The United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, on Thursday accused Russia of using blackmail and intimidation in its energy policy towards Europe. In one of Washington’s sharpest rebukes to Moscow, Cheney said it was not acceptable for Russia to use its vast gas and energy supplies to bully its neighbours.
”Russia has a choice to make,” Cheney told Baltic leaders during a summit in Vilnius. ”No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolise transportation.”
Cheney urged Russia to stop backsliding on democracy. He said opponents of reform in Russia were ”seeking to reverse the gains of the last decade” by restricting democratic rights, and warned the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, that some of Moscow’s actions could hurt relations with other countries.
The vice-president’s comments provoked an instant reaction from Moscow. ”The speech of Mr Cheney in our opinion is full of a subjective evaluation of us and of the processes that are going on in Russia. The remarks … are completely incomprehensible for us,” said the Kremlin’s deputy spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov.
Andrei Kokoshin, the head of the Russian Parliament’s committee for relations with former Soviet republics, said Washington should respect Russia’s legitimate interests. ”The US has to deal with an absolutely different Russia today — a Russia that has restored its real sovereignty in many areas and is pursuing a course on the world arena that meets mainly its own national interests,” said Kokoshin, according to Interfax.
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who had recently warned that hawks in Russia and the US were keen to see a replay of the Cold War, denounced Cheney’s speech. ”[It] looks like a provocation and interference in Russia’s internal affairs in terms of its content, form and place,” Gorbachev said.
The US vice-president’s characteristically blunt remarks came as the energy dispute between Germany and Poland escalated after reports that Poland is planning to build a nuclear power station on its border with Germany.
Earlier this week, a Polish minister complained bitterly about a German-Russian pipeline deal, comparing it to the pact made by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The plan to pipe gas under the Baltic Sea — bypassing Poland — was akin to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, when Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland between them, according to the defence minister, Radek Sikorski.
The Polish media on Thursday reported that the country was now considering retaliating by building its first nuclear power station in Gryfino, just 24km from the German border. The power station, next to a German nature reserve and 120km from Berlin, could start generating electricity in 2015, the reports said.
”This is bad news. This would be a disaster for tourism and for our nature reserve,” Klemens Schmitz, a member of the Social Democrat party who lives near Gryfino, told the Märkische Allgemeine newspaper.
On Thursday Stanislaw Latek, a spokesperson for Poland’s national atomic energy agency, said no final decision had been made on where any new nuclear plant would be built.
He told The Guardian: ”The studies are unlikely to begin properly until 2008. But Poland does have a problem. Our existing coal stations are very old. We want to do something about C02 emissions. In 15 to 20 years we will need more energy. We are looking at various alternatives. But we prefer nuclear energy.”
Ludwik Pienkowski, a scientist at Warsaw University who is carrying out a nuclear feasibility study, said: ”The best solution for Poland would be to build a nuclear power plant by 2020.”
Poland announced it was considering constructing its first nuclear plant during an energy review last year. Many other former Soviet bloc countries have also said they want to build nuclear power stations. Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine have announced new programmes.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for German Greenpeace said he was doubtful that Poland could afford its own nuclear plant. ”Support in Poland for nuclear power is very, very low,” said Tobias Münchmeyer.
The problem of energy supply in Europe has topped the political agenda since Moscow briefly turned off the gas supply to Ukraine earlier this year, sparking international condemnation. – Guardian Unlimited Â