concluded with its neighbors" and that "negotiations on the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese tracks should proceed in parallel."(109) The same open and friendly attitude towards the Arab people characterized- Russian diplomacy in its subsequent dealings with Iraq. In November 1997 it was exactly Iraq's acceptance of Russia's proposal that allowed the return of U.N. weapons inspectors in exchange for the Russians' promise "to do their best to get the sanctions lifted"(110) which then prevented new U.S. military intervention.

At the next stage of the confrontation in early 1998, the Russian Minister of Defense, Igor Sergejev indicated to his American counterpart, W. Cohen during his visit to Moscow that the Iraqi crisis represented a threat to vital Russian national interests and it could not be approached only in the context of American-Iraqi relations.(111) President Yeltsin himself went even further, publicly stating that American President Clinton's threats of military action against Iraq might lead to a new world war.(112) President Yeltsin's pro-Iraqi stand was then strongly supported by the Russian parliament-the Duma-which called for the use by Russia of her veto against the acceptance of American military intervention by the U.N. Security Council.(113) In addition, the Duma authorized the government to repudiate the sanctions against Iraq if the U.S. really attacked.(114) During the December 1998 American and British bombing of Iraq, Russian politicians of all orientations expressed their harsh condemnation and protests. Both President B. Yeltsin and Prime Minister Y. Primakov called for an "immediate end to military action"(115) and the Duma's draft statement, which has approved by all the factions, condemned the bombing of Iraq as "an act of international terrorism"(116) and indicating that the recent actions of the U.S. and Britain "have once again demonstrated the danger that eastward NATO expansion poses for Russia",(117) recommended that the government review Russia's current and future relations with the U.S., Britain and NATO, as well as ending Russian compliance with U.N. sanctions against Iraq.(118) Communist party leader Gennodii Zyuganov called the strikes "an act of terror" and "an extreme manifestation of international gangsterism",(119) while one of his political arch foes, a powerful businessman, Boris Berezovskii told the media that "a new page was opened in a world order in which the dominant role of the U.S. in the world is absolute",(120) and that "Russia joined a number of countries that don't have to be reckoned with".(121) The strongest statement, however, came from the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Chief Administration for International Military Cooperation, Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, who, elaborating on the position of top Defense Ministry officials, said that "if Russia's opinion continues to be ignored, Moscow will be forced to alter its military and political vectors and could become the leader of the segment of the world community that objects to diktat."(122)

And yet on all of those occasions there were some clear limits to the level of Russia's independent involvement and to her denial of American pressures. Despite all her efforts toward the lifting of sanctions against Iraq, she did not, however, abolish them unilaterally and while trying to protect Iraq against new American bombardments, at the same time stressed that Iraq should comply fully with all relevant U.N. resolutions and submit to further UNSCOM disarmament inspection.(123) In February 1998 it was none other than Primakov who, at Kofi Annan's request persuaded Saddam Hussein to back down from insisting on a time limit for inspections of his "presidential sites,"(124) and in December of the same year, in spite of all the harsh protests against the U.S. and the U.K air strikes against Iraq, an "informed source in Russian diplomatic circles" told the press on 19 December 1998 that "a return to confrontation [with the U.S] is not worth it for the very reason that it is not in our interests."(125) Even earlier, on 18 December 1998, President Yeltsin's spokesman Dmitry Yakushikin stated to the media that: "There can be no talks of a rift between Russia and the U.S. and Britain . . . we mustn't slip into the rhetoric of confrontation,"(126) and Boris Berezovskii called for separation of"our emotions from a rational assessment of events."(127)

Concerning the Arab-Israeli peace process, Primakov stressed that "it is possible at the current time to obtain real success only based on the principle of 'territory in exchange for peace', the Resolutions of the UN Security Council 242 and 338, and for Lebanon Resolution 425" and that "for no reason should one state attempt to monopolize the organizational-mediator mission in the Middle East settlement".(128)

During Yasser Arafat's visit to Moscow in February 1997 Primakov subsequently assured him of "full support for the Palestinian leadership's policy on developing the negotiating process with Israel" and called for the "immediate and consistent implementation of all the provisions of the Palestinian-Israeli agreements" and the need to hold "constructive talks on the final status of the Palestinian territories as scheduled".(129) In a similar vein President Yeltsin promised Arafat that Russia "will continue to make vigorous efforts to help resolve disputes and secure peace in the region" and suggested that Moscow and Bethlehem become sister cities.(130) At the same time, however, the Russians wanted to accommodate Israeli fears and interests as much as possible. A joint statement issued at the end of Arafat's visit in February 1997 aimed to assure them that: "The Palestinians' aspirations, supported by the Russian co-sponsor [of the Middle East Peace Conference], to achieve realization of their national rights . . . including their right to self-determination, does not harm Israel's legitimate interests"(131) One month later in March 1997 the Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu was solemnly welcomed in Moscow and President Yeltsin accepted his invitation to officially visit the State of Israel as the first Russian leader in history to do so.(132) During his own visit to Israel in October 1997, Primakov also sought to calm Israeli concern about alleged Iranian armaments and told the Israeli Industry and Trade Minister Nathan Sharansky that Russia was ready to join ongoing cooperative anti-terrorist efforts in the region involving Israel, the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority.(133) Arafat's more recent visit to Moscow in October 1998 seemed to be far less promising that the one of February 1997. He lobbied for Russia's more active involvement in the Middle East peace process and asked Moscow to take part in the trilateral American-Palestinian-Israeli meeting which was then set for 15 October 1998 in Washington, D.C.(134) Yeltsin was not, however, in a position to give him a positive answer and promised only to reappoint a permanent representative to deal with Middle Eastern problems and visit the countries of the region.(135)

