MOSCOW, Jan 25 (AFP)
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held talks with her Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov here Monday on a range of thorny foreign policy issues, seeking to patch up ties strained by the Iraq and Kosovo crises.
Albright arrived at the foreign ministry building 30 minutes earlier than expected at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT), the Interfax news agency reported, only hours after her arrival in the Russian capital.
The two officials were to discuss a range of contentious foreign policy areas, notably sharp differences over how to deal with Iraq, Belgrade’s crackdown in its troubled Kosovo province, nuclear disarmament and arms proliferation.
The discussions were being held behind closed doors.
Albright, who arrived in Moscow around 1:00 a.m. (2200 GMT Sunday), was nevertheless keen to play down talk of a Moscow-Washington crisis.
“It is wrong to look at this as a breakdown period, we have the ability to have a good, open discussion,” she told journalists accompanying her in the plane. “We are in a problem-solving mode, not a contentious mode.”
During her three-day visit Albright, who speaks Russian, hopes to meet ailing Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who is currently recovering in hospital from an acute bleeding ulcer.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that an encounter was still “under discussion.
“There was certainly a hope that a meeting could take place but for very understandable reasons a meeting may not be possible,” the official said.
The US chief diplomat will likely only speak by telephone with the 67-year-old Russian leader, who has been kept by his doctors from all but his immediate family and chief-of-staff since he was hospitalized with a severe gastric ulcer on January 17.
“Obviously the major aspects of the discussion” would be with Ivanov and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, whom she was scheduled to meet late Monday, she said.
Albright is due Tuesday to meet a string of Yeltsin’s would-be successors, including the blunt-speaking ex-general Alexander Lebed, Moscow’s populist mayor Yury Luzhkov and Grigory Yavlinsky, the liberal leader of the Yabloko party.
On the eve of her visit the US secretary of state told Russian television that Washington and Moscow “agree on many points, but there are also disagreements because we are two great countries with a great deal of responsibility.
“We know we have a different view on how to deal with Iraq but not on the need for (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein to be dealt with,” she added.
Albright’s visit was decided upon last December in the wake of Moscow’s angry protests over US-led strikes against Russian trading partner Iraq.
Upset and embarrassed at being so flatly ignored by Washington, Russia briefly withdrew its US ambassador in Washington and hinted it might build a new military alliance with either India or China.
Russia has further opposed the use of force against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is fighting western attempts to make him negotiate with separatists in Serbia’s province of Kosovo.
The two sides will also discuss a US request to amend the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty to allow Washington to go ahead with a new defence system to protect against the perceived threat from states like Iran and North Korea. Albright indicated that she did not expect an immediate agreement.
However, Moscow is still smarting from the imposition of fresh US sanctions against three Russian institutes accused of aiding Iran with missile technology.
Albright will also press for ratification the much-delayed START II nuclear disarma
Elena Khvan,
Stan Veitsman, ALMATY
Jan 25 (specially for The Globe)
The country, which impressed the world with the beauty of its nature and unique climate, exotic Australia, celebrates today the 211 day of its anniversary.
At first it seems that there is so little in common between the far continent and Kazakstan. However, there is a theme, which unites these two countries. We speak about multi-nationality of both societies.
‘I am very happy with the fact that Greek people live on the left hand of me while Italian people – on the right hand. Indonesian people and Cambodian aborigines live on the other side of the road and aborigines, French, German, American, Chinese and Croat people live a little bit farther. Suburb streets as well as the region are given the names of aborigines, for example “Giralang”, which means “the way of a falling star”’, John Lepetit, citizen of the Australian capital Canberra said, pointing out national diversity of his country.
Mr. Lepetit is not the only to welcome such national diversity, which is typical for practically every suburb of Australian cities. This may be explained by the fact that about 5,5 representatives of different nationalities from all over the world immigrated to the country during the last 50 years. 6,2 % came from Britain and Ireland, 6, 8% came from Europe, 5, 3 % - from Asia and over 5 % from other countries.
40 % (3, 5 million) of the total number of population (18. 3 million) are immigrants or children of immigrants.
The national government backs principals of equality and tolerance regarding other ethnic groups and takes a range of measures to satisfy demands of the multi-national population.
Special program of radio and TV broadcasting (the Special Broadcasting Service – SBS) broadcasts transmissions in several languages all over the country.
In 1989 they developed a special program on multi-national Australia development and on support of such measures as English learning by non-native speakers and improvement of a qualification acknowledgment procedure for people who obtained education abroad.
“We managed to unify representatives of several nationalities in the harmonic Australian society. You will not find such example anywhere in the world”, the Australian Prime Minister said in his speech during the opening of exhibition in Sidney, dedicated to reach cultural diversity of Australia.
Translation – INSEL A. B.
BAKU, Jan 25
(AFP)
Baku wants NATO or US troops stationed in Azerbaijan to guarantee the former Soviet republic’s security, President Heydar Aliyev’s top foreign policy aide said Monday.
“In order to guarantee Azerbaijan’s security the US, NATO or Turkey should establish bases here,” Vafa Goulizade, state advisor on foreign policy and Aliyev’s top foreign policy official, told AFP.
“I don’t trust Russia. It is simply waiting in order to deal a knock-out blow (to Azerbaijan) and put its own person at the head of the Azerbaijani government,” he said.
ANKARA, Jan 25 (AFP)
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel said that any development in ties with neighbouring Armenia would depend on a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, amid rumours that wanted Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan is hiding in the Armenian enclave.
“Armenia should take steps for a positive solution to the problem. Only then will our relations with Armenia normalise,” Demirel said in an intervew on Turkish state television TRT late Sunday. Nagorno-Karabakh constitutes the main point of contention between Armenia and Azerbaijan since a 1888-1994 war led by the Armenian majority for independence. The conflict left some 20,000 people dead and forced the enclave’s Azeri population to flee.
Ankara recognizes Armenia, but does not have diplomatic relations with Yerevan. On the other hand, it sports close ties with Moslem and Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan.
“Those who touch Azerbaijan will touch Turkey,” Demirel said on Sunday.
The Turkish press said last week that Ocalan, who leads the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was hiding in Nagorno-Karabakh after flying out of Rome on January 16.
Citing secret service sources, the reports said that Ocalan, 49, had travelled first to Moscow and later to Yerevan. He had then passed on to Nagorno-Karabakh, they added.
“These reports have not yet been confirmed,” Demirel told reporters over the weekend after visiting Azeri President Heydar Aliyev who is undergoing treatment in an Ankara hospital.
Turkey is seeking to try the PKK leader on terrorism and murder charges in conection with the PKK’s 14-year campaign for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish-populated southeastern Anatolia.