INTERVIEW GRANTED BY KONSTANTIN V. TOTSKY, RUSSIA'S PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE AT NATO, TO ITAR-TASS NEWS AGENCY, "LESS SUSPICION, MORE READINESS TO COOPERATE"

"In my work in the NATO sector I increasingly feel that I can be of considerable use to Russia for ensuring a higher level of its security. In this regard, the situation gladdens me, for in contacts with the representatives of NATO, including the highest level, there is less and less suspicion, more and more readiness to cooperate..." This was how General of the Army Konstantin V. Totsky, in an interview with ITAR-TASS correspondent A. Kondrashov, assessed the first results of his work in Brussels as Russia's Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Alliance.

Question: Konstantin Vasilyevich, 100 days have passed of your service at the new job. It's an occasion to sum up the first results, to tell about your impressions and plans for the future. How did they receive you at NATO, how did you find the atmosphere in the apparatus of the headquarters and among the delegations of member countries with reference to Russia and what do you remember most from the meetings held?

Answer: First of all, I will note the benevolence towards me personally and indeed all the representatives of the mission, as well as the general interest in maintaining a good working relationship with Russia. And not only in maintaining, but also in deepening and concretizing it, in searching for new forms and in achieving a practical effect.

With regard to specific countries, as before, the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and lately also Poland are actively working in the Russian sector.

Relations are developing very fruitfully with the US mission.

Question: Many people are now struck not only by the obvious discord in the Alliance, but also by some confusion linked to George Robertson stepping down soon, the reshuffle of personnel, the "interregnum" so to speak. Does this affect the plans of joint work? And why does Lord Robertson leave for an obviously not prestigious job in a British company?

Answer: I view the decision of Robertson as his personal decision, and to comment on this is not quite correct. I can only say that very many ambassadors at NATO voiced regret concerning his announced departure and expressed concern over the protracted search for a new candidate.

As to the work of NATO, the Council of the Alliance is functioning smoothly, and all the programs are being implemented; the Russia-NATO Council is also fully operative. So I feel no "interregnum" or anarchy.

Question: Associated with Robertson are the historic shifts in relations between Russia and NATO. What do you expect from the new Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and is a positive continuity going to be preserved?

Answer: We firmly hope for the course to be continued.

Question: As the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, he did have a hand in the plans to carry out a far-fetched peacekeeping operation in Transnistria, didn't he?

Answer: Regarding this operation, it is something of a puzzle not only to the Russian side, but also to my Western interlocutors. To whomsoever I spoke at NATO, nobody has any clear understanding of it, everyone refers to the European Union, saying that it is its idea. To my knowledge, so far nobody has set for NATO any such tasks with regard to Transnistria.

Although the plans for an operation in Transnistria do cause some very serious apprehensions on our part, because, figuratively speaking, it may unfreeze this conflict. The people there have been living in peace for more than ten years now; they are moving freely, the process of political settlement has begun. And all of a sudden there appears an international force. In my opinion, the more important thing now is assistance to Chisinau and Tiraspol at the negotiations, not the arrival of foreign bayonets.

Question: Probably dozens of joint projects - military-political, technical, peacekeeping, for the exchange of experience, and so forth - are currently under way between Russia and NATO. Which of them are the most important ones? Where is there any substantial progress? What new possibilities have been revealed in the last few months?

Answer: I would single out the joint development of theater missile defense (TMD) systems. After all, this is a very sensitive area for both sides, it is high technologies, it is the secret systems, but now we are trying to put them together, to make them compatible in automated mode, so they are run from a single command post, and project the air situation onto unified monitors for analysis and control... All this indicates that we have taken very wide steps towards each other in the military-technical field and in terms of trust.

There is progress in emergency civil planning and response. And Russia is prepared to expand cooperation substantially. We are prepared right now to draw up a list of manpower and resources for joint use in the unified coordination center of response to emergency situations. While we did create the center, response is still poor. When this summer forests were burning all over southern Europe, we had as in the old times to ask for overflight permission for fire-fighting planes and helicopters from each country and wait weeks... It is time to sign a common document making the transfer of help easier when needed.