Strongly criticized in the U.S. and Israel, Russia's uninterrupted links with Iran are perhaps a partial exception to the general character of Russian foreign policy which aims to manifest its independence but still has to remain accommodating and conciliatory. Even in this case, however, Moscow vigorously denies repeated Israeli allegations that it is "helping Iran build nuclear weapons and long-range missiles".(136) At the press conference on 15 September 1997, Primakov strongly indicated that "Not a single project of this sort is being carried out between Russia and Iran at state level" and that, according to his information, "there has not been any leak through non-state channels that could help Iran make nuclear weapons and long-range missiles."(137)

According to the pro-Western Russian daily, Komersant Daily, other military contracts between Moscow and Teheran are worth about $1 billion and are due to be completed before 1999" and "the Russian government pledged several years ago not to conclude any new contracts",(138) Political and economic cooperation notwithstanding, Primakov nevertheless assured his Western partners that "Russia's relations with Iran or Iraq are not now, and will not become in the future, a function of NATO expansion" and they will not form a kind of "countermeasure" by Moscow.(139)

Russia's Middle Eastern politics, like its foreign policy in general, is thus now characterized both by an effort toward self-assertiveness, a continuity of its old traditions, and by considerable self-restraint caused by the present weakness and general crisis of the country. Its first and most important goal is to defend Russian national interests and to find for the country "a thought-out role . . . in a difficult, zigzag transition to a multipolar world".(140) In the new geopolitical situation, after the collapse of the USSR, Russia is physically isolated from the traditionally understood Middle East region by the presently independent republics, its former dependencies of Transcaucasia and Central Asia. According to Primakov himself, those new states have now become one of the main strategic focuses of Russia's attention, which largely determines its policy toward the states of the Middle East itself.(141)

Russian leaders are acutely aware of the power vacuum on the southern borders of the country and the possible threat of penetration of "alien forces" such as PanTurkism, Islamic fundamentalism and, most of all, Western influences.(142) In fact the American infiltration there in particular is now not just potential but quite real and is being watched with dismay by Russia.(143)

Iran has started to be considered as a strategic ally by Russia, both because of the commonly felt American threat and because of its apparently cautious and compromising policy toward the post-Soviet Muslim republics.(144) Despite its official Islamic revolutionary ideology, "Teheran's policy towards the Central Asian states and the Caucasus since the end of the Cold War has been constructive and nonideological"(145) and even contributed positively to the shaky peace in Tajikistan.(146)

During the last stage of the Iraqi-UNSCOM crisis on 25 February 1998, the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Khazzam arrived in Moscow and both parties expressed their willingness to fight a one-country hegemony in the region.(147) In spite of the still somewhat unclear language, their joint communique indicated their political orientation rather clearly: directed against the present-day U.S. domination of the Middle East. The Iranian Foreign Minister, praising the successful peacemaking mission by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also stated that this had clearly shown that "the era of domination by a single superpower that can dictate its terms to others is gone forever".(148) In addition to the new geopolitical requirements and a common stand against U.S. hegemony in the region, post-Communist Russia's policy toward nan is also generated by its search for economic profit and money. In marked contrast to Iraq and Libya, which had already greatly suffered from U.N. sanctions, and Syria which cannot repay even its old debts to Russia, Iran for a long time was able to pay in hard currency (and is still able to do so, even though to a lesser extent) and thus provides the Russian economy with a much-needed market for its arms and atomic industries.(149)

At the very peak of the Iraqi-UNSCOM crisis on 22 February 1998, Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Victor Mikhailov confirmed his country's readiness to comply with the $700 million contract to build a 1,000 MW light-water reactor at Bushehr on Iran's Arab Persian Gulf coast despite U.S. and Israeli misgivings that Iran might use the power station in order to produce nuclear weapons.(150) In November 1998 the new Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov went to Iran himself, accompanied by several State Duma Deputies and specialists in construction and operation of nuclear power plants.(151)

Because of the limited appeal of political Islam in most post-Soviet countries, with the single possible exception of Tadjikistan,(152) Iran had always been in a relatively weaker position there than Turkey in its struggle for political influence and the markets in the region. Most of the population there has traditionally belonged to the Sunni Islam of the Hanafite school and especially the urban population, which is playing a crucial role in the current changes, still remains under the strong influence of the Soviet schooling and inherited Soviet atheism.(153) Russia's friendly relations with Iran might thus also be perceived as a normal outcome of the regional balance of power and the common interests of both countries have also been demonstrated by their complete agreement on dividing and transporting Caspian oil and natural gas resources.(154)

