RUSSIA

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who is President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to the EU, told the state-run daily newspaper "Rossiiskaya gazeta" of February 22 that Putin's February 10 speech in Munich should be understood as a "cold shower [and not a return] to a Cold War," RIA Novosti reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 12, 13, and 22, 2007).

Yastrzhembsky added that "we are no longer in ideological conflict with the West. Russia is a totally different country" now than in Soviet times. He noted that Putin's remarks were aimed primarily at a European public and also sought to draw attention to a variety of world issues. Yastrzhembsky stressed that "Russia is back as a major world player," and that Putin's words were "tough rather than aggressive, which...is fully in keeping with the currently applied principles of international politics," the news agency reported.

Pointing out that Putin challenged the concept of what he called a U.S.-dominated "unipolar world," the aide said that an unspecified recent poll showed that at least 60 percent of German respondents agreed with Putin's remarks. Yastrzhembsky argued that "political elites are trying to smooth over these differences, but ordinary Europeans in the street (let alone Arabs) are so anti-American." He said that Russia accepts that Washington speaks out on issues affecting Russia's immediate neighbors and asked that the United States "recognize Russia's right to speak directly about our concerns over the U.S. policy in various regions of the world."

On February 21, outgoing Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber said in Wildbad Kreuth that Putin's Munich speech signaled Russia's legitimate return to the world stage, csu.de reported. Stoiber added that Russia is a necessary partner for Germany and the EU (see "RFE/RL Newsline," October 12, 2006). He argued that any ambitions the United States might have had in creating a unipolar world ended with the 2003 invasion of Iraq "at the latest." The daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" suggested on February 22 that Putin flattered Stoiber, whose own Christian Social Union (CSU) is forcing him from office, when the two men met in Munich on February 10. PM



IS GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER TILTING TOWARD RUSSIA?

The daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reported on February 23 that some leading foreign-policy spokesmen of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) have criticized as deliberately misleading and anti-American the recent remarks by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrats (SPD), in which he said that Washington should have consulted with Moscow before launching its projected missile-defense system (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 20, 21, and 22, 2007).

An aide to Steinmeier subsequently admitted that he knew that such discussions have been in progress for some time. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who is a CSU member of the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Frankfurt-based paper that Steinmeier made a criticism of U.S. policy that he must have known was not justified by the facts and thereby "made a considerable contribution to a misleading image of the United States" in Germany and beyond. Guttenberg also noted that Steinmeier failed to object to recent remarks by President Putin and several other Russian politicians and generals, in which they threatened to target Poland and the Czech Republic with missiles if those countries participate in missile defense.

Guttenberg suggested that Steinmeier was not observing Germany's "balanced" policy by making unwarranted criticism of Washington while remaining silent when he should have criticized Moscow. Eckart von Klaeden, who is foreign-policy spokesman for the CDU, told the daily that Russia must respect the decision of Poland and the Czech Republic as sovereign states to participate in missile defense if they want to. He also criticized Steinmeier and one of his aides for failing to object to Russia's support for Iran's missile and nuclear programs when criticizing the U.S. missile defense. Steinmeier was formerly chief of staff to Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, under whom U.S.-German relations reached their lowest point since World War II.

The Foreign Ministry is currently dominated by the SPD, which includes people who are sharply critical of Washington while being enthusiastic about close ties to Moscow. PM