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UK Bilateral Relations (Russia)

In my estimation we have never truly had close relations with Russia, certainly not during my lifetime, yet it is such an important country. It has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a huge influence in the middle east and other parts of the world where we are seeking to solve long-standing problems. I have visited Russia on a number of occasions and been in awe of it, but it has huge cultural differences from us that we must learn to understand and appreciate. We must learn to respect the fact that Russians think differently from us and do things in a different way. We need to achieve greater mutual respect. Russia faces many foreign problems including in the Kaliningrad enclave, which borders Lithuania and Poland. Russia has borders with 14 countries and there are various problems with some of those neighbours, ranging from diplomatic spats to outright confrontation. I wish to mention a couple of them. Russia has a long-standing dispute with the Japanese over the Kuril islands, which were seized after the second world war, and that has led to a lack of Japanese investment in Russia. Recently we have read about the growing tensions between Russia and Estonia, because the Estonians have taken down a statue commemorating the tremendous sacrifices of Russian soldiers during the second world war in liberating that country. That has led to some serious intimidation of Estonian diplomats in Moscow and, as an ally of Estonia in NATO, Great Britain has shown serious concern about the treatment of Estonians over the matter. Belarus is, in my estimation, the last dictatorship in Europe—a most appalling, dreadful regime in the heart of Europe with which Russia is having to grapple. President Lukashenko is commonly known to have instrumented some of the worst human rights abuses and is causing the Russians a great deal of problems by blackmailing them to pay for the transit of Russian oil to Europe through the pipelines in his country. Of course Russia has relations with North Korea, which is near Vladivostok on its far eastern border. Both Russia and ourselves are extremely concerned about nuclear proliferation in North Korea, which has an unstable regime that is extremely cruel to its population but is pursuing an extremely expensive programme of nuclear weapons production. Russia has many problems but I have time to mention only a few, of which the last is Chechnya. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) has written an open letter to the Russian authorities, together with others including the Conservative former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), outlining their concerns about the atrocities in Chechnya. It is an ongoing, terrible problem for Russia and there are appalling human rights abuses on both sides. That is happening in Europe, which is of great concern to us as well as to the Russians. I wish to talk about the areas in which we need Russian support and why it is so important to have good relations with Russia. We need Russian support in the war on terrorism. Russia has a huge influence over Syria and Iran, and we know that there is an ongoing problem with border-crossing between Syria and Iraq. Insurgents and terrorists are coming from Syria and other countries across the Syrian border into Iraq, directly threatening the lives of serving British soldiers there because of the porous border. I know that Russia has long-standing trading and diplomatic relations with Syria. On the other side of Iraq, Iran has allegedly been assisting insurgency in Basra and the rest of the south. Russia has huge influence over Iran and has been supplying it with a great deal of nuclear technology, ostensibly for a peaceful programme of nuclear power generation. We in Great Britain and others are concerned about the possibility that Iran may use that technology to produce nuclear weapons. Russia is at the forefront of supplying such countries with nuclear technology. Just today we learn that Russia is allegedly selling attack helicopters and gunships to Sudan. An article from today’s Daily Telegraph states that Russia has"““broken a United Nations arms embargo by supplying Sudan with attack helicopters, bombers and other weapons in the knowledge that they are being used against civilians in Darfur, Amnesty International said yesterday.””" It concerns me greatly that a country such as Russia, which has a permanent seat on the Security Council, is allegedly selling such appalling weapons to Sudan to enable the Sudanese Government to carry out some of the worst human rights atrocities imaginable. We should be putting a great deal more pressure on Russia and seeking explanations as to why it is breaking a UN embargo, which is totally unacceptable behaviour. I return to my point that we need a better relationship with the Russians in order to lobby them and put pressure on them. Many people in our own country feel strongly about what is happening in Darfur and look to us to stop the atrocities. We must use our influence as a major military and economic power in the world to lobby the Russians to try to prevent such exports. What more needs to be done? I look forward to listening to the Minister, who will hopefully explain what he is doing to draw Russia ever closer to the European Union and into our camp to be our close allies. We must consider the Kaliningrad enclave, which is a remnant of the settlement of the second world war and is cut off from the rest of Russia, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. It has significant problems through being surrounded by European Union countries but not having the benefits of being in the EU. I am sure that we in the EU could do more to give special status to that part of Russia, which is almost encased within the EU, to assist with trade and better transport links. We want to encourage trade between the Baltic states, Poland and Russia. I would certainly urge the Minister to spend some time considering what could be done about that anomaly in Europe, and about whether Kaliningrad’s status could be modernised. We need to engage more directly with Moscow. That is the key point that I want to get across in this debate. When I speak to my friends in the Russian Foreign Ministry, they tell me that they get hardly any visits by British Ministers. That may or may not be true, but they also tell me that French and German Ministers are pounding on their doors all the time. Russia gets a huge number of delegations led by French and German Foreign Ministers, and also cultural and trade visits. My friends say to me, ““We look to Great Britain as potentially a key strategic ally, yet you seem to ignore us. There are far fewer visits by your Ministers than there are by French and German Ministers, who seem to take us more seriously.”” I would like more visits not just by Ministers from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but by Ministers from the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Trade and Industry, particularly the Minister for Trade. He should be leading far more delegations of British companies to Russia to look for business and start to make contacts with Russian companies. One project that I am particularly interested in is the Sakhalin oil project off the far east coast of Russia. British Petroleum and Shell, among other British companies, are involved in one of the largest oil exploration programmes to date—there could be a huge oil find in Sakhalin—but I do not know how much help they are getting from Ministers. I would be interested to hear what the Government are doing to help BP fight its corner in Russia. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has had high-level meetings with BP. The Russians are tough negotiators, and I know that BP—