Another highly promising area is cooperation between scientists and military of the two sides in such a specific field of ecology as the cleanup and reclamation of territories previously occupied by cantonments, bases and firing grounds. Russia and NATO have established a joint working group, which is operating very productively. All in all, about 15 such joint groups and committees are currently working on a permanent basis.

And I also want to single out peacekeeping. This is a very promising area. We somehow overlook the fact that Russian observers are currently participating in eleven UN and OSCE peacekeeping operations throughout the world. Russia could further expand this participation.

Question: But recently we withdrew from Bosnia and Kosovo?

Answer: Russia did not withdraw, but pulled out its military contingents. But somehow everybody forgets that our Interior Ministry officers and our border guards still remain both in Bosnia and in Kosovo.

In Kosovo alone 136 of our officers are working at present. Recall, the international military contingent in Kosovo originally numbered 45,000, and before the end of this year it will be reduced to 15,000 troops. There is no need for continued presence of such a large number of military there.

By the way, the upkeep of the military contingents in the Balkans alone used to cost Russia 28 million dollars.

Question: How do matters stand with the financing on our part of cooperation with NATO? Are some funds set into the 2004 budget for these purposes? And, simultaneously, can Russia count on some funds from NATO? I mean, for example, the disposition of antipersonnel mines, chemical weapons and decommissioned nuclear submarines?

Answer: This summer our permanent mission filed a request for the 2004 financing of the Russia-NATO Council with regard for joint training exercises, meetings of expert groups and other activities. And the result is encouraging, almost by an order of magnitude greater than in the current year. In respect of the Defense Ministry alone we are being allocated 500 thousand dollars. The current year's amount was only 140 thousand. Russian MFA-related financing will also increase.

True, about 20 of our ministries and departments are currently enlisted in cooperation with NATO. And this is the weakest element. Because the financing of their ties with NATO goes under the International Activities item and they have to make do within these modest limits. But from 2005 we expect to get target financing of all the joint projects, of all the joint training exercises and trips of experts. In other words, all the ministries and departments engaged in cooperation with NATO will begin to receive target financing.

The Alliance, by the way, has the Partnership for Peace (PFP) program, for which a definite amount of funds is being allocated.

We expect to study carefully all these partner programs and think of the possibility and advisability of using the PFP potential in cooperation between NATO and Russia. Previously we treated PFP with a certain degree of negativism, because we looked upon it as a program to assist the countries intending to join NATO. But states which do not intend to join the Alliance are also actively using these programs. For example, Sweden. The Swedish ambassador told me recently that his country was receiving a solid return from the Partnership for Peace program.

In the elimination of chemical weapons and disposition of decommissioned nuclear submarines, NATO nations are helping us on a bilateral basis. As to mine weapons, we cannot give them up so far. I personally feel we need several more years. The abandonment of mine obstacles will make the protection of our borders more difficult, in the most dangerous sections at that - in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Tajikistan.

Question: Are there any new agreements regarding NATO's eastward expansion in terms of the commitments of the Alliance not to deploy any military infrastructure in the new countries' territory? How do we assess the Americans' intention to transfer a part of their bases from Germany to Eastern Europe? What in general can we expect from NATO's eastward expansion?

Answer: I consider that this transformation, both of purely American and of NATO forces, should be approached calmly and objectively. For, the Alliance is reducing and readjusting its groupings that were previously focused on a big war with the Soviet Union, with the Warsaw Treaty Organization. I think we should be glad that the high US and NATO command understands there is no need for those previous huge armadas any more; that there is no expediency in the maintenance of the bases and groupings. They perceive no threat from Russia and want to effect regrouping. Though no final decisions to transfer a part of the US forces to Eastern Europe have been taken so far.

