SOFIA, Dec 7: Russia and the United States on Tuesday clashed over efforts to win influence in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, with Moscow warning the West against interference and Washington rejecting the charge.
Disagreements over the election monitoring role of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - which alleged fraud in Ukraine's Nov 21 presidential poll - prevented the 55-nation group, meeting in Sofia, from agreeing on a communique.
The disputes laid bare the tension between East and West which persists 13 years after the Soviet Union's collapse gave birth to a host of countries that continue to be the objects of a struggle between Russia and the United States.
The most vivid disagreement is over Ukraine and its disputed presidential poll that pitted pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich against West-leaning Viktor Yushchenko.
Yanukovich was initially declared the winner but Ukraine's highest court ruled the poll was rigged and ordered a re-run on Dec 26. The poll has sparked two weeks of street protests and inconclusive negotiations among Ukrainian politicians on how to hold a fresh vote that will not be tainted by fraud.
Without mentioning Ukraine by name, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested the OSCE was using one standard of election monitoring for the former Soviet republics and another for its other members, including the United States whose 2000 election turned on a disputed vote count in Florida.
"We must avoid the ever-more deleterious practice of double standards in the evaluation of electoral processes. We must not allow the OSCE monitoring to be turned into a political instrument," Lavrov told the OSCE gathering through an interpreter.
"In the absence of any objective criteria, monitoring of election process not only loses its meaning but becomes an instrument for political manipulation and a factor for destabilising in a whole number of instances," he added.
POWELL WARNS RUSSIA: US Secretary of State Colin Powell flatly rejected the suggestion of double standards and criticised Russia on a host of issues, voicing concern about the rule of law and media freedom and dismay at its failure to keep promises to withdraw military forces from Moldova and strike a deal to do so in Georgia.
"Some countries have recently argued that the OSCE's field work constitutes interference in internal affairs, that the OSCE has 'double standards', and that the OSCE has concentrated its efforts in the former Soviet republics and has done it for political reasons. I categorically disagree," Powell said.
Powell also rejected Russian fears that the United States aimed to extend its influence into Ukraine, saying Ukrainians deserved fair elections and need not choose between East and West.
"We are not competing or fighting over these places. We are not asking them to choose between the East and the West," Powell told reporters in Sofia from Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asian nations, which Russia regards as part of its natural sphere of interest and where it resents growing US influence.
"It is not a matter of (spheres) of influence, it is a matter of allowing a country to choose how it wishes to be governed and who it wishes to have as its friends," he said. The United States has endorsed the decision by Ukraine's Supreme Court to re-run the Nov. 21 run-off ballot.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had made no secret of his support for Yanukovich, visiting Ukraine twice during the election campaign, prematurely congratulating the prime minister on his victory and initially resisting a re-run of the vote.
On Monday, however, Putin said he was ready to work with any president elected by Ukraine. The OSCE was set up during the Cold War to monitor human rights and allow Europeans to resolve problems peacefully. -Reuters
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