MOSCOW, May 12. /TASS/. The Black Sea grain deal is up in the air; Moscow wraps up tenure as chairman of the Arctic Council; and China builds bridges with an ambivalent Europe. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Vedomosti: Istanbul talks come up short on extending Black Sea grain deal
On May 11, delegations from the parties to the Black Sea grain deal agreed to continue negotiating at the technical level but failed to make a decision on extending the deal itself, according to a statement by the Turkish Defense Ministry, published on its website. The final round of talks had been held in Istanbul since May 10 between the deputy defense and foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, as well as representatives of the UN. The current iteration of the grain deal expires in less than a week, on May 18.
Resolving technical issues is one of the stumbling blocks in the current talks but without doing so, it will be impossible to proceed to the main agenda of extending the grain agreement, thinks Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAN). "Any agreement should provide for the parameters of rejecting the deal but they weren’t there in the initial version of the [grain] agreement. It is not clear how vessels heading to Ukrainian ports are to be inspected. This clause is important in order to exclude the possibility of Western arms being supplied to Ukraine in this way," the expert said. According to him, the initial agreement also does not spell out what sanctions could be imposed on those who violate the grain deal. "There are no instructions as to what to do with those vessels that abuse the agreement and how to dispose of prohibited cargos," he added.
Another complicated issue is the lifting of sanctions imposed on the Russian Agricultural Bank or the inclusion of a foreign intermediary bank for servicing Russia’s grain exports, says Alexey Zubets, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the Financial University under the Russian Government. "Russia has set its sights on expanding agricultural exports. Yet, due to economic restrictions, Russian agribusiness is bumping up against serious difficulties in international markets, and so renewing the grain deal will become possible if Moscow can manage to push this [banking] clause through in the text of the document," he noted.
According to Ofitserov-Belsky, however, the Russian export part of the grain deal is encountering pushback from Western countries. "The US and European countries are trying to squeeze Russia out of the global food market and Western sanctions allow them to do so, at least in part. Under these conditions, I think, the talks will develop in line with one of three scenarios. Either there will be a final rejection of the deal, which is unlikely. The second option is that a new agreement covering all of the technical details will be concluded by May 17. Finally, the third scenario is an extension of the [existing] agreement for another 30 days to allow for further discussion," the expert thinks.
Kommersant: Russia hands over chairmanship of Arctic Council to Norway, tallies results
On Thursday, Russia concluded its two-year tenure as chairman of the Arctic Council, the intergovernmental organization considered to be the Arctic region’s "shadow government." The results of the past two years turned out to be somewhat ambiguous for Moscow: on the one hand, due to the special military operation in Ukraine the other seven countries on the Council walked away from pursuing practical cooperation with Russia, while on the other hand, Russia fulfilled its obligations as chair and the Council did not split up, but remained intact. Now, Norway, the next country to chair the body, will have to find a way to compromise with Russia and preserve this important regional structure.
At a press conference on Thursday, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Nikolay Korchunov, who has served as chairman of the Arctic Council’s Senior Officials Committee, admitted that "the prospects of future cooperation within the framework of the Arctic Council look uncertain because it is not clear whether Norway would be able to establish such interaction." That said, he did not rule out the possibility that Russia may leave the Arctic Council if the body‘s activities no longer correspond to Russia’s national interests, adding that, over the past year, everyone realized that it is impossible to ensure the region’s stable development without Russia, which controls about half of all Arctic territories.
The Arctic Council’s members have also been very possessive regarding attempts by non-Arctic countries to influence processes in the region that show promise from the point of view of hydrocarbon extraction or the development of maritime traffic.
Replying to Kommersant’s question as to how Russia views future cooperation on the Arctic with non-regional players, Korchunov said that this could involve various areas. "This [includes] the economy, investments, technology, science, interuniversity ties, ecology, transportation, maritime cooperation, and the traditional economic activities of indigenous peoples," he enumerated the potential areas for cooperation, reiterating that reindeer breeding is not exclusive to Russia, but is also done in Mongolia and China. According to the diplomat, the priority will be given to those countries that are ready for constructive cooperation with Russia and that possess the necessary expertise, knowledge and funds for carrying out joint projects in the Arctic. In his words, cooperation will be "on a mutually beneficial and pragmatic basis," taking "mutual interests into account."
