Russia hosts summit minus Ahmadinejad

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AFP) - Russia Monday hosted a summit of a security forum seen as a counter to US power but without Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who put off the trip after his disputed re-election.
Officials said that Ahmadinejad would not be appearing on the first day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, but was still expected to arrive on Tuesday.
Not today. Tomorrow, a source in the Iranian delegation to the summit, who requested anonymity, told AFP when asked about Ahmadinejads attendance.
A Kremlin spokesman was more circumspect about the presidents eventual attendance, saying that so far there was no clear information.
Ahmadinejad had initially been scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday afternoon, Kremlin officials said.
The announcement of Ahmadinejads landslide election victory over his moderate rival Mir Hossein Mousavi sparked two days of street protests and some of the worst rioting in Tehran in a decade.
President Hu Jintao of China was among a host of leaders who were present for the opening of the summit in the Russian city, notorious as the scene of the execution of Tsar Nicolas II and his family by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was set up in 1996 as an alternative to NATO that would allow Russia and China to counter US influence in Asia.
Along with China and Russia, the six-nation group also comprises Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Iran has in the past expressed interest in becoming a full member and currently has observer status.
The time flies so fast, the Organisation has been created only recently but already some rather serious work has been done, Medvedev said in his opening statement. The summit was due to continue until Tuesday afternoon. While Russia is seeking to build bridges with the new administration of US President Barack Obama, the summit is expected to emphasise the groups suspicion towards the US role as a global superpower.
The Kremlin said ahead of the summit that the main task would be preparing a communique that would emphasise the importance of multipolarity, in an apparent warning against any US domination of global diplomacy.
Also holding observer status at the group along with Iran are India, Mongolia and Pakistan.
Afghanistan is also to be a major focus of the talks with President Hamid Karzai attending as a guest.
Reports have said he will use the occasion to hold a bilateral meeting with his Kyrgyz counterpart Kurmanbek Bakiyev to talk him out of shutting down a US airbase crucial for coalition supplies to Afghanistan. Hus attendance at the summit kicks off a busy week of diplomacy for the Chinese head of state in Russia.
He will on Tuesday take part in the first official summit of the BRIC group of rapidly-developing nations also to be held in Yekaterinburg along with the leaders of Brazil and India. The Chinese leader then embarks on a state visit to Russia from June 16 to 18.
The holding of the summits is also a major boost for the prestige of Yekaterinburg, some 1,420 kilometres east of Moscow in the Ural mountains that divide European Russia from Siberia.