Moscow: Russia is planning a major shift
towards a more pragmatic foreign policy to improve ties with
the West and attract greater international investment, a
report said on Tuesday.
The new policy -- approved by President Dmitry Medvedev
-- aims to make finding international capital to modernise the
economy Russia`s main diplomatic priority, the Russian edition
of Newsweek said.
He has also identified India, Brazil, China, South Korea
and Singapore as "dynamically developing states" with whom
Russia needed a partnership to help its own technology sector.
Entitled "The Programme for Effective Use of Foreign
Policy in the Long Term Development of Russia", the doctrine
says Russia must strengthen relations with the United States
and the European Union to achieve its economic goals.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in the introduction
that the best way to assure Russian interests in the modern
world is to rapidly realise modernisation in Russia, a
flagship project of Medvedev.
Russia needs to forge "modernising alliances" with
Western Europe and the EU to attract foreign capital, Lavrov
wrote in the doctrine, the entire text of which was posted on
the Newsweek website.
Meanwhile, Russia will need to exploit the United States`
technological potential and end restrictions on the transfer
of American technology to Russia, he said.
"The greatest importance will be attached to the...
strengthening of relations of mutual dependence with leading
world and regional powers based on mutual penetration of
economy and culture," Lavrov wrote.
Lavrov lauded the "transforming potential" of US
President Barack Obama but warned that elements in the US
foreign policy establishment were seeking to force him to a
more confrontational stance.
Particular attention should be paid to the growing role
of China and "the consequences for our global and regional
interests", Lavrov said.
A foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment to AFP
on the doctrine, which outlines a strategy for developing
economic ties with every major state in the world.
"This means that foreign policy is no longer an
obsession about the
country`s place in the world hierarchy but about attracting
resources for its
modernization," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow
Carnegie Centre.
"There should be less pathos and more practicality
to serve the well being
of the country," he told AFP.
Newsweek said that doctrine would mark a major
Russian shift away to a more
pragmatic foreign policy after years of prickly relations with
the European
Union and United States.
"The economic crisis showed that we cannot develop
Russia on our own," a
foreign ministry source told the weekly. "We are going to have
to rely on
someone."
While the president traditionally takes charge of
foreign policy, Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin and his top foreign policy aide Yuri
Ushakov are
expected to play a major role in the new doctrine, Newsweek
said.
Russia`s economy remains dangerously dependent on
hydrocarbon exports and
still far from realising its potential for attracting foreign
investment.
The economy was hard hit by the crisis, rattling
the Kremlin after a decade
of strong growth under strongman leader Putin.
Medvedev has made economic modernization into a
mantra, warning Russia
risks hitting a "dead end" unless it embraces rapid reform and
diversification.
PTI
