Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
21 APRIL 2009 RT
HON BARONESS
TAYLOR OF
BOLTON, GROUP
CAPTAIN MALCOLM
CRAYFORD, MS
GLORIA CRAIG,
RT HON
CAROLINE FLINT
MP, MR NICK
PICKARD AND
MR JUSTIN
MCKENZIE
SMITH
Q300 Mr Jenkin: Is there not a danger
that because there is dialogue on so many fronts we may be very
solidly for maintaining NATO's integrity in the face of Russian
subversion by a new European security architecture but there are
other players who may not be quite as solid as us? How are we
to guard against that?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: I think
that relationships between the EU and NATO on issues of this kind
are extremely good. To go back to Robert Key's question about
why it was the EU and not NATO brokered the ceasefire, informally
individual countries made an assessment very rapidly. We have
seen very good co-operation between the EU and NATO recently,
for example on piracy. While the channels of communication may
not have the structures that some would want they do exist and
perhaps operate better. You are right that we must be aware of
any attempt to say we will co-operate on the EU on this because
we do not like NATO or we will do something in this way to drive
a wedge between them. Everybody must be aware of that.
Q301 Mr Holloway: Why do you think
President Putin is interested in South Ossetia and Abkhazia? What
do you think is his motivation?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: I am
not sure that that is not also a matter for the Foreign Office.
You can talk about spheres of influence and making the point that
it was a sphere of influence. You could talk about proving domestically
that you are powerful. You can speculate on a whole range of issues.
Our problem is how we deal with the consequences of it rather
than how we speculate on his motives. Clearly, all of those things
could enter into it.
Q302 Mr Crausby: I have gained the
impression from earlier answers that whilst the issue of shared
values may well have been re-categorised the question of engagement
remains essential. But engagement is one thing and co-operation
is another, is it not?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: Yes.
Q303 Mr Crausby: It is true that
prior to the Georgian conflict there was an important and developing
level of co-operation between NATO and Russia. What are the UK
Government's priorities for the development of areas of co-operation
between NATO and Russia?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: It
is true that we were co-operating with the Russians on quite a
range of issues and had been for some time. There had been significant
naval co-operation and air co-operation was developing. We had
been giving advice on a whole range of issues, some perhaps surprising,
in terms of modernisation as Russia changed its way of dealing
with its armed forces. Areas of co-operation were considered to
be valuable on both sides. That stopped as a result of what happened.
Some of this is not just about Georgia but about the Litvinenko
case. It is difficult to separate the two because they both formed
part of that backdrop. Co-operation is important. We have conferences
to which people are invited and exercises to which people have
been invited. We have partnership for peace work and things of
that kind, but with this hanging over us, co-operation is not
the same as it was.
Group Captain Crayford: That is
from a UK bilateral defence perspective, but the NATO-Russia Council
will be key to this as it resumes dialogue in the coming months,
because there are important issues that we need to discuss with
Russia: Afghanistan, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics
and counter-terrorism for example. I know certainly in Brussels
there now looking at the levels of meetings planned for the NATO-Russia
Council in the coming weeks and months.
Q304 Mr Crausby: What about joint
peace-keeping operations? Is it possible in this environment to
consider working side by side with the Russians until things reach
a better level?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: The
Russians have been involved. They are involved in Chad and they
are quite keen to remind people of that. I mentioned piracy earlier.
The Russians are keen to co-operate on piracy issues. Further,
with President Obama we have a new level of discussion about disarmament
issues and the whole relationship. That is why the situation is
very difficult. For years we thought we were making real progress
in that kind of partnership. It is the kind of relationship that
we all want to develop. Terrorists and drugs know no boundary
etc and proliferation affects anybody and everybody. There are
real areas where co-operation would be in everybody's interests
but also barriers to co-operation that make it more difficult.
That is why we are trying to take a very hard-headed approach
and look at issues on a one-by-one basis to see exactly what we
need to do to manage that situation. But there is scope and where
it is in everyone's interest to pursue that.
Ms Craig: I think the Russian
appetite for engaging in peace-keeping in the way we understand
it is fairly limited. As the Minister said, they have helped out
with helicopters in Chad and they are participating in Atalanta.
Q305 Chairman: Atalanta being the
anti-piracy operation?
Ms Craig: Yes. But on the whole,
they do not go in for the international peace-keeping that the
UN generally does; they think more in terms of peace-keeping in
their own neighbourhood than joining in with the rest of the international
community.
Q306 Chairman: What about Afghanistan?
Is the British Government taking any action to ensure there is
a new agreement with Russia on the transit of military as well
as non-military goods through Russia to Afghanistan?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: At
present, there are agreements between France and Russia, Germany
and Italy and Russia and the Spanish are just entering into an
agreement. There is discussion about a NATO agreement for transit.
Q307 Chairman: Are those not for
non-military equipment?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: Yes,
but I think there are discussions about wider possibilities. We
do not use the northern route in the way some of our allies do;
our route is a more southerly one and so it is not quite as relevant
to us. I do not think we close our minds to it if we think it
will be useful, but our main routes work quite well. We shall
continue to use southern routes. If the Russians want to be helpful
to NATO as a whole that is something that everyone is pursuing.