In contrast to Iran, Turkey has never been seen by Russia as a strategic partner. In the past, Russian-Turkish relations had often been marked by bloody wars and territorial conflicts, and Turkey is now a long-standing NATO member and the ally of the U.S. Since 1991-92 Turkey has provided loans and assistance to the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, and what was no less important, Turkey represented an example of modernization and moderate secularization to many people in those areas.(155) Turkey is also involved in the "shadowy war" for control of the Caspian oil and natural gas of the region.(156) Although, in contrast to Iran, Turkey does not have direct access to the Caspian Sea and its natural resources, she can nevertheless offer an alternative route to transport the resources by pipelines to the Mediterranean and Europe with the exclusion of a Russian intermediary.(157) In spite of her geopolitical location, but due to persisting U.S. pressure, Iran cannot bid successfully and control the direction of those pipelines through its territory.

However, the most important reason for the persisting Russian mistrust of Turkey remains the fact that the Russian political elite still views her not just as one more autonomous and self-interested player in the area, but also, and perhaps even primarily, as a tool of Western penetration, especially American.(158) In fact Russian leaders do not consider Turkey itself to be a serious threat and Russian-Turkish economic relations are quickly developing.(159) The Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's visit to Moscow in September 1993 and Russian Prime Minister Chemomyrdin's visit to Turkey in October 1997 were both quite friendly and indicated a growing political understanding among the parties involved.(160) Among other issues, both countries took a similar stand against the anti-Iraqi sanctions and agreed to cooperate to lift the anti-Iraqi embargo.(161) Apparent demonstrations of that were Russian and Turkish diplomatic efforts during the new stage of the Iraqi crisis in February 1998 and the Turkish negative attitude towards the air strikes against Iraq in December 1998.(162)

Compared with the Soviet period, Russian involvement in the Arab World, and especially in the Arab-Israeli conflict, is certainly much more modest. In the Gulf Region, Russia is trying to get loans and to sell arms to the rich Gulf Cooperation Council, (GCC), the Arab monarchies.(163) Despite some still-persisting problems in Russian-Israeli relations - especially concerning the above-mentioned deals with Iran-cooperation between the two countries is not only close, but is indeed and constantly expanding. During his first state visit to Russia in March 1997, Israeli Prime Minister B. Netanyahu went as far as to declare that his country "will henceforth consider Russia a friendly state and will strive to establish with Russia relations that are as close as

Israel's ties with its No. 1 partner, the U.S."(164) In the view of many experts, the Russians are also likely to continue to be welcomed among the Arabs.(165) Russia offers them a chance to balance, or at least somewhat diminish, U.S. domination and in cooperation with some other states, such as France or even the European Union as a whole, might even force the Americans to reconsider their policy towards the region. This strategic goal was clearly expressed, even by the staunchly pro-American Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during his state visit to Russia in September 1997. As he then said:

There are two cosponsors of the Mideast settlement process - the US and Russia. The Americans came [to Egypt and the Middle East], they come all the time. But Russia, . . . it completely ignores us. . . . We are very interested in developing and maintaining good - the very best relations with Russia. Especially since we remember very well the enormous assistance given to us by the Soviet Union. We will never forget that.(166)

A similar appeal to the Russian leadership for a more active role in the region was also brought to Moscow by the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on his visit there in April 1997.(167) Although his meeting with Yeltsin was held behind closed doors, "to all appearances [nevertheless] the sides were satisfied with each other."(168) But despite all those appeals and longstanding traditions, present-day Russia cannot afford to make a truly strong stand in the area. Its economic decay and domestic social crisis have recently caused the U.N. experts to reclassify and move Russia from the category of developed down to the category of developing countries, so she is in a similar state to some countries in Asia and Africa.(169) According to a very meticulous analysis by a German scholar:

Russia can only move beyond its 1990 production level by the year 2005 under the assumption of the extremely optimistic forecast of an average economic growth of 5 per cent, without, admittedly, moving anywhere near to the level of income and production of the further expanding Western European countries.(170)

As he indicates: "An economic potential of this scale cannot provide a proper basis for an ambitious and self-confident foreign policy".(171) But although, with its GNP just about one-tenth of that of the U.S., Yeltsin's Russia cannot afford to stand up to the American superpower, its role in the region, as the Iraqi-UNSCOM confrontation of February 1998 once more demonstrated, is not without its own special meanings and importance. A "Tiersmondization" process of the country and her society(172) and, connected with it, the Eurasian ideology which is very popular there, may even contribute to an increasing feeling of Russian solidarity with the other developing nations-and further involvement in the Middle Eastern dilemmas.(173)

EASTERN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST: A GENERAL SUMMARY

