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2 Russia
loses hold on Tajikistan
pivot By M K Bhadrakumar
The simmering rivalries amongst Russia,
China and the United States have begun bubbling up
in Tajikistan against the backdrop of the
uncertainties of the post-2014 period for regional
security and stability. After months or years of
secretive negotiations, Russian exasperation over
Tajikistan's foot-dragging on the renewal of the
lease agreement for its military base is
surfacing.
However, the Russian-Tajik
entanglement is more than a family quarrel, as it
underscores the complex geopolitics of the
post-2014 period in Central Asia when Western
troops will have withdrawn from Afghanistan but
the United States would still hope to keep
permanent military bases in the region.
While the US intentions to expand its
strategic footprints into
Central Asia have not
been a great secret to Moscow, a new factor is
that China, too, is contributing unwittingly to
the erosion of Russian influence in the region.
Leaving to the wolves Russia has
deployed more than 6,000 soldiers from its 201st
Motorized Rifle Division in Tajikistan, spread
among three garrisons in Dushanbe, Kurgan-Tube and
Kulyab.
The current tussle is over the
renewal of the Russian basing rights in
Tajikistan, which expire in 2014. The Tajik base
is a crucial template of the Russian security
system in the Central Asian region and it provides
the underpinning for an effective future Russian
role in Afghanistan. Dushanbe demands that the
base can no longer be given gratis - Russia will
have to pay rent - and, secondly, that the lease
be renewed only be for another 10- year period.
Unsurprisingly, Moscow is indignant that
Dushanbe is dictating terms at all, when the Tajik
regime is vulnerable to the fallout from
Afghanistan and cannot do without the Russian
troops' protection. In the Russian eye, Dushanbe's
perceived intransigence appears doubly illogical
since the Tajik economy is highly vulnerable. The
remittances by the 1.5 million Tajik migrant
workers in Russia account for anywhere up to half
of Tajikistan's GDP.
Russia is also upset
that the Tajik government is behaving in a shifty
manner, after having agreed at a meeting between
the then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and his
Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, in Moscow last
September to work out a 49-year lease agreement by
early this year.
At any rate, the Russian
narrative is that all this is attributable to the
bazaar culture in Dushanbe. "Apparently, someone
in this impoverished and extremely corrupt country
is hell-bent on making a quick buck, and it could
come either from Moscow or Washington, depending
on who pays more for the right to have a military
base in Tajikistan," Alexander Khramchikhin,
director of the Institute for Political and
Military Analysis in Moscow, wrote in a commentary
featured by the Russian news agency Novosti.
These are harsh words, and the Central
Asian leaderships are highly sensitive to personal
criticism. Khramchikhin went on to ridicule the
Tajik leadership's notions regarding the
"unlimited power of the US military", since the US
is on retreat inexorably in Afghanistan and
Central Asia. He warned that the Taliban "will
almost certainly return to power" in Afghanistan
with the support of the Pakistani army - "perhaps
with the direct involvement" of the Pakistani army
- once US and NATO troops withdraw. He argued:
So, hopes for American protection
make no sense whatsoever. In general, it is
absurd to presume that the Americans will ever
go as far as spilling the blood of their
soldiers to help out [Uzbekistan President
Islam] Karimov or Rakhmon. It is therefore clear
that if Russian troops withdraw from Tajikistan,
it will actually create a problem for
Tajikistan, not Russia.
Evidently, Moscow finds it
unacceptable that the US is secretly negotiating
deals with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
for basing facilities. Meanwhile, reports are
appearing that Dushanbe might offer the Ayni
airbase to the US. On Friday, a ranking member of
the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dan
Burton, while on a visit to Dushanbe, said after a
meeting with Rahmon that Washington is considering
Tajikistan as a base in the post-2014 period since
it has the longest border with Afghanistan. Burton
promised that the US would increase its military
aid to Tajikistan in 2014. He said Tajikistan "is
a key to regional processes" and plays an
important role in ensuring regional security.
Things seemed to have come to a flashpoint
when at a meeting of the Council of the CIS
Defense Ministers in Kaliningrad last Wednesday,
Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev
maintained with a straight face that fresh
negotiations on the Russian base are needed. He
pleaded he hadn't yet seen the Russian draft for
the lease agreement (which was handed over quite
some time back), and that Tajikistan was preparing
its own draft for detailed negotiations with
Moscow.
The chief of the Russian General
Staff, General Nikolai Makarov, has said Moscow
won't allocate any more funds for the development
of the base in Tajikistan unless a new agreement
is negotiated.
Moscow has indulged in some
brinkmanship by stopping just short of holding out
a threat to pull out its troops from Tajikistan
and leave that country to the wolves. But Moscow
is also unsure about Tajik intentions - whether
Dushanbe is preparing the ground to get rid of the
Russian military presence.
The Russian
predicament is that it cannot question
Tajikistan's prerogative as a sovereign country to
decide what is in its interests. Second, Moscow
cannot prescribe to Tajikistan not to have
dealings with the US, since Russia itself recently
agreed to provide the