With his visit to Germany on Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev embarked on the course of reshaping his country's relations with Europe, emphasizing close ties with Germany and calling for an equal and core role for Russia in a new European security pact.
CLOSE TIES WITH GERMANY
Strategic partners Russia and Germany have worked together on avery high level of "economic cooperation and political contact," Medvedev said at a gathering of German business and political elites Thursday.
He praised the positive trade relations between the two nations, whose volume exceeded 50 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, and urged Germany and other European countries to invest more in Russia.
"Nothing brings people closer than doing business together," the president said.
Secure energy supply is also a major issue, for which Medvedev promised closer cooperation with Germany at the start of his official trip.
The decision to make Germany his first European stop after taking office demonstrates Russia's priorities, he said.
He also expressed the hope that "the high level and priority relations between Russia and Germany are capable of being an orienting point" for a new relationship between Russia and the EU.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany and speaks fluent Russian, has, however, maintained a more businesslike relation with Russia, in contrast to the friendlier ties between her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder and former Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
After their two-hour talks earlier Thursday, the two leaders said they will try to overcome concerns over the planned Baltic gas pipeline linking the two countries.
Merkel said the pipeline was not targeted against other countries but would facilitate gas supplies to "the whole European continent", to ease the doubts of Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states, which are bypassed by the line.
EUROPEAN SECURITY PACT
On relations with Europe, Medvedev said he was worried about "the narrowing trends of mutual understanding" on several key issues including Kosovo, NATO's eastward expansion and U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
While reiterating those rifts, however, Medvedev tried a different line of argument from his predecessor Putin.
On the one hand, like Putin, Medvedev expressed his opposition to these moves, while on the other, he tried to integrate Russia into Europe to ensure his country's strategic space and security.
Calling EU the "most important trading partner" of Russia, he proposed that Europe's energy pipelines be operated by "international consortiums" including companies from Russia, the European Union and the transit countries.
"Russia is returning to the global political and economic scene with all its natural, financial and intellectual resources and potential," said Medvedev, proposing the creation of a sweeping new European security pact to replace Cold War-era treaties like NATO.
Under the current conditions, where "no one wants war in Europe and all of us have the experience of the 20th century, such an accord would have all the chances of success," Medvedev suggested.
"It would be a regional pact founded on the principles of the UN Charter," and "Europe's problems will not be solved until it achieves ... an organic unity of all its historical parts, including Russia," he added.
Source:Xinhua
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