PRESS RELEASE
Constructive Relations with Russia
Are Possible, If EU Really Desires Them
Dec. 26, 2013 (EIRNS)—As anticipated by Lyndon LaRouche, leading German figures are beginning to speak out in favor of an orientation toward working with Russia, in contrast to the dead-end policies of the European Union.
As Ukrainian National News (UNN) reported today, Alexander Rahr, Russia expert at the German Foreign Policy Association, said in an interview with Tonis TV, that a positive development of relations between Europe and Russia were possible, if the EU would return to a constructive dialogue based on viewing the Russians as real partners rather than as providers of raw materials only. The policy which the EU has pursued in the past five years, Rahr argued, has been wrong, because all countries that did not copy the "European" values have been punished, with Brussels distancing itself from them — Russia and Ukraine under their present governments being among these.
The solution to these policy conflicts lies in "traditional three-way approaches," Rahr said, which implies a return to policies that have worked constructively in the past. For example, the so-called "Weimar Triangle" which was set up between France, Germany, and Poland for coordination of policies, but also explicitly invited Russia to take part in aspects of security and defense. Had Russia the feeling today, that Europe had more interest in it as a real partner for dialogue than as a supplier of crude oil and natural gas, a constructive dialogue like that in the period 2000-2003 would be possible, Rahr said. That would involve foreign and defense policies as well as economics.
For instance, the planned withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan which is to begin in 2014, would offer a chance for such a dialogue, Rahr said, inviting also Ukraine, which is closer to Central Asia than Germany, to get involved. That extends to the anti-dope strategy, as dope reaches Germany and Poland also via Ukraine, which implies that the three countries cooperate in the struggle against dope at bilateral and multilateral levels.
That Alexander Rahr picks up this way on the proposals of the Russian government to use the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan to fold in international cooperation against the Eurasian heroin economy, is quite interesting, particularly given the awareness in Berlin of the implications of Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) head Victor Ivanov's role in pushing the United States on this matter. It is doubly interesting as Ivanov was a part of the institutional effort to throw down the gauntlet against Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the point London was using him for an oligarch resurrection against the efforts to reconstruct the Russian state in 2003. Ivanov was key in the investigations and prosecution of Khodorkovsky. It is also interesting that the Ukraine's state news agency conducted an interview on just this subject of collaboration around Afghanistan, pointing to the role of Ukraine as a heroin trafficking route.
