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Putin makes historic visit to Israel
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-28 08:21
Greeted by beaming Israeli officials, Russian president Vladimir Putin on
Wednesday became the first Kremlin leader to visit the Jewish state, capping a
historic rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter
enemies across the Cold War divide.
Putin, on his first Middle East trip, was also hoping to restore his
country's profile as a major player in the region and the world, bringing with
him a fresh proposal for a conference to be held in Moscow in the autumn.
"Considering the history of relations and the fact that there were times that
we were on one side and Russia was entirely on the other side ... (the visit)
indicates the significant change that took place between the two countries,"
Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said as he stood on the airport tarmac waiting
to greet Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center left,
looks at a book with Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, right as he visits at the
Western Wall, not seen, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City,
Wednesday, April 27, 2005.[AP] | The Soviet Union
supported Israel during the Jewish state's early years, but relations soon
deteriorated — and eventually collapsed — as Israel increasingly allied itself
with the United States. Moscow cut ties with Israel in 1967 in the context of a
Mideast war and strongly backed the Arab states. In many of its wars with its
Arab neighbors, Israel found itself facing Soviet-trained pilots flying Soviet
MiGs fighter jets.
Moscow also barred Jews from leaving, jailing many who demanded the right to
emigrate to Israel.
As the Soviet Union was collapsing in the early 1990s, the two nations
restored ties, and Moscow loosened emigration restrictions, prompting more than
a million Russian speakers to immigrate here. Natan Sharansky, a Jewish
emigration activist who spent nine years in a Soviet jail on an espionage
charge, is now Israel's minister for Diaspora affairs. Sharansky and Putin have
no plans to meet, according to Israeli and Russian officials.
Relations are continuing to improve under Putin, who took office in 2000, as
he tries to push Russia's economic interests abroad and evoke parallels between
Israel's conflict with Palestinian militants and Russia's campaign against
Chechen rebels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a
candle, as he visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
believed to be built on the site of Jesus' last resting place after his
body was removed from the cross in the old town of Jerusalem, Wednesday,
April 27, 2005.
[AP] | But there are strains as well,
including Russia's determination to push ahead with a missile sale to Syria, one
of Israel's bitterest enemies. Other potential sore points include Moscow's
nuclear aid to Iran and signs of rising anti-Semitism in Russia.
Putin has sought to use the Middle East conflict to help restore Russia's
stature on the international stage, where its presence is dwarfed by the United
States. It has joined Europe, the United Nations and the United States in the
so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers, and Palestinians view Russia as an
important counterweight to U.S. support for Israel.
"Russia is a country that can, relatively speaking, neutralize — through its
participation in the Quartet — a little bit of the American bias to Israel,"
Palestinian Cabinet minister Ghassan Khatib said.
U.S. reaction to the conference was cool. White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said, "We believe there will be an appropriate time for an
international conference, but we are not at that stage now and I don't expect
that we will be there by the fall."
The Palestinians and Russia also have a history of political and cultural
cooperation dating to the Cold War. About 15,000 Palestinians — including
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas — studied in Russian universities.
Putin made a brief, late-night visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in
the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday. Reporters were kept out of the church,
which marks the place where Jesus was crucified and where Christians believe he
was resurrected.
Then he stopped at the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site in the Old City.
Putin plans to meet with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, on Thursday. On Friday, he goes to the West Bank city of Ramallah to
meet with Abbas and lay a wreath at the grave of Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin waves as he
visits the hisorical site of Giza Pyramids near Cairo Wednesday, April 27,
2005. Putin, who become the first Russian or Soviet leader in 40 years to
make an official state visit to Egypt, talks with Mubarak on bilateral
relations and efforts to revive the tenuous peace process between Israel
and the Palestinians. [AP] | During a meeting in
Cairo on Wednesday, Putin proposed a Mideast peace conference in Russia this
autumn. The timing of such a gathering, after Israel's planned pullout from the
Gaza Strip this summer, appeared to be an effort to restart the peace process
and revive the Quartet-sponsored "road map" peace plan that calls for the
creation of a Palestinian state.
Officials in Sharon's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he
would express reservations.
Palestinians, worried that Israeli peace efforts will end with the pullout,
embraced the conference proposal.
"From our side we welcome such a conference and we hope it will happen,"
Abbas said.
"Israel has accepted the road map, and in the second stage of the road map it
specifically mentions a conference," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark
Regev said. "So we don't have a problem with a conference ... but obviously we
have not reached the second stage of the road map yet."
Israel's objections to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's plan for a London
peace conference in March transformed that gathering into a workshop on internal
Palestinian reforms.
Roman Bronfman, an Israeli lawmaker and political science expert who
immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1980, called the new proposed conference "a
gimmick or a public relations stunt."
"But this is a desire of Putin's, to determine some of the steps and return
to the Middle East, and this is an initiative that we will have to deal with,"
he told Israel TV.
Quartet foreign ministers will meet in Moscow on May 8 to discuss the peace
process, Putin said. The level of representation had not been decided, Putin
added, noting he still needed to speak with Sharon.
Putin said his visit to Egypt, his first to an Arab country since he became
president, was aimed at reviving political and business links with the nation.
The last Kremlin chief to make an official state visit to Egypt was Nikita
Khrushchev in 1964.
In addition to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Putin and Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak also discussed Iraq, where violence has been on the rise in recent
weeks.
Putin indicated Russia wants to see a timetable for the departure of U.S.-led
forces.
"There must be an agreement on the basis of a new constitution, and there
must be an agreement on the timing and conditions for the withdrawal of foreign
troops from Iraq," the Russian leader said.
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