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Russia's new card in the Eurasian
game
By
Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - Heated debate over the
status of the ethnic Russian community in Turkmenistan
has prompted the Kremlin to pledge to protect
compatriots there, and elsewhere, and this issue could
well become a convenient pretext for Moscow to push its
agenda in Central Eurasia.
"The Russian
authorities are taking all necessary measures to protect
compatriots in Turkmenistan and elsewhere," Sergei
Mironov, chairman of the Federation Council, the upper
house of the Russian parliament, said in Moscow earlier
this month. Russia would back compatriots "in any
country", he claimed.
Turkmen residents who hold
both Turkmen and Russian citizenship were forced to
choose one or the other by June 22. If a person could
not meet the deadline, he or she automatically became a
Turkmen citizen. Presumably, concerned by the prospect
of having no choice but to live in totalitarian
Turkmenistan, many Russian-speakers reportedly have sold
off their property prior to leaving the country.
Although Russian diplomats in Ashgabat, the
capital of Turkmenistan, have been reluctant to confirm
claims of abuses, Moscow has sent a mission to discuss
the matter. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexey
Fedotov and Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign
Minister Rashid Meredov held talks in Ashgabat July 8-9.
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov reportedly joined
the talks via telephone from the city of Turkmenbashi,
formerly known under its Russian name Krasnovodsk.
According to the Turkmen official news service
Turkmen Daulet Habarlary (TDH), Turkmen officials stated
that the rights of ethnic Russians had been never
violated in Turkmenistan. "This is what we wanted to
hear," Fedotov responded. "We are going not to wage war
but to negotiate since more than 100,000 Russian
citizens now live in Turkmenistan," Fedotov said after
the talks.
Last April, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Niyazov agreed to cancel a dual
citizenship agreement signed in 1993. Niyazov
interpreted this as giving him carte blanche, and on
April 22 he signed a decree ordering the roughly 100,000
residents of Turkmenistan who hold dual Turkmen-Russian
citizenship to choose within two months which passport
they wanted to keep.
Moscow argues that the
Turkmen decree will not become valid until the Russian
Duma, the lower house of parliament, formally abolishes
the dual citizenship agreement. However, Turkmen
authorities have ignored Russian objections and the
Turkmen parliament has already ratified a protocol
revoking dual citizenship.
Hence Fedotov's
mission seemingly failed to achieve any concrete results
as both sides just reiterated their respective
positions. The next round of talks is due in Moscow in
September.
In recent weeks, Moscow has lashed
out at Turkmenbashi's policies, as the president is
known. Some Russian officials went as far as accusing
Turkmenistan of "preparing a mass deportation" and
blaming the Turkmen leadership of complicity in drug
trafficking and in supported international terrorism.
It has been believed that Moscow agreed in the
first place to cancel dual citizenship agreement with
Turkmenistan in exchange for a major gas deal. Last
April, Niyazov traveled to Moscow and signed a 25-year
contract on gas supplies to Russia. According to Turkmen
authorities, the deal would bring Turkmenistan US$200
billion and $300 billion to Russia. However, the
perceived natural gas trade-off has adversely affected
the Russian minority in Turkmenistan.
An
estimated 300,000 ethnic Russians live in Turkmenistan,
and about 100,000 of them have registered for Russian as
well as Turkmen citizenship under the 1993 treaty,
according to Konstantin Zatulin, head of the
Moscow-based CIS Countries Institute. He urged the
Russia authorities to be prepared to airlift tens of
thousands of people from Turkmenistan to Russia.
In this environment, allegations of
discrimination have touched a raw nerve on both sides.
"In Turkmenistan, all people, all nations are equal.
Especially the Russian people," Niyazov stated in late
June. "You won't find one Russian person here who has
been hurt or persecuted."
However, Russian media
and analysts have not been impressed. The influential
Russian daily Izvestia commented that Turkmen policies
"came as a personal challenge to President Putin." In
case of further reprisals against ethnic Russians any
scenario, including military, should not be excluded,
the daily said, adding in an ominous hint that the
Turkmen army "had decayed".
No big wonder that
Turkmenistan did not like a talk of a "military
scenario". "It is evident that slander remains slander
regardless its motives," the news service TDH,
commented.
Ashgabat has reasons to feel offended
as there has even been "regime change" talk in Moscow.
"The lewd totalitarian regime should be removed by any
means," argues Mark Urnov, head of the Moscow-based
Ekspertiza think tank. "Unfortunately, we cannot send a
paratrooper division to explain to Niyazov how to live
in a civilized world," he said.
It is understood
that the talk of regime change is likely to remain mere
rhetoric. However, even though it is non-official at
this stage, it sends a powerful signal to countries with
sizable Russian communities, Kazakhstan, for instance,
where nearly half of the population is Russian speaking.
"No measures except armed violence should be treated as
excessive in order to protect ethnic Russians," Zatulin
told journalists in Moscow.
Overall, some 25
million ethnic Russians currently live outside of
Russia, according to United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees estimates. Many have been deprived of
citizenship in countries they consider home as former
Soviet states, now independent. After the disintegration
of the former Soviet Union, some 287 million people lost
their old citizenship, but not all of them received new
ones in place.
After spending years, sometimes
generations, in the far-flung corners of the old Soviet
Union, up to 5 million ethnic Russians living in the
former USSR states moved to the Russian Federation.
However, not all of them have been successfully
integrated.
There are some 1.5 million bearers
of former Soviet passports in Russia who are unable to
receive Russian citizenship, argues Viktor Alksnis, a
deputy of the State Duma. He urged that they should all
be given Russian citizenship.
Russia has
recently adopted some concrete policies to attract
ethnic Russians. For instance, earlier this year, the
Russian army decided to accept ethnic Russians form
other former Soviet states for contract service. After
three years on duty, these servicemen are entitled for
Russian citizenship. For instance, Tajik and Kyrgyz
young men already serve at respective Russian military
facilities in their countries.
However, the
measure is seen as controversial outside Russia as
Central Asian states are reluctant to allow emigration
of officers and young men with military training. For
instance, on July 3, Uzbek Justice Minister Abdusamat
Palvan-Zadeh reportedly lashed out at the policy as
"illegal".
Meanwhile, some Russian experts warn
against over-emphasizing repatriation. Russia should not
utilize a policy of massive repatriation of Russian
speakers as "this is the most silly option", argues
Valery Tishkov, director of the Moscow-based Institute
of Ethnology. If all ethnic Russians leave, say,
Kazakhstan, it would turn into a state hostile to
Russia, he said.
In the past, Russia has tended
to ignore the plight of its compatriots in Central Asia
and other former Soviet states. But now the "defense of
compatriots" is likely to become Moscow's tactical
instrument rather than a consistent strategy.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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