Russia's turnaround in the Middle East
Russian foreign policy in the region has benefited from a steady, nonideological focus as well as the missteps and neglect of other powers.
Ukraine has briefly become a Near Eastern country for us. The failure of the European Union's hopes that an agreement on an association between Ukraine and the EU would be signed in Vilnius on Nov. 28 is regarded by all as a success for Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who fiercely fought against Ukraine's “departure” for the West. This success is now viewed against the backdrop of Moscow's active and successful approach in the Near East, and it adds to the feeling of Russia's power and influence in the international arena on the part of many Russian observers. Syria and Ukraine have little in common, except that Russia had been considered an obvious and irreversible “loser” in both places, but it turned out to be — at least for now — the winner.
However, truth be told, there is another parallel. Ukraine is actively being invited into the Customs Union — an association that Moscow is initiating in the territory of the former Soviet Union for the purposes of integration. A couple of weeks ago, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that it would be a good idea to invite Syria and Turkey into this organization so that the project would not look like a restoration of the USSR. But this, of course, was something of a political joke.
In general, Russia is actually becoming a most important participant in all political processes in the Near East. Only in the past few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were in Moscow on separate occasions, one after the other. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is participating in the final round of negotiations of the six major powers on Iran. At the same time, Russian diplomats are still trying to break the deadlock in the Syrian Geneva II conference, communicating with Damascus and representatives of the opposition, and continue to work on the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria. On Nov. 14-15, a Russian-Egyptian meeting was held in Cairo in the form of “2+2” (the ministers of defense and foreign affairs), with arms contracts expected as a result of this meeting.
This situation is unexpected. Just several months ago, it was believed that Moscow was hopelessly losing ground in the Near East. The last clients inherited from the Soviet past are losing power in their respective countries, new ones have not developed and Russian policy provokes hostility and rejection from most capitals and religious and ethnic groups in the region.