Both Eastern Europe and the Middle East are regions with a long history and a highly complex present-day geopolitical environment. As we have seen above, from the point of view of the area's relations with the Middle East, Eastern Europe may be divided into three parts, each of which has a different history and a different current political orientation. Nations of the southern part of East-Central and Eastern Europe, especially the Balkan Peninsula, have for centuries been submitted to Ottoman rule, and their cultural links with and understanding of the Middle Eastern peoples are consequently strong and often articulated. Due to the weakness of these nations, however, their political, economic and international importance is currently quite negligible.(174) The northwestern part of the region has traditionally been integrated with and/or submitted to the West and the nations there are now also following Western leadership, sometimes even showing a particular lack of sympathy and understanding toward the dark-skinned Middle Easterners and their painful political and social problems. Russia, and in the future perhaps also an independent Ukraine, have a marked interest in the Middle East which is based on their entire history as Eastern Orthodox and even partly Muslim countries, their geographical proximity to the region, and the subsequent numerous political and economic links with its peoples. Although after the collapse of the USSR and the ensuing internal crisis, Russia, and even less Ukraine, cannot be truly effective in their Middle Eastern policies, their links with the region and involvement in its problems are not going to disappear. The role of Russia there is, even now, by no means negligible and few can imagine a politically stable Middle East without Russian cooperation and acceptance.(175)

Despite all their differences, the people of Eastern Europe and the Middle East have some common features: when compared with the West's relative backwardness in industrial development, the still largely traditional character of their societies, the lack of stable legal and political institutions and the consequent importance of religious beliefs and religious institutions, and a marked proneness toward populistic demagogy and authoritarian regimes. Coping with the difficult tasks of modernization and development, the peoples of both regions can learn much from each other and thus create a firm basis for better and closer relations in the future. The way to this end is certainly a long and difficult one, but some effort in this direction would be possible even now and probably quite beneficial for all the nations involved.(176)

NOTES

1. For further discussion on that point see: Mohammed EI-Doufani, "Futile interventions: Russia's disengagement from the Third World", International Journal, vol. XLIX, Autumn 1984, pp. 846-873. For the impact of the earlier stages of Gorbachev's new foreign policy on the Third World interests, see also: Zafar Iman, "The implications of perestroika for the Third World, particularly Asia", R. Kanet, D. Nutter, & T. Resler, Soviet Foreign Policy in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 217-235.

2. G. M. Yemelianova, "Russia and Islam: The history and prospects of a relationship", Asian Affairs, vol. XXVI, part III (October 1995), p. 278.

3. Alexei Chistyakov, "The Middle East in the light of geopolitical changes", International Affairs (Moscow), 1995, No. 8, p. 52.

4. Yemelianova, p. 284.

5. Asia i Afrika segodnia, 1991, No. 4, p. 50.

6. Derek Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine 18431913:Church and Politics in the Near East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969).

7. The author came across many examples of this in the region as late as the 1960s.

8. Alexei Vassiliev, Russian Policy in the Middle East From Messianism to Pragmatism (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1993, p. 2).

9. Yemelianova, p. 287.

10. Nicolai N. Petro and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Russian Foreign Policy From Empire to Nation-State (New York: Longman, 1996), p. 248. See also A. Potserebov, "On Russian-Egyptian Relations", International Affairs (Moscow), vol. 43, No. 3 (1997), p. 107 and s.

11. A. Sela, Soviet Political and Military Conduct in the Middle East (London: MacMillan Press, 1981), p. 105.

12. Tareq Y. Ismael, International Relations of the Middle East (Syracuse University Press, 1986), p. 194.

13. A. I. Vavilov, "Rossia-Syria I Liban: Polveka druzby I plodotvornovo sotrudnitzestva", Asia i Africa segodnia, No. 1, 1995, p. 29.

14. Ismael, p. 198.

15. The Egyptian President Sadat's decision to expel the majority of Soviet military advisors from Egypt in the summer of 1972 was, to a large extent, caused by Soviet refusal to provide him with the most sophisticated weaponry he had demanded. Galia Golan, Soviet Policies in the Middle East from World War II to Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 215.

16. Soviet efforts during the Iraqi-Kuwait crisis are thoroughly presented in an investigative article by Alexei Vasiliev in Komsomolskaya Pravda, 16 Feb. 1991 and a series of firsthand reports by Y. Prima kov, "Vaina, kotoroi moglo nie byt" ("The war which was to be avoided"), Pravda, 27 February 1991, pp. 1, 7; 28 February 1991, p. 5; 1 March 1991, p. 5; 2 March 1991, p. 7. For an example of American hostilities towards Soviet peace efforts, see Suzanna Crow, "Primakov and the Soviet Peace Initiative", RFE/RL Research ReDort on the USSR, 3/9 (1 March 1991), pp. 14-17. For a comprehensive account, see also A. Vasiliev, Russian Policy in the Middle East, pp. 335-345.

17. Several personal interviews in Poland in the summer and fall of 1996. In the early 1990s there were also some leaks about it in the Polish press. According to Rex Brynen the former Soviet allies then terminated "most of their military and intelligence cooperation with the PLO and reduced the number of scholarships provided to Palestinian students". In at least some cases, East European intelligence files were handed over to Israel, or otherwise acquired by the Mossad". (Rex Brynen, Adjusting to a New World Order: the PLO", D. H. Goldberg and Paul Marantz, The decline of the Soviet Union and the Transformation of the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994) p. 177, f 19.

18. Robert K. Herrmann, "Russian Policy in the Middle East: Strategic change and tactical contradiction", Middle East Journal, vol. 48, No. 3 (Summer, 1994), p. 463.

