Russia seeks to expand role in Mideast

By Henry Meyer

MOSCOW (AFP): Russia could exploit the handovers of power in Jerusalem and Washington to win a more influential role for itself in the moribund Middle East peace process, Russian experts said on Wednesday.

As Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's special representative Eitan Ben Tsur visited the Russian capital, commentators noted that the time was ripe for Moscow to counterbalance Washington's dominant role as peacemaker.

However, Russia is unlikely to seek to usurp the traditionally leading role played by the United States in sponsoring efforts to forge a lasting peace in the region, they added.

"The new (George W.) Bush administration does not think that a final settlement is such a big priority," said Irina Zviagelskaya from the Middle East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"It won't abstain from acting there, but it will be less active, so there is more room for Russia to play a role than it has done up until now," she added.

Moscow is a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process launched in Madrid in 1991, but has been sidelined in recent years by Washington under the presidency of Bill Clinton who personally oversaw Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Meanwhile Israel's new leader has reached out to Russia, offering it the chance to win back some influence in the Middle East, in the hope this will offset U.S. pressure to moderate his hawkish stance, according to experts here.

In an Israeli newspaper interview last Friday, Sharon said that negotiations with the Palestinians had become "too dependent" on the United States.

He said Russia could play a larger role, although he stressed that Moscow "cannot be a substitute for the United States," Israel's principal ally.

Sharon's motive in seeking to broaden the peace process was best understood in the context of a likely toughening of Washington's approach to Israel due to overriding U.S. economic interests, analysts said.

Continued high oil prices and the threat this represents to the global economy mean that the Bush presidency may have to appeal to Arab producers led by Saudi Arabia to increase output, according to Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the U.S. Canada Institute.

In return Washington would have to lean on Israel to pursue peace with the Palestinians, he added, suggesting that Sharon could try to make use of Russian involvement to offset Washington's demands.

"He (Sharon) understands that if he brings in the Russian dimension into the Middle East, it may help him because he feels a bit exposed to the future American pressure and he wants to avoid it," said Kremenyuk.

However experts cautioned that Moscow could not expect to rival Washington's position in the region, as neither Israel nor the United States would allow this to happen and because of Russia's incoherent strategy.

"Russia cannot expand its role in the Middle East peace process in a major way because it has no real strategic interest in the region apart from showing that it is a global player," said Alexei Malashenko from the Carnegie Moscow Center.

"It also has a dual position. It is very keen to improve its relations with Israel but it also wants to sell arms to the Arabs," he added.

"Sometimes they talk about aggression against the Palestinians and sometimes they want to prove that Islamic radicalism in the Palestinian territorities and Chechnya are one and the same," Malashenko noted.

The Palestinians meanwhile, who have always protested that the United States has not played a neutral role as peacemaker, are highly skeptical that Russia will be able to wield significant influence.

"The real position of Israel is that they don't want Russia to play a part in the peace process," the top Palestinian diplomat in Moscow, Khairi Aloridi, told AFP earlier this week.