Russia's Middle East policies (Russlands Nahostpolitik) (PDF)

This Essay is supposed to analyse the Russian Federation’s foreign policies towards the
Middle East. The first part of the essay has to be understood as a general historical survey
over these policies. This survey will start with the Yeltsin government and a comparison of its
two Foreign Ministers’ policies, namely Andrei Kozyrev and Yevgeny Primakov. Afterwards,
more current developments under the Putin government will be discussed.
Subsequently, Russia’s specific relations towards the different states of the Middle East,
whether the y are based on military involvement, economic interests or on geopolitics, will be
examined, whereby this paper will focus on Iran, Iraq, Israel and Turkey. The relations
towards the other Middle Eastern states will be described more briefly.
A general aim of this essay is to show up a major shift from former Soviet to present Russian
Middle Eastern policies. As for Russia, Transcaucasia and Central Asia are in nowadays the
most important geopolitical regions in the world, only those Middle Eastern states that have
borders and influence in these regions (like Iran and Turkey) are regarded as being of crucial
importance for Russia. This of course does not mean, that for example the Gulf States have
suddenly become uninteresting, but they play a smaller role in foreign policies. In Soviet times, the core-region of the Middle East, meaning Israel and its neighbouring Arab
countries, had been seen as a very important field to wage the ideological war against the
USA (the USSR did this in form of supporting the Arabian states). In present times Russia is
accepting the U.S. leadership in this region and only exercising “rhetorical politics”.
Nevertheless, Russia’s relations towards Israel are multifaceted and very contradictorily and
its Arab neighbours are of a certain economic significance, mainly because of arms sales.
Another interesting aspect of this essay are the Russian-U.S.-relations that are touched in
nearly all aspects of Russia’s Middle Eastern policies. This can either take place in form of
cooperation (e.g. the Arab-Israeli-peace process) or in form of conflict (e.g. the relations to
Iran and Iraq). [...]