19. Ibid.

20. Between 1989 and 1993 over 450,000 Jews from the former USSR emigrated to Israel. New York Times, 5 October 1993, p. A6.

21. See New York Times, 25 September 1991, p. Al 2

22. "Israeli Embassy reopened after 24 years", TASS, 24 October 1991, in FBISSO V, 91-206, p. 7.

23. Irma Zviagelskaya and V. Naumkin, "Russia and the Middle East: Continuity and Change", in M. Mesbahi, ed., Russia and the Third World in the Post-Soviet Era (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1994), p. 334.

24. Izvestia, 30 October 1991.

25. Pravda, 10 September 1991. For the American commentary on the Soviet discussion, see Fred Wehling, Three scenarios for Russia's Middle East policy", Communist and Post Communist Studies, vol. 26, No. 2, June 1993, pp. 188-189.

26. Zviagelskaya and Naumkin, p. 334.

27. Nicolai N. Petro and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Russian Foreign Policy: From Empire to Nation-State (New York: Longman, 1996), p. 258.

28. Alexei Vasiliev, Moscow News, No. 12 (24-31 March 1991).

29. Tass, 20 September 1991 (FBIS-USSR, 23 September 1991, p. 10).

30. Zviagelskaya and Naumkin, p. 335.

31. Many personal interviews during my work in Poland from February 1996 to May 1998 and reading of the Polish press. About the attitudes of young Poles, see sociological research by the Polish scholar R. Holly, "The Chinese portrait of Poland's neighbors", Politics and Individual, vol. 3, No. 1 (1993). Some other surveys are giving an even more negative picture of prevalent Polish attitudes towards the Arabs.

32. One of the most recent examples of that was the long and acrimonious dispute among Polish politicians on conflicting proposals concerning the technological equipment of the Polish military helicopter, Huzar. Under American pressure, who supported the Boeing Company, the new right wing Polish government abrogated the contract with the Israeli Consortium Rafael-Elbit, which had been signed by the previous left-of-center ruling coalition. For more information, see for instance: "Polowanie na Huzara: Polski rzad szuka sposobow, by zerwac miedzynaroda umowe", Przeglad Tygodniowy, No. 7 (1811, 1998), p. 4.

33. Many personal interviews during my work over a period of two years in Poland and reading of the Polish press.

34. The Polish press and two personal interviews in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September 1996 and March 1997.

35. Discussions with a senior Palestinian diplomat in Warsaw, Poland, 1 October 1997 and April 30, 1998.

36. For the discussion of his statement, see for instance: "Gieremek wysyla na wojne" (Gieremek is sending for war), Przeglad Tygodniowy No. 7 (18 February 1998), p. 5.

37. Ibid., p. 15. On the other hand, however, on 19 February 1998 the Polish parliament in Warsaw passed a bill by 237 votes to 16, with 134 abstentions, which enabled the government to send to the Gulf 216 army specialists in chemical weapons detection. (Guardian International, 23 February 1998, p. 6).

38. Discussion with senior Palestinian diplomat in Warsaw, 1 October 1997 and 30 April 1998. For instance, the former Prime Minister, now Minister of Justice, Hanka Suichocka was one of the international observers during the Palestinian elections in 1996 and later made surprisingly strong pro-Palestinian statements, Tygodnik Powszechny (18 February 1996), p. 6.

39. See f. 34. See also Brynen, p. 182, f. 80. However, in February 1998 the Czech Republic, just as in Poland and Hungary, was ready to commit its forces and facilities to the then planned new American intervention against Iraq. Guardian International, 23 February 1998, p. 6.

40. Ibid.

41. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 11 March 1998, p. 5.

42. For instance, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan "resolutely supported the strikes", while Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski stated only that "serious circumstances had compelled the U.S. and Britain to take action." Czech President Vaclev Havel "understands the reasons" for the strikes and a similar statement was issued by the Hungarian Foreign Ministry. Among the other post-Communist East-Central European nations, only Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mihailova took a more critical position, saying that her country was waiting for a "speedy solution" to the crisis and the "suspension of military operations" (RFE/RL Newsline, vol. 2, No. 243, Part II, 18 December 1998).

43. RFE/RL Newsline, vol.2, No.242, part II, 17 December 1998

44. Ibid

45. Several personal interviews with journalists and politicians in Budapest in June 1996. See also f. 34. For instance, in February 1999 Nabil Ali Saat, Minister of Planning and Cooperation of the Palestinian Authority visited Hungary and held talks with high-ranking officials including Foreign Minister Janos Martonji and Economic Minister Attaila Chican. Minister Martonji later said that his country wanted to become one of the Palestinian Authority's donor countries and the Palestinian envoy expressed the hope that the two countries would represent a bridge between the European Union and the Arab World (RFE/RL Newsline, vol.3, No.23, Part II, 3 February 1999)

46. RFE/RL Newsline, vol. 2, No. 243, Part II, 18 December 1998.

47. See f. 34.

48. R. Goetz, "Political spheres of interest in the Southern Caucasus and in Central Asia", Aussenpolitik, III (1997), p. 266. See also N. N. Petro and Z. Rubinstein, Russian Foreign Policy: From Empire to Nation-State (New York: Longman, 1996), p. 237.

