(Bloomberg) – There weren’t enough Arab leaders who said “yes” to guarantee the summit. This is what he forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to delay at the last minute he hoped to strengthen his position in the region.
The debut conference of the Russian-Arab was scheduled for held in Moscow 15 October. The Kremlin considered it one of the most important initiatives in foreign policy in the year, which should signal, especially US President Donald Trump, that Russia has support and influence across the Arab world.
The last assembly is disappointing, but the Kremlin is sure that it can be reached on a later date, the person said.
“It will depend on how the situation evolves in connection with Trump’s plan and so on,” said Putin’s foreign policy Yuri Ushakov about a potential extraction in a video call published on a telegram. “We’ll see what our Arabic friends suggest.”
The summit was officially postponed at the end of Thursday because the heads of state are unable to travel to Moscow while the proposal of Israel, which mediated Trump-Hamas, was carried out in a statement after the call between Putin and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The Russian leader said on Friday that the delay was in his initiative. “I did it because I don’t want to interfere with a process that we hope was now moving,” Putin told reporters in Tajikistan in Dushanbe.
The delay underlines that most of the Arab world are now more interested in building ties with Trump, who has become more and more frustrated by Putin’s refusal to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine despite American diplomatic efforts.
“Given Trump’s latest attempts to put pressure on the Kremlin, it would be useful to show that Russia is not isolated and has influential friends,” said Alexander Gabuev, Berlin director of Carnegia, Russia Eurasia.
Russia is preparing for the summit since at least April, when Putin first announced the plan. The Kremlin invited 22 Arab states of the head to the forum, which was to be held under the slogan “Cooperation on Peace, Stability and Security”. He founded a website dedicated to the Summit 3. October.
Yet on Tuesday only a few leaders, including Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and the head of the Arab League, confirmed their participation. Regional heavy weight, such as the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, president of the United Arab Emirates Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nhyan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, were not officially confirmed.
On Friday, the Kremlin suggested that the summit would be overwhelmed to November.
Trump threatened to save more sanctions on Thursday. At the same time, he praised the Arab leader for helping to make progress with Hamas easier in recent weeks.
Last month, the US President met Arab officials in New York, with the discussion proved to be critical for Washington to allow a peace agreement that is likely to be accepted by both parties.
“The situation remains very sensitive during the initial phase of the Trump Plan,” said Vasily Koznetsov, deputy director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “So neither the Arab states nor Moscow are interested in adding political undertones by connecting the Arab -russian relations with the US settlement plan in Gaza.”
The influence of the Kremlin in the region has been disappearing for some time, because the war in Ukraine has consumed a large part of Russian military, economic and diplomatic bandwidth. The collapse of the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad at the end of last year further weakened Moscow the presence in the Middle East, while the US and China expand their own roles and deepen their support.
Russia’s relationship with the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, is important for global energy supply, with both key members of the oil export organization.
“Putin wanted to show everyone that he was the leader of” global majority “, but what is the majority without the Arab world?” Moscow -based political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov said. “He would like to be as big as the Soviet Union, but lacks resources.”
This week, Putin is in Dushanbe the top of the leaders of the Community of Independent States, which connects some of the former Soviet Republic. “But even those countries, naturally, are watching more vectors’ policy,” Kolesnikov said.
(Update with Putin’s comments in the sixth paragraph.)
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