Lavrov will retain his job

Rumors that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is about to be sacked are denounced.

"No reasons at all to consider replacement of Sergei Lavrov as the foreign minister," an insider commented on the rumors that Lavrov was about to be given some other job.

Experts point out that the rumors in question constitute wishful thinking on the part of some segments of the Russian elite because sharply-worded criticism of the West the business circles accuse the minister of was surely endorsed by the president and prime minister. Moreover, not even replacement of the foreign minister will change anything in the Russian-US relations because the latter will never be the same now, after the war in the Caucasus.

The rumors began circulating last week, soon after the leak to the British media of fragments of Lavrov's conversation with David Miliband of the Foreign Office over the phone. British commentators were awed by the abundance of invectives the dialogue allegedly included. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the fact of the conversation but without any invectives used. Several days later, the Foreign Office disavowed what leaks to the media had implied. The efforts to abate tension in the relations with the West the Russian leadership took then provided a new impetus to the innuendo. According to some reports, foreign ministers of Great Britain and France asked the Kremlin to replace the Russian foreign minister.

"Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will retain his position. The Russian leadership values his professionalism and competence. No reason at all consider his replacement as the foreign minister," a source in the government said. On the other hand, hiring and firing foreign ministers is the president's prerogative and the Kremlin remains unavailable for comments.

"It was the first time in his diplomatic career that Lavrov was so sharply-spoken," Konstantin Simonov of the Political Situation Center said. "But the president and prime minister had been saying pretty much the same thing. As for Lavrov, he as the Foreign Minister could not say anything that had not been run by the political leadership in advance. That's the gist of the Russian diplomatic school, you know." The political scientist assumed that the president and prime minister couldn't replace Lavrov despite the pressure applied by the West because it would make their own rhetorics hollow. Moreover, it will make all the more difficult for them to claim that Russia's foreign policy is truly independent. "Firing Lavrov now that he is in the focus of attention in connection with the events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be a grave lapse of judgement," Simonov said. "I do not think that it will come to that."

As far as analysts are concerned, some segments of the Russian elite hurt by the recent financial crisis hope that the symbolic gesture of number one diplomat's replacement will make cheap loans from the West available to them again. In the meantime, no staff shuffles in Moscow will have any effect on the Russian-Western relations. "We may like it or not, but Russia is playing in a different league now," a source in the Foreign Ministry said.

Source: RBK Daily - September 22, 2008