49. Robert O. Freedman, "Russia and the Middle East under Yeltsin", Part I, DOMES: Digest of Middle Studies, vol. VI, No. 2 (Spring 1997), p. 20.

50. Carol R. Saivetz, "Post-Soviet Russian Foreign Policy", William E. Ferry and R. E. Kanet (eds.), Post Communist States in the World Community (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), p. 28.

51. A. Gusher and A. Slabohotov, "Strategiya nacionolnoy Besopanosti Rossii na Juge" (Strategy of Russia's national security in the South"), Afrika i Asia segodnia, No. 1, 1997, p. 35.

52. Alexei Chistyakov, "The Middle East in the light of geopolitical changes", International Affairs (Moscow), No. 8, 1995, p. 51.

53. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 1995. Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 506. See also Alexei Tschistiakov, "Changes in the Middle East and the Outside World", International Affairs (Moscow), No. 5, 1994, p. 111. According to him the debts of Syria, Iraq and Libya amount to $28.5 billion.

54. Gusher and Slabohotov, p.33.

55. Robert V. Barylski, "Russia, the West, and the Caspian Energy Hub", Middle East Journal, vol. 49, No. 2 (Spring 1995), p. 217.

56. Ibid. On U.S. policy towards oil in the region, see also Dilip Hiro, "Why is the US inflating Caspian oil prices?", Middle East International, 12 Sept. 1997, pp. 18-19.

57. See for instance V. Isaev, "Razmyslenija ab arabskoi i rossijskoi i neftu" ("Meditation on Arab and Russian oil"), Asia i Afrika segodnia, No. 5, 1994, pp. 5-1

58. See for instance V. Isaev, "Reanimatsija interesov Rossiji" (Resuscitation of the Russian interests"), Asia i Afrika segodnia, No. 4, 1997, p. 31.

59. MERIA, 12 November 1997, p.2 (http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/news.html#A).

60. Roger E. Kanet, A. V. Kozhemiakin, and Susanne M. Birgerson, "The Third World in Russian Foreign Policy", R. E. Kanet and A. V. Kozhemiakin, The Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (London: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 171-72.

61. Yemelianova, "Russia and Islam. . .", p. 289. As in 1997, speaking at a briefing in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Minister V. Posuvaliuk said: Russia "is tied to the Arab world with thousands and thousands of threats: humanitarian, economic and others" (A. Potserebow, "On Russian-Egyptian relations". International Affairs (Moscow), vol. 43, No. 3 (1997), p. 112.

62. V. Polasin, "Kto w Boga wierzy?" (Who believes in God?), Forum [Warsaw], 22 March 1998, p. 7.

63. Ibid

64. A. Tchistiakov, "The Middle East Peace Process: Its new dynamics and new quality", International Affairs (Moscow), No. 11, 1994, p. 50.

65. R. O. Friedman, "Russia and the Middle East under Yeltsin", part II, Digest of the Middle East (DOMES), vol. 6, No. III, (1997), p. 25.

66. As early as 15 January 1993, Yeltsin turned against the U.S. tendency "to dictate its own terms" concerning policies toward Iraq and Yugoslavia, and stated that Russian foreign policy toward the West "had to be balanced. After all, we are a Eurasian state". Fred Kaplan, "Yeltsin Hits U.S. Policy on Iraq, Yugoslavia", Boston Globe, 26 January 1993. For more background information see Suzanne Crow, "Yeltsin Wants Partnership with Asia", RFE/RL Daily ReDort, No. 20 (1 February 1993).

67. Leszek Buszynski, Russian Foreign Policy After the Cold War (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1996), p. 229. For an early presentation of the problem, see Peter Ferdinand, "Russia and Russians after Communism: Western or Eurasian?", World Today, December 1992.

68. Buszynski, p. 229.

69. Paul J. Marantz, "Neither Adversaries nor Partners: Russia and the West Search for a New Relationship", Roger E. Kanet and A. V. Kozhemiakin, The Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1997), p. 82.

70. Ibid.

71. For a detailed analysis of the unprecedented Soviet-Russian collapse, see V. Pogod in, "Rossiya i SSZA na poroge XXI veka" ("Russia and the USA at the threshold of the XXI century"), Svobodnava MysI, April 1997, pp. 30-34.

72. Delovoy Mir, 1 March 1996 (FBIS:FSU, 8 April 1996 [Supplement], p. 1).

73. Pogodin, p. 31.

74. Op. cit., p. 30.

75. Vechernaya Moskve, 28 January 1998.

76. Middle East International, 9 October 1992, p. 8.

77. For an informative summary of American-Russian developments in the 1992-1997 period, see Raymond L. Garthoff, "The United States and the New Russia: The First Five Years", Current History, October 1997, pp. 305-312.

78. Friedman, "Russia and the Middle East under Yeltsin", p. I, p. 13.

79. Anatoly Kasatkin, "Will the Middle East become a Russian priority?" International Affairs (Moscow), No. 7, 1994, p. 58.

80. Middle East International, 9 October 1992, p. 8.

81. Ibid.

82. Mohammed M. El Doufani, "Yeltsin's foreign policy - a third world critique," The World Today, June 1993, p. 106.

83. Middle East International, 9 July 1993, p. 5.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, SV/2052, 20 July 1994, B3.

