Russia's Growing Middle East Influence
By Anna Borshchevskaya, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Anna Borshchevskaya is a fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy. The views expressed are her own.
Russian President Vladimir Putin achieved perhaps his most desired goal in 2013: He successfully positioned Russia as indispensable to resolving key international problems. And nowhere has his success been more visible than in the Syrian conflict and Iranian nuclear negotiations. The Moscow-brokered deal to put Syria’s chemical arsenal under control of international inspectors helped avoid military strikes against the Syrian regime. Meanwhile, Russia also emerged as a strong voice in the P5+1 group, allowing Iran to avoid tougher sanction against its nuclear program upon reaching an interim deal in Geneva in December 2013.
But behind the scenes, Russia is playing an even more significant role, and is an increasingly assertive player throughout the broader Middle East. It’s a trend the West cannot ignore.
According to Russian press reports, the Kremlin struck a $2 billion weapons agreement with Egypt last month, the culmination of years of quiet Kremlin efforts to revive Russia’s Cold War relationships in the region.
“Today Russia is coming back to many regions it lost in the 90s. I’m talking about the African continent and the Middle East,” Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mikhail Margelov said during a speech in London last month. “Russia was quite explicit about its interests in those regions even before the Arab Spring...”
Russian influence in the region is multifaceted. For instance, Russia has grown increasingly assertive in the Middle East peace process, since it initially joined the Quartet more than a decade ago. Rather than simply endorse the U.S. or European position, the Kremlin has sought to put its own stamp on the agenda. In 2006, for example, Putin invited Hamas leaders to Moscow, suggesting that Hamas was a terrorist organization. Putin has also moved to parade his growing influence. In June 2012, Putin travelled to Israel, nine months before Barack Obama made his first visit there as U.S. president in March 2013.
MORE...
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/08/russias-growing-middle-east-influence/
= new reply since forum marked as read