But I hold that in taking such decisions there should be consultations with Russia first; under our programs to jointly assess common threats. You have probably heard that NATO and we have already prepared several such documents concerning joint assessment of threats: to military contingents in the Balkans, to land infrastructure from civilian aircraft attacks and, vice versa, of threats to civilian aircraft from land-based strikes; work is currently under way on the assessment of threats from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

It is therefore logical to hold similar consultations on new threats for the new groupings of NATO in Eastern Europe. And is there a need for these new groupings to be deployed to the east? Or nevertheless to the south or southeast?

I have raised such questions, especially as regards the Baltic states, but I was told there is no such decision. And, indeed, it is very hard for the NATO side to explain the reasons of any plans for building up its military presence in the calm Baltic Sea region. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, US General James Jones, told me there may be set up in the Baltic states training centers for certain categories of military and possible tactical training exercises up to the battalion. But there are no plans to deploy any military bases in the Baltic states, he said.

Question: So what then prevents us from discussing the question of transferring US bases to the East of Europe in one of such documents on threat assessment?

Answer: It is not quite correct to formulate the question thus: where you can have bases, and where not. After all, this is an internal matter of the Alliance. We are formulating the question differently: once we are not enemies, once we are saying that we have common threats to security and stability, then why not hold consultations with Russia on that score?

Question: At President Putin's recent meeting with military commanders the thought was expressed that we intend to follow the transformation of NATO, but if the anti-Russian focus of the military planning of the Alliance is going to continue, this will require a change in the nuclear strategy of Russia. How to explain this unexpected turn?

Answer: I do not quite understand why the media have accentuated attention to this topic precisely. For the President spoke primarily of cooperation, interaction with the armed forces of other states, and participation in peacekeeping operations. There was expressed the hope that NATO will get rid of the last rudiments of the past, which have already been conceived, but which so far are not confirmed in documents either in politics or in military planning. I feel that not only the NATO nations, but also Russia should review a lot in order to make irreversible the process of the conversion of Russia and NATO from enemies into partners and even allies.

If we achieve these aims, we will save billions of dollars, and raise the level of our own security, having a minimally necessary but sufficient defense potential.

Question: What other "sore spots" burden our mutual relations? On Transnistria the answer was given. What else is worrying and disconcerting us?

Answer: The unsettled question of ratification of the CFE Treaty - the Treaty on the Limitation of Armed Forces in Europe. Not a single NATO nation has ratified this treaty. In the Rome Declaration when establishing the Russia-NATO Council the adapted CFE was called the cornerstone of the security of the Euro-Atlantic region. But this stone has got stuck in unsettledness...

Question: What is the reason for the NATO nations' reluctance to ratify it?

Answer: This is being linked to Russia's commitments assumed at the OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999 on its military bases in Georgia and on Transnistria. Although the West acknowledges that the joint commitments of Russia and Georgia are not legally connected with the CFE Treaty, but politically it wants the ratification by the countries of the Alliance to be tied to the signing of a Russian-Georgian agreement on the time limit for the stationing of the Russian bases in Georgia and to the complete withdrawal of our troops from Transnistria. Whereas we consider it extremely important to launch an effective CFE mechanism as soon as possible and to combine it with the process of the implementation of the Russian-US Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions.

Question: How are we cooperating after Alliance's assumption of the command of the ISAF in Afghanistan? What is NATO asking of us, and with what do we agree to help? In your opinion, what are the prospects for expanding the foreign military presence in Afghanistan? Is the Alliance conscious of the need to cut off the drug flow and to help Russia in this Central Asian region?

Answer: We handed over to NATO our proposals for assistance as early as the beginning of this year. But the only request was for German transit. We complied with it. No other requests came in. The exchange of intelligence is developing, though, precisely with NATO.

As to the drug flow, this topic deserves a separate discussion. If only because so far there are no ways to solve this hugely acute problem for the world in sight. Something is being allocated on a bilateral basis - from Japan, from Britain - but that is extremely insufficient. And the annual drug traffic turnover reaches up to 25-30 billion dollars now. Eight to 10 billion settling down in Russia, and the remaining 20 billion going to Europe.