Izvestia: China banking on ties with Europe, ignoring US
China, which has always been the first to call for dialogue with the US on the entire range of bilateral differences, now appears to have finally decided that, for now, there is nothing to talk about with the Americans. A case in point is how Beijing has made it abundantly clear that it is not interested in a bilateral meeting between Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June. That said, Beijing is activating its efforts to build bridges with European countries, highlighted by two separate visits to the region by China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Vice President Han Zheng this week.
For its part, however, Europe clearly remains at a loss as to how to deal with China. On May 9, at the European Parliament, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted that relations with China were being increasingly characterized as rivalry and competition and urged his EU colleagues to focus on lowering dependency on commercial ties with Beijing. Yet, on the following day, meeting with Qin in Berlin, Scholz confirmed that preparations for the June 20 intergovernmental consultations between China and Germany in Berlin were going extremely well.
This duality exhibited in the EU’s attitude toward China has long been one of the typical traits of European-Chinese relations and was practically officially enshrined by the EU back in 2019 when Beijing was declared both a partner and a systemic rival, says Yuliya Melnikova, program manager at the Russian International Affairs Council. According to her, in recent years, this confrontational trend has become more pronounced.
"And now Qin Gang is going to Europe not to break this duality because this is impossible but to maintain it, so that the non-confrontational economic potential, preserved by certain member countries, won’t go away completely. So that, in particular, sanctions won’t be introduced against Chinese companies," the expert explained. Thus, ambivalence in the EU’s approaches to China is the best that can exist now in the bilateral relations given the international context, she concluded.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Armenia, Azerbaijan in conflict on eve of talks
Before a meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, with the participation of European Council head Charles Michel, in Brussels on May 14, the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has become enflamed once again. The foreign ministries of both countries made statements accusing the other side of a "traditional provocation before important talks." There were four wounded on the Armenian side and one person was killed and one wounded on the Azerbaijani side. By Thursday afternoon, the situation on the border in the vicinity of Sotk, where the tensions were at their height, had normalized.
Baku is demanding that Yerevan officially and unequivocally recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. Deeming the region Azerbaijani territory, Baku wants to deal with all issues pertaining to it independently. In turn, Yerevan is demanding that any dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert [the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh] be monitored by international observers, which means reviving the OSCE Minsk Group that had been overseeing Armenian-Azerbaijani talks for decades, but without any particular success.
Armenian political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan thinks that Azerbaijan is trying to close the Karabakh and Armenian issue in general by signing a peace treaty while Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine. Russian political scientist Nikolay Silayev concurs, also mentioning the Turkish factor. In his opinion, if Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan loses the presidential election, Baku may lose Ankara’s firm support, so while the relationship would remain good, it could already feature certain provisos.
Izvestia: Experts weigh in on consequences of Title 42 expiring in US
On May 11, Title 42 regulations under US public health law, which introduced special restrictions on admitting immigrants into the US, expired. The rule was first introduced during the Trump administration in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Its expiration means that the Biden administration now has to toughen its immigration policies. In order to battle the flow of those wishing to get in, US authorities have mobilized troops and plan to deploy them along the border with Mexico in addition to the National Guardsmen already stationed there. Experts discussed with Izvestia whether this may provoke a new wave of the migrant crisis and who might benefit.
"The migrant crisis is an old problem and it will only be exacerbated in the future," Boris Martynov, head of the Department of International Relations and Russia’s Foreign Policy at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), said. In his opinion, the US essentially has nothing to offer Latin American countries and Washington’s tough measures do not resolve the root causes of immigration within those countries where migrant flows originate, but will only serve to increase them.
According to Lev Sokolshchik, researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), the Biden administration openly admits that there is a humanitarian crisis on the US’ southern border. He noted that the Democratic Party often takes a pro-immigrant stance because immigrants are its electoral base. "As a result, when in 2021, following the inauguration, [Biden] began to cancel Trump’s decrees, an incredibly huge wave of new immigrants poured in from Latin America," he says, noting that, on the one hand, the Biden administration demonstrates that it is unable to regulate migrant flows and curb the crisis, while on the other hand, the situation may help the Democrats to garner more votes.
Konstantin Blokhin, leading researcher of the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, concurs that the situation should be interpreted as part of the presidential election campaign. In his opinion, Trump came to power because he played the immigration card, while the Biden administration is banking on immigrants as potential voters. "No matter which turn this crisis takes in the future, these two competing groups, Republicans and Democrats, will use it for their own purposes," the expert concluded.
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