87. Interfax, 14 October 1994, EBIS - Central Eurasia, 17 October 1994, p. 3; Interfax, 24 October 1994, EBIS - Central Eurasia, 25 October 1994, p. 3

88. FBIS - Central Eurasia, 19 October 1994, pp. 6-8.

89. For a sample of the American reaction, see Friedman, part II, pp. 4-5.

90. See for instance Izvestia, 10 October 1994, p. 44.

91. Interfax, 2 February 1995, cited in Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East (Jerusalem: The Marjorie Mayrock Center for Soviet and East European Research), vol. 20, Nos. 2-3 (1995), p. 37.

92. Itar/Tass, 25 February 1994/FBIS-FSU, 26 April 1994, p. 12. For some revealing comments on the issue, see also M. M. El Doufani, "Futile intervention: Russia's disengagement from the Third World," International Journal, 49, Autumn 1994, p. 869.

93. For a relatively balanced presentation of the problem from the Russian perspective, see: "Ugrazhaet Ii Rossiji Panislamism i Islamskij Fundamentalism" (Are Panislamism and Islamic Fundamentalism threatening Russia?) Asia i Afrika segodnia, No. 2, 1996, pp. 2-6. According to some researchers, Russia was using the fear of Islamic fundamentalism in the West in order to assert its predominance in post-Soviet Central Asia and the Transcaucasian regions. Lovelt Bazanis, "Exploiting the fears of Militant Islam", Transition, 29 December 1995, pp. 6-10.

94. Friedman, p. I, p. 27.

95. Op. cit., p. 28.

96. Pavel Felgengauer, in Segodnila, 26 May 1995 in the Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 47, No. 21 (June 1995), p. 3.

97. See for instance the joint declaration of President Yeltsin and the Chinese President Jiang Zemin during his visit to Moscow in April 1997, in The Current Digest of the Post Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 17 (28 May 1997), pp. 2-4.

98. Olga Aleksandrova, "The 'Third World' in Russian Foreign Policy", AussenDolitik, 111/1996, pp. 244-253.

99. David Makovsky, "Primakov makes clear Russia cannot be ignored in the Middle East", Haaretz, 31 October 1997/http://www3.haaretz . . . 10/31/97.

100. Primakov's predecessor, A. Kozyrev had already, in January 1993, called Russia a Eurasian power whose sphere of influence extends in equal degrees to the West and to the East (ITAR-TASS, 261, 1993 - as quoted by Aleksandrova, p. 250, f. 14. In December 1994 he was even more explicit, expressing his wish that Russia exert its future influence on a global scale, from Yugoslavia to Angola and from Haiti to Tajikistan (BBC - Summary of World Broadcasts, SV/21 89,30/12/1994, p. BlO.

101. Aleksandrova, p. 249.

102. "Russia's New Middle East Policy", by Middle East Briefing, MERIA 12/11/1997. http;/www.biu.ac:il/SOC/besa/meria/news6.html#A

103. Aleksei Pushkov, ""The Primakov Doctrine' and a New European Order", International Affairs (Moscow), vol. 44, No.2, 1998, p. 12.

104. According to the well-known Russian Middle Eastern and Third World expert, Georgi Mirsky, "the Middle East is now the only place in the world where Russia can still play a world role. Other areas are practically out of reach". A. Tchistiakov, "Changes in the Middle East and the outside world", International Affairs (Moscow), No. 5 (May 1994), p. 111.

105. Makovsky.

106. Friedman, part I, p. 22.

107. Ibid.

108. Middle East International, 7 November 1997, p. 6.

109. Ibid. For further discussion of Primakov's 12 point proposal, see: A. Baklanov, "The Iraqi Dossier is not closed", International Affairs (Moscow), vol. 44, No. 2, 1998, pp. 19-20.

110. Globe and Mail, 21 November 1997, p. Al 1.

111. RzeczyDosoolita (Warsaw), 13 February 1998, p. 4.

112. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 5 February 1998, p. 1

113. Op. cit., p. 3.

114. Ibid

115. RFE/RL Newsline, vol.2, No. 243, Part I, 18 December 1998.

116. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 18 December 1998.

117. Ibid..

118. RFE/RF Newsline, vol. 2, No. 243, Part I, 18 December 1998.

119. Ibid.

120. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 18 December 1998.

121. RFE/RL Newsline, vol.2, No.243, Part I, 18 December 1998.

122. The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 50, No.51, 20 January 1999.

123. During the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz's visit to Moscow on 18 November 1997, the Russian spokesman Tarasov stated: "Russia's position remains unchanged that the Iraqi authorities must annul their illegal step to impose conditions on UNSCOM. . . . After that, and only after that, should other issues be discussed", Christian Science Monitor, 21-27 November 1997, p. 18.

124. Guardian International, 23 February, 1998. According to the UN official, the breakthrough came when Primakov told the Iraqis that they could not count on Russian support for a 60-day limit (Ibid). For a commentary on the event, see Guardian 25 February, p. 6.

