A triumph for Russian diplomacy

14 June, 2009 16:21:00

Font size:

By arranging the BRIC and the SCO summits to take place on the same day in the same place, Moscow has lent extra weight to both events.

Vladimir Radyuhin

The twin summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the BRIC quartet — Brazil, Russia, India and China — mark a triumph for Russian diplomacy even before they open in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on June 16.

The leaders gathering in Yekaterinburg will represent nearly a half of the world’s population, a solid majority of the developing world and the fastest growing emerging economies.

By arranging the BRIC and the SCO summits to take place on the same day in the same place Moscow has lent extra weight to both events.

While international attention is likely to focus on the first standalone BRIC summit, it is at the SCO summit that Russia will pull off its biggest coup, and it will be the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

It is for the first time that India will attend a SCO event at the highest level. After it joined the SCO as observer in 2005 India was twice represented at the organisation’s annual summits by the External Affairs Minister, twice by the Petroleum Minister and once by the Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office. By contrast, other observers — Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia — sent Prime Ministers or Presidents to the meetings.

When in December 2007 Dr. Singh was asked in Lok Sabha why he was shying away from attending SCO summits, he said that “when the Indian Prime Minister goes he should not sit on the sidelines in the coffee shop but share the high table.” It may not have been the only or the main reason for the PM to stay out of SCO summits, but Moscow decided to take Dr. Singh at his word.

At their annual summit in Dushanbe in August 2008 the SCO leaders accepted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to invite the heads of state and government of the observer nations to SCO close-door meetings in order “to allow their views to weigh in.” The opening of SCO restricted sessions to observers will probably not have induced Delhi to raise the level of its presence at the Yekaterinburg summit, all the more so since one of the two close-door sessions of the SCO leaders are scheduled to have on June 15 will still be off bounds to the observers.

Reluctance to play second fiddle was a factor, but there were other reasons for India to keep a low profile at the SCO. What the Prime Minister apparently did not want to air on the floor of Parliament, South Block officials did for him: they frankly admitted that India was not interested in further aligning itself with the SCO by joining the SCO’s military, strategic and political activities, even as it was willing to develop trade, economic and cultural linkages with the group.

However, Moscow’s exquisite scheduling of the SCO second-day meetings involving the observers within a few hours of the BRIC summit, for which the Indian Prime Minister was coming anyway, left him with little choice but attend both events. Dr. Singh’s absence from the SCO summit would seem odd and would contrast with the presence in Yekaterinburg, not only of the of the leaders of the other three observer states, but also of President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose country will be granted the special status of SCO dialogue partner.

Indian diplomats are coy on the question of whether the PM’s attendance of the SCO summit amounted to upgrading India’s participation in the regional security grouping. But Russia is determined to make this happen. In Yekaterinburg Dr. Singh and other observers will be formally asked to enhance their interaction with the SCO.

They will be invited to join the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) and to attend ministerial-level meetings on transport and trade. The observers will be further offered to take part in military activities of the SCO starting from 2012. This is something Delhi has so far firmly declined to do, but Russia has reserved new arguments for Yekaterinburg to persuade India change its mind.

The SCO security agenda has recently shifted from counter-balancing the U.S. and NATO in Central Asia towards dealing with growing security threats from Afghanistan. India took part in the SCO conference on Afghanistan held in Moscow in March and welcomed its plan for the SCO to increase its role in international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime in the region in close collaboration with Kabul through the SCO-Afghanistan contact group. Also, the SCO security chiefs at their meeting in Moscow last month recommended that the alliance’s summit in Yekaterinburg demand that Pakistan eliminate terrorist-training camps on its territory.

Seen from this perspective it would be logical to expect India to take part in SCO security arrangements.