Yevgeny Primakov

Yevgeny Primakov Евгений Примаков
Prime Minister of Russia
In office September 11, 1998 – May 12, 1999
President	Boris Yeltsin
Preceded by	Viktor Chernomyrdin
Succeeded by	Sergei Stepashin
Personal details
Born	(1929-10-29) October 29, 1929 Kiev, Ukraine
Nationality	Russian

Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov (Евгений Максимович Примаков), originally Yona Finkelstein[1], [2], [3] (born October 29, 1929) is a Jewish-Russian politician and a former Prime Minister of Russia. He was also the last Speaker of the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet, and the Russian Foreign Minister responsible for changing the foreign policy from largely unconditional support of the United States to a more nationalist defense of Russia's interests.

Early life

Primakov was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, to Jewish parents and grew up in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR. He was educated at Moscow State Institute of Oriental Studies, graduating in 1953 and did postgraduate work at Moscow State University. From 1956 to 1970, he worked as a journalist for Soviet radio and a Middle Eastern correspondent for Pravda newspaper. During this time, he was sent frequently on intelligence missions to the Middle East and the United States as a KGB co-optee under codename MAKSIM

Early political career

From 1970 to 1977, he served as Deputy Director of Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences. From 1977 to 1985 he was Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences. In 1985 he returned to the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, serving as Director until 1989.

Primakov became involved in politics in 1989, as the chairman of the Union Soviet, one of two houses of the Soviet parliament. From 1990 until 1991 he was a member of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's Presidential Council. He served as Gorbachev's special envoy to Iraq in the run-up to the Gulf War, in which capacity he held talks with President Saddam Hussein. After the failed August 1991 putsch attempt, Primakov was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the KGB. After the formation of the Russian Federation, Primakov was appointed Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service SVR, serving in that position from 1991 until 1996.

Foreign minister

Primakov served as foreign minister from January 1996 until September 1998 . As foreign minister, he gained respect at home and abroad as a tough but pragmatic supporter of Russia's interests, and an opponent of NATO's expansion into the former Eastern bloc, though on May 27, 1997, after 5 months of negotiation with NATO Secretary general Javier Solana, Russia signed the Foundation Act, which is seen as marking the end of cold war hostilities.

He was also famously an advocate of Multilateralism as an alternative to US global hegemony following the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. Primakov called for a Russian foreign policy based on low-cost mediation while expanding influence towards the Middle East and the former Soviet republics. This policy became known as the "Primakov doctrine". Primakov has promoted Russia, China, and India as a "strategic triangle" to counterbalance the United States. The move was interpreted by some observers as an agreement to fight together against 'color revolutions' in Central Asia Samuel Huntington calls this an antihegemonic coalition in an essay entitled 'The Lonely Superpower'.

Prime minister

After Yeltsin's bid to reinstate Viktor Chernomyrdin as Russian prime minister was blocked by the Duma in September 1998, the President turned to Primakov as a compromise figure whom he rightly judged would be accepted by the parliament's majority. As prime minister, Primakov was given credit for forcing some very difficult reforms in Russia, most of them, such as the tax reform, became major success. While his opposition to the US Unilateralism was popular among Russians, it also led to a disastrous breach with the West during NATO's campaign in Kosovo, which ultimately left Russia alone in subsequent developments in the former Yugoslavia.

Analysts ascribed Yeltsin's 12 May 1999 firing of Primakov as a reaction to his fear of losing power to a more successful and popular person. Primakov also refused to dismiss Communist ministers as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was leading the process of preparing unsuccessful impeachment proceedings against the president. However, Yeltsin resigned at the end of the year and was succeeded by the prime minister of that time, Vladimir Putin.

Deputy and special representative

Before Yeltsin’s resignation, Primakov supported the Fatherland-All Russia electoral faction, which at that time was the major opponent of the pro-Putin Unity) and launched his presidential bid. Initially considered the man to beat, Primakov was rapidly overtaken by the factions loyal to Vladimir Putin in the Duma elections in December 1999. Primakov officially abandoned the presidential race in his TV address on February 4 2000 [4] less than two months before the March 26 presidential elections. Soon he became an adviser to Putin and a political ally.

In February and March 2003, he visited Iraq and talked with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, as a special representative of President Vladimir Putin. He tried to prevent the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a move which received some support from several nations opposed to the war. Primakov suggested that Saddam must hand over all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations, among other things. "Saddam tapped me on the shoulder and went out of the room", Primakov recalled..

In November 2004, Primakov testified in defense of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, on trial for war crimes. Earlier, he was the leader of a Russian delegation that met with Slobodan Milosevic during NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

As of December 2007, Primakov is President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. On December 11 2007, he said at a meeting with Putin that the course followed by Putin should be continued, as Putin prepares to leave the presidency in 2008. He said that there were two threats to this course: one from neo-liberals and the oligarchs, and one from those seeking the merger "of the state apparatus with business" in order to create an "administrative-market society".

See also

• Yevgeny Primakov's Cabinet

External links

• Yevgeny Primakov's Project Syndicate op/eds

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