Q308 Chairman: In essence, you are
leaving the running of the new agreement between NATO and Russia
to countries that are more involved in using the northern route?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: There
is a NATO discussion and also bilateral ones and the latter have
been mainly with those countries that use the northern route.
Q309 Mr Hamilton: Does that not prove
the point I made earlier? Russia is dealing with individual countries
in Europe rather than European organisations?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: On
occasions, yes, just as we deal with them on occasion on certain
issues. As the largest foreign investors in Britain we deal with
them a lot on a bilateral basis, but on this issue we use a southern
route and therefore it is not as relevant to us. It would be relevant
in the context of a new NATO agreement but it is not as relevant
to us bilaterally.
Q310 Mr Holloway: Does the Minister
think that perhaps the UK should think more seriously about using
the northern route given that at the moment we are in a farcical
situation where we pay local security companies along the southern
route to ship our goods; in other words, effectively we are paying
the Taliban millions of dollars per year?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: We
could talk about that for a long time and I am sure that we would
not necessarily agree on the analysis of that.
Q311 Mr Holloway: It is the truth.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: We
as ministers, would not sit down with the map and decide which
routes to adopt but would take advice from those who plan these
operations, and so far they have been pretty successful in terms
of the logistical planning into which they have entered. We have
a high degree of confidence in the work they have done so far.
Q312 Mr Holloway: But is it not politically
embarrassing to be paying the Taliban all this money? As Ministers
should you not be improving your relations with Russia so we can
ship stuff through the north and do not pay the same people who
are killing our soldiers?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: If
that was the simplistic analysis we would be looking at options.
Q313 Mr Holloway: It is the truth.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: I do
not accept your simplistic analysis. We pay for transit as we
would expect and we have arrangements which those who are responsible
for the operations think work well. They think they are the best
arrangements they can get at the moment in the circumstances and
we accept that judgment.
Q314 Mr Jenkin: Perhaps I may put
an alternative point of view. It has been put to us that Prime
Minister Putin would love us to be dependent upon Russian good
will for the support of our troops in the Afghan theatre, for
what he could get out of the situation. Is it not rather ironic
that they are putting pressure on Kyrgyzstan to close an American
supply base in order to force NATO into the arms of the Russians
themselves?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: Yes.
We do not use the Manas air base but the Americans use it very
heavily. I think that it would be to everybody's advantage if
that remained open. Your analysis shows the problems of being
over-dependent in any way on any one analysis of the situation.
I think we have to be cautious on these issues.
Q315 Linda Gilroy: Does the NATO-Russia
Council provide any effective platform at a strategic level for
strategic discussions? If it does not, how should it be reformed?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: The
NATO-Russia Council has been significant but perhaps not as it
might have been.
Q316 Linda Gilroy: At a strategic
level as well as a tactical level?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: I think
there are issues we can explore. We have mentioned Afghanistan,
counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism. Although I have not
discussed this with Foreign Office officials, in the past, the
bigger issues have been out of bounds or too difficult or too
big for the NATO-Russia Council. It never did discuss Georgia
or the conflict areas of that kind. I do not think it has discussed
NATO enlargement. Therefore, on some issues it could have been
a forum for discussion but it has not been on the agenda or it
has been considered too difficult. Therefore, it seems to have
concentrated on other issues. We do want a constructive relationship
there. Perhaps it should be a bit more robust than it has been
in the past. There will be discussions about its future in the
summer, but it seems strange to me that those issues were too
big for it. Perhaps in retrospect it was ticking over and people
believed they were in a partnership that proved not to be quite
what they thought.
Q317 Linda Gilroy: In terms of the
shared European space in OSCE terms running from Vancouver to
Vladivostock, is there an arena in which Russia can have a strategic
discussion about that shared space?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: Yes.
Q318 Linda Gilroy: Has OSCE tended
to be a fairly low profile organisation compared with the others
where Russia understandably wants to be taken seriously as a country
given its great history stretching back many centuries? Where
is the arena in which it can do that at a strategic level?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: There
are several layers to this and they are all there.
Mr Pickard: Earlier both Ministers
made the point that we believe the security discussions should
have a wider definition of security that involves not just hard
security on which Russia wants to focus but also human rights,
rule of law and the economic dimension. The advantage of the OSCE
is that it has these three baskets that allow it to have that
wider discussion in a way that arguably the NATO-Russia Council
does not with its focus on harder security. Yes, we want the NATO-Russia
Council to do that hard security and strategic dialogue and we
can have a major transatlantic dialogue in that sense, but if
we want to go broader than that and ensure Russia respects its
Helsinki commitments to those other areas of security then we
should be using the OSCE to do that.
Q319 Linda Gilroy: That is a sensible
answer in terms of where discussions should take place, but in
relation to Russian status I suspect that a very large proportion
of even the informed world is not aware of the work of the OSCE
in the same way that it is of NATO, the United Nations or European
Union as a forum for discussion on security. Where does Russia
engage in a way that gives it that kind of respect?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: But
Russia is a big player on the international stage and its status
is very significant. It might not be the status that it once had
and it might feel that very severely, but that is a fact of history.
To go back to one of the earlier questions about the end of the
Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that was
an internal disintegration, not something imposed on them; they
had to readjust.
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