I am extremely surprised by the passiveness of Europe and the West as a whole in the fight against this evil, though I see the tactical complexity of the problem. The field commanders are the same drug barons. If you start destroying poppy plantations and processing plants, this will entail their fierce resistance and will create a threat to the western contingents in Afghanistan. But still, I consider it absurd to blast the caves where bin Laden is supposed to be hiding and leave the processing plants intact. For drugs are not just money, they are politics and arms. Everyone knows the utterance of the same bin Laden: "in the struggle against the infidels we shall drown Europe in drugs."

And drugs are another weapon of mass destruction; they are killing tens of thousands of people. A person who has started using heroin lives, according to doctors' data, only from three to five years.

An interest in this problem is ripening in NATO. At the July meeting of the Russia-NATO Council I spoke on it. As a result George Robertson suggested devoting a separate meeting of the Council to the struggle against the drug traffic from Afghanistan.

But generally I regard with bitterness the attitude of the West to the problem of drugs in Afghanistan. When you are speaking, citing data, they are all listening with interest, jotting down notes.

But then they are talking about the need to create a security belt around Afghanistan and strengthen the regime on the borders. Of course, this also needs to be done. But to stop the drug flow is only possible by destroying the plants and plantations in Afghanistan. In 1992 only 200 tons of raw opium was produced there. Next year it will be 5,000 tons.

Question: On September 10 you had a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. What objectives were set at it, to what the main attention was paid, and what help was promised?

Answer: The President summoned me to Moscow and heard my report on the status of the work and on the prospects in various fields of cooperation; the meeting was held with the Minister of Defense in attendance. The President re-emphasized the importance of this foreign policy line of Russia. I and the representatives of the Defense and Foreign Ministries all felt alike that he holds under personal control this area of work and generally all the aspects of European politics.

Question: Perhaps there were some memorable phrases, advice, parting injunctions?

Answer: The most memorable phrase of the President's for me, which can also be regarded as parting injunctions, was uttered earlier, upon my being appointed as the permanent representative. "NATO is a serious matter and for long. We should not compete but cooperate with each other," said the President.

In my opinion, this is a concentrated expression of his vision of NATO not as a bloc directed against Russia, but as an organization with which in the present-day conditions we can and should be together.

Question: And in personal terms? Are you pleased to have come to Brussels?

Answer: Of course, it's a pity that I had to quit the job I like, to leave my beloved border troops. But in my work in the NATO sector I increasingly feel that I can be of considerable use to Russia for ensuring a higher level of its security with ever less defense spending.

In this regard, the situation gladdens me, for in contacts with the representatives of NATO, including the highest level, there is less and less suspicion, more and more readiness to cooperate.

There are, of course, some nuances: we want to take something more for Russia, and the West accordingly for itself. But in the search for these forms areas can surely be found that are reciprocally advantageous.

There is understanding that the cooperation that has begun will not yield an instantaneous effect; it will take years and years. I very highly appreciate the respectful tone prevailing in NATO. At all levels you'll never hear any reproaches, edification or admonitions. Even when discussing the above CFE problems, I sensed no pressure or dissatisfaction.

Question: What is the working rhythm of our permanent mission to NATO, has its diplomatic staff been increased, has the range of objectives been widened and are there any plans to create a branch directly at the NATO headquarters?

Answer: As you see, there is a great deal of matters and tasks; every day both myself and most of the staff of the mission have working meetings with the representatives of the Alliance, and there is a lot of analytical, organizational work. The staff of the permanent mission and of the chief military representation at NATO exceeds thirty, including technical personnel. I consider it important that the arriving diplomats should have an experience of work, military-diplomatic, negotiation work; that they come to Brussels precisely to work and not to learn. I am generally grateful to the MFA and the Defense Ministry for the cadres being sent to the mission.

As to our presence directly at the headquarters of the Alliance, we will soon get three rooms.

By the way, working premises in NATO were allocated to the Russian side even at the end of the 90s. But after the military action of NATO in Yugoslavia in 1999, we, as is known, wrapped up our cooperation and left the headquarters. The re-establishment of our offices there will, of course, simplify work, although the center of gravity will still be in the new building of our embassy compound on Avenue de Fre.