125. RFE/RL Newsline, vol. 2, No. 244, Part I, 21 December 1998.

126. Middle East International, 25 December 1998, p. 10.

127. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 18 December 1998.

128. Y. Primakov, "The world on the eve of the 21st century", International Affairs (Moscow), No. 5/6, vol. 42 (1996), p. 6.

129. Kommersant Daily (Moscow), 20 February 1997, p. 2 in The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 8, 26 March 1997, p.

130. Ibid.

131. Op. cit., p. 21.

132. Kommersant Daily, 13 March 1997, p. 4 in The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 11 (16 April 1997), pp. 25-26.

133. Makovsky, Haaretz, 31 October, 1997.

134. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 9 October 1998, p.6.

135. Ibid.

136. Kommersant Daily, 27 August 1997 in The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 34 (24 Sept. 1997), p. 19.

137. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 16 September 1997, p.2 in The Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 37 (15 October 1997) p. 21.

138. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 5 Feb. 1998, p. 20.

139. Ibid.

140. Y. Primakov, speaking to the new intake of young Russian diplomats, stressed that they should consider their country a world player in a world arena, but added: "The role of a world power is not an aim in itself, but a thought-out role for Russia in a difficult, zigzag transition to a multipolar world," Guardian International, 10 March 1998, p.7.

141. Interview by Primakov in the Italian journal Limes, June-September 1996, pp. 53-56 (FBIS - Central Eurasia, 13 June 1996, p. 25).

142. R. Goetz, "Political spheres of interest in the Southern Caucasus and in Central Asia," Aussenpolitik III, 1997, p.266.

143. See for instance Geoffrey York, "US vies for influence in Central Asia," Globe and Mail, 21 November 1997, p. Al and AlO.

144. Adam Tarock, "Iran and Russian 'strategic alliance,'" Third World Quarterly, vol. 18, No. 2, 1997, pp. 21 2-214.

145. Op. cit., p. 214.

146. Op. cit., p. 213.

147. Guardian International, 25 March 1998, p. 6, and BBC World Service, 26 February 1998, broadcast at 8 o'clock GST.

148. Izvestia, 27 February 1998, p. 3.

149. Freedman, part I, pp. 27-28.

150. Guardian International, 25 February 1998, p. 6.

151. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 24 November 1998, p. 6.

152. O. Rezinkova, Rossija, Turcija i Iran v Centralnoy Asji", Mirovaya Ekonomika Mezdunarodnyie Otnosheniia No. 1/1 997, p. 57.

153. Ibid.

154. Segodnija, 27 February 1998, p. 3 in The Current Digest, vol. 50, No. 9 (1 April 1998), p. 23.

155. Rezinkova, p. 57.

156. Op. cit., p. 63.

157. One of the recent examples of these efforts was organized at Turkey's initiative-a two-day meeting of the foreign ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakistan, and Turkmenistan in Istanbul on 1-2 March 1998. The ministers discussed the problems of transport routes for Caspian oil and gas to the West, and neither Russia nor Iran had been invited. (Komersant Daily, 4 March 1998, p. 5 in The Current Digest, vol. 50, No. 9 (1 April 1998), pp. 23-24. For some background information see also Marshall lngwerson, "At your local gas pump soon: Caspian Sea Oil," Christian Science Monitor, 11 October 1995.

158. Roland Goetz, pp. 262 and 263.

159. Freedman, p. II, p. 21.

160. An optimistic outlook for the future of Turkish-Russian relations was strongly expressed by the speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Mustapha Kalemly during his visit to Moscow in January 1997. Asia i Afrika, January 1997, pp. 7-8.

161. Washington Times, 10 September 1993.

162. Middle East International, 25 December 1998.

163. A. Chistyakov, "The Middle East in the light of the geopolitical changes", International Affairs (Moscow) No. 8/1995, pp. 48 and 51.

164. Izvestia, 13 March 1997, p. 31 in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 11 (1997), pp. 25-26.

165. "Russia's New Middle East Policy", MERIA, 11 December 1997.

166. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 23 September 1997, pp. 1, 5, in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, vol. 49, No. 38 (1997), p. 20.

167. Kommersant Daily, 9 April 1997, p. 3 in the Current Digest, vol. 49, No. 14 (1997), p. 23.

168. Ibid.

169. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 12 February 1998, p. 2.

170. Roland Goetz, "Russia's Economic Potential as a basis for its foreign policy", AussenDolitik, 11/1996, p. 145.

171. Ibid.

172. Olga Alexandrova, "The 'Third World' in Russian Foreign Policy", Aussenpolitik Ill/i 996, pp. 246-247.

173. Op. cit., p. 253.

174. The author wants, however, to mention the important role of Romania during the Ceausescu period in the 1970s and 1980s when the country served as an intermediary in setting up contacts between Arabs and Israelis.

175. It is well understood by Israeli observers and politicians, including leading members of the right wing parties, and is articulated in the Israeli press.

176. The Russian scholar A. Vasiliev has argued that "Russia's destiny will coincide in some respects with the destinies of the Middle East countries and will serve as an example for them." (Russian Policy in the Middle East, p. 370).

Andrej Kreutz is a professor at the University of Lodz, Poland.