>From RIA Novosti

Obshchaya Gazeta

August 14, 1997

RUSSIA'S NATIONAL INTERESTS

Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov discusses the issue with Obshchaya Gazeta's Yegor Yakovlev

YAKOVLEV: Allegations that Russia's national interests are being betrayed and sold has become one of the mostly used argument of the Russian opposition today. The State Duma is undoubtedly to return to it when it meets after recession in September. What are Russia's national interests after all?

PRIMAKOV: First of all, there are strategic and there are tactical interests. Strategic interests include, first and foremost, stability, especially stability at the global level and in regions adjacent to Russia. They also include territorial integrity, the continued presence of the great power in the international arena, which also means the preservation of its intellectual potential so that it should not become only a raw materials supplier. I would count among Russia's strategic interests the integration processes in what used to be the Soviet Union, because our economic development will require space: we will need markets in the future. Neither Europe nor any other region has such a niche as the former Soviet republics have in this respect.

Tactical interests are best seen on concrete examples. Take, for instance, former Yugoslavia. Strategically, we have a stake in stability in the Balkans. But stability can also be achieved by the strangling of one of the parties that are drawn into the conflict there, for instance, the Serbs. We think that such a solution to the conflict is not in our national interests. Quite the contrary, the situation should be resolved without damage to any of the conflicting parties.

YAKOVLEV: Once there was the Soviet Union. Now there is Russia as its legitimate successor. To what degree has the national interests concept changed?

PRIMAKOV: It has changed in principle. The cornerstone of the Soviet concept of national interests was the idea of a world revolution, i. e., the victory of the system, which existed in the USSR, on the global scale. So, our adversaries and allies were determined accordingly, and this not always, by far, accorded with our national interests. In other words, ideological dogmas were placed higher than the national interests of our country. We are still paying for this. Suffice it to analyse the structure of debts to see who and how much owes Russia.

YAKOVLEV: So, the differences are of a principled nature. Is there any coherent concept of Russia's national interests?

PRIMAKOV: You may remember that Yury Ryzhov, full member of the Academy of Sciences, stressed at the time of the first congresses of people's deputies that the security concept should not be reduced to military issues alone. Ecological security, for instance, is no less important than military security. That attitude drastically changed the very understanding of the issue of potential threats and the security of Russia. Credit for this undoubtedly goes to Ryzhov. But despite my academic likes, I am against the elaboration of such a concept, because similar conceptualism draws us into theorization without solving the issue on a practical plane. The set of the tasks which we are to handle at present is precisely a concept.

Thus, we have a foreign policy concept, and it is being implemented. We seek to have partnership relations with all countries. We have given up the idea of a strategic alliance with our former adversaries in the Cold War--the idea of which was promoted by the previous foreign minister. We regard equal partnership--work on all azimuths, as we call it, the striving to have positions and maintain good relations with many countries with a view to a multipolar world--as our main task. Isn't it a concept?

YAKOVLEV: I know that you are an advocate of a union with Byelorussia. But to what degree is a union with a country headed by Alexander Lukashenko, whose actions and pronouncements little agree, to put it mildly, with the ideals of liberal democracy, in our national interests?

PRIMAKOV: My position is as follows: regardless of who is the head of Byelorussia or Russia, or any other state for that matter, support for the processes of integration, especially with Byelorussia, is of vital importance for us. It is the locomotive which can set in motion the stalled process of integration. It is important for us to preserve this striving for unity.

I have already said that it is in Russia's strategic interests--political, economic and, if you wish, moral and psychological--to create a single economic space and preserve these markets for Russia.

YAKOVLEV: If I understood you correctly, Lukashenko's undemocratic methods worry you like all of us. But the union is more important for you, isn't it?

PRIMAKOV: Yes, of course, You see, when we talk of Russia's strategic national interests, we should better avoid emotions. Politics, international politics included, should be flexible. As a matter of fact, it was such in Tsarist Russia and produced pretty good results. Russia had one kind of relationships with Finland, another with Poland, still another with the Caucasus, and an altogether different relationship with the Bukhara Emirate.

I have read the following in Savinkov's "Notes by a Terrorist": We held a meeting in the territory of Finland. How come that revolutionaries held their meeting in Finland which was part of the Russian Empire at that time? It turns out that Finland did not give away revolutionaries, despite the fact that it was part of the Empire. This is what the flexibility of Russia's domestic and foreign policies is, all about policies that are determined by its national interests, both strategic and tactical.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1129

15 August 1997

djohnson@cdi.org