VLADIMIR PUTIN LAUNCHES KAZAKH SATELLITE
by Andrey Kolesnikov
Kommersant, Russia
June 19 2006
A meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building
Measures in Asia took place in Kazakhstan on Saturday. Kommersant
special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov saw many of the same faces
there that he had seen at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
summit. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev and Azeri President
Ilham Aliev signed an agreement to include Kazakhstan in the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. But even that couldn’t cloud Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s good mood after the launch of a Proton
rocket at Baikonur, where he traveled with Nazarbaev to watch.
The foundation of the CICBM was proposed by the president of Kazakhstan
at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in 1992, but its first summit
meeting took place only in 2002. This is the first time Russia has
shown in interest in the organization at all. When leaders from China,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Palestine and
Israel were heading to Almaty – not all heads of state, of course –
the presence of Chinese President Hu Jintao practically forced Putin
to attend as well.
Putin and Aliev met the evening before the summit began. Kommersant
learned that Aliev informed Putin of the agreement to be signed between
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and received the reaction he was hoping for –
an apathetic shrug.
Nazarbaev said at the summit that he intends to achieve "calm
and plenty" for his country. The summit itself was far from clam,
however. Uzbek President Islam Karimov was even more fiery in his
anti-American rhetoric that he had been in Shanghai. "We cannot
allow a situation where the opinion of only one country will count
in the world!" he said. "Trust between international subjects can be
compared to planting a tree that needs constant watering. But someone
is poisoning the very atmosphere it is growing in!"
The Chinese president nodded as he listened to Nazarbaev. Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres smiled indulgently.
Aliev used the summit to speak yet again about Nagorny Karabakh and
how, "as a result of ethnic cleansing, more than a million of our
citizens were made refugees and displaced persons and demand the
withdrawal of occupational forces from the territory of Azerbaijan."
Afghan President sat for an hour and a half without his lambskin hat
and green robe, looking much kinder than with them. He donned them
to address the summit (he never appears on television without them
because they are a symbol of his country). He told the summit that
he was not responsible alone for combating narcotics in his country.
"Narcotics are not a problem of Afghanistan," he said. "A significant
part of the profit goes to the international mafia."
It was quickly becoming clear that, unlike the SCO summit two days
earlier, the CICBM summit was aimed at a mass audience.
Peres, the seasoned Israeli diplomat, called the Palestinians "very
smart, capable people, with whom we can cooperate economically." He
added that "It’s not the government that should do that. The government
wants to make war and not peace."
Peres looked calm and confident, which may have been why the member
of the Palestinian Executive Committee looked just the opposite. He
began speaking about how Israel had seized the territory of another
state and was not ignoring Palestine’s right to achieve progress,
but soon stopping speaking, mortally offended after his English
interpreter asked him to speak more slowly and calmly.
"I distributed my speech yesterday in Arabic and Russian," Nazarbaev
pitched in. "Of course, I didn’t give it out in English."
"Can I continue now?" the Palestinian delegate suddenly enquired. His
interpreter had been changed. He spoke less than the allotted time
in any case.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Said Abbas-Irakchi told the summit
that "Iran, as a party to the nuclear nonproliferation agreement,
as a full member of the international community, shares the ideas
of nuclear disarmament and, observing all legal norms, intends to
use its right to the use of nuclear weapons." I thought that the
interpreter has misspoken and Irakchi had said "nuclear energy,"
but it turned out to be Irakchi’s slip of the tongue.
Or was it a slip of the tongue?
International scandal was avoided thanks to Peres, who ostentatiously
laughed at the phrase and did everything possible to show that it
was a mistake.
The president of Russia spoke about the important role of the CICBM
in solving the region’s ecological problems. Apparently he had more
confidence in the SCO’s political role.
At 4:45 a.m. local time, a Russian carrier rocket was to launch
a Kazakh communications satellite into orbit. The satellite cost
Kazakhstan $65 million, and its launch by Roscosmos at least another
900 million rubles.
"It’s not worth citing the specific figure," Roscosmos’ new press
secretary Igor Panarin said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because the price was set not only by the commercial cost of the
project, but b the character of the friendly relations between the
presidents of Kazakhstan and Russia," he explained.
Panarin added that the 4:45 launch time had ten minutes’ leeway. It
was understood that that was an allowance for Putin’s habitual
lateness. But the presidents arrived 45 minutes before the launch
was scheduled, and the countdown began.
We watched the takeoff from a distance of 2800 m. It took place
on schedule, creating an immense bright blue horseshoe against the
sunrise. It was beautiful and the launch was successful.
"I told you it would be a success!" Panarin said after the launch. He
had said that. He was asked several times about the possibility
of failure.
The presidents were photographed against the background of another
Proton rocket. Putin did not approach the reporters, most likely to
avoid questions about the Azeri-Kazakh pipeline agreement.
Nazarabev’s grandson Altai and his son-in-law, Altai’s father Timur
Kulibaev also took pictures in front of the rocket. It was obviously
a big day for the Nazarbaev family.