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Rough road to Russian-Tajik
cooperation
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - Russia
has repeatedly pledged to safeguard security in Central
Asia. Yet increased Russian military deployment in the
volatile region tends to take longer than expected.
In recent months, war games have been Moscow's
favorite stratagem to demonstrate its strategic
interests. From Tuesday to Saturday this week, Russia is
holding joint military exercises with Tajikistan at the
Sumbula military test site in Shaartuz district, Khatlon
region, some 150 kilometers south of the Tajik capital
Dushanbe. The 191st Regiment of the 201st Division along
with Tajik soldiers, some 500 personnel in all, is
taking part, according to Tajik Defense Ministry
spokesman Zarubiddin Sirodzoyev. The war games, designed
to train troops on measures to support border guards who
are protecting the nearby border with Afghanistan, were
to involve live artillery barrages on Thursday.
Meanwhile, some Russian media reports indicate
problems in Russia's deployment in Tajikistan. In July,
the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reported an
allegation that Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov had
been offered US$1 billion in US aid in exchange for
refusing to set up a Russian military base in
Tajikistan.
Also in July, a Russian military
delegation headed by General Alexander Morozov, chief of
staff of Russian ground troops, traveled to Dushanbe to
discuss the issue of the "fourth military base". Yet no
concrete agreements were signed and, in the wake of the
talks, Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev
reportedly announced that the Russians themselves were
to blame for slow progress in the talks over the base.
According to earlier agreements between Moscow and
Dushanbe, the Russian 201st Division is due to be
transformed into Russia's "fourth military base". The
Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted division deputy commander
Colonel Alexander Rubtsov as saying that in recent
months the 201st Division underwent a personnel cut from
8,000 to 5,500.
Tajik Foreign Ministry spokesman
Igor Sattarov reportedly described speculations over the
US aid as "allegations of enemies of relations between
Russia and Tajikistan". So far, there has been no
official reaction in Moscow. Russian analysts remain
unconvinced by official Tajik denials. When feeling
threatened by, say, Afghan warlords, Tajikistan seeks
Russian assistance, but once the threat seems over, the
Tajik leadership starts drifting toward the United
States, argues Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Moscow-based
think-tank Merkator.
Stability in Tajikistan has
been shaky since the end of the country's 1992-97 civil
war. One of the instability factors is that nearly 5
million of the country's 6 million people live in
poverty, according to United Nations estimates.
Rakhmonov's accession to power was in larger
measure connected with Russian military and political
backing. Under the terms of a June 22 referendum,
Rakhmonov could run for two more terms, theoretically
staying in office until 2020.
Moscow has been
using economic tools to consolidate its clout. Russia
and Tajikistan have harmonized their respective customs
rules by an estimated 70 percent, Eurasian Economic
Community general secretary Gennady Rapota told
journalists in Moscow on Tuesday. He also pledged to go
ahead with projects to build hydro-power plants in
Tajikistan but revealed no further details.
Also, on May 15 Russian natural-gas giant
Gazprom signed a 25-year strategic agreement with
Tajikistan to explore gas fields and promote domestic
energy independence. Officials hope the Gazprom
agreement will enable the country to increase its gas
output at least to meet the needs of the central region,
including Dushanbe.
Meanwhile, the illicit drug
trade remains an irritant in bilateral relations. Every
year, Russian border guards and Tajik police confiscate
tons of Afghan heroin, the price of which in Russia
would reach tens of million of US dollars. But, as the
border guards admit, their "catch" does not exceed 10
percent of the narcotics that cross Tajikistan.
According to Fayzullo Gadoyev, head of the Tajik
Interior Ministry's anti-drug department, the amount of
heroin confiscated since the beginning of 2003 was
double the amount seized during the same period the
previous year.
In yet another highlight of the
drug issue, on Wednesday Russian Interior Minister Boris
Gryzlov announced the arrest of alleged Tajik drug
traffickers near Moscow and seizure of 220 kilograms of
heroin, the largest drug bust in Russia so far.
Another irritant in bilateral relations has been
Russia's tough policies toward Tajik migrants. For
instance, on July 16 more than 300 Tajik citizens were
deported home as illegal aliens from Russia's Omsk
region. It was the latest in a series of recent
deportations that have sparked formal protests in
Dushanbe.
Unofficial estimates indicate that
roughly 800,000 illegal Tajik aliens send hundreds of
millions of dollars from Russia to Tajikistan every
year. The loss of this cash inflow would be a blow to
Tajikistan's fragile economy.
On the other hand,
some deportations were presumably intended to please
Tajik authorities. In June, Russian law-enforcement
agencies detained former Tajik interior minister Yakub
Salimov and promptly extradited him to Tajikistan.
Salimov, who held the cabinet post from 1993-95, was
sought by Tajik authorities on murder charges. However,
critics argued that Salimov was a political opponent of
Rakhmonov.
In the meantime, the Russian Air
Force prepares to take over a military airfield in Kant,
about 20km east of Bishkek. The deployment is to become
the most significant outside Russia's borders since the
Soviet collapse in 1991. The move is presumably designed
to reassert Russia's military influence in a region
where the United States has its own semi-permanent
military presence, with bases in Kyrgyzstan as well as
Uzbekistan.
The force is ultimately due to
include more than 20 Russian aircraft and more than 700
troops. The Kant base deal was expected to be clinched
on July 8, but now Russian jets are unlikely to arrive
there before October.
The Russian task force is
to provide the air power for a contingent of ground
forces. Known as a rapid-reaction force, this group
could total more than 5,000 troops from Russia,
Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, members of an
alliance of former Soviet republics known as the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Meanwhile, despite unresolved disputes over
Russian military bases, the alliance seemingly seeks a
bigger role in the region. On Wednesday, CSTO general
secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha told a meeting at the United
Nations headquarters in New York that his organization
was "ready to operate throughout the territory of all
[the] Central Asian region". The CSTO collective
rapid-deployment forces "have became a real factor of
stabilization in Central Asia", Bordyuzha was quoted by
the Russian Information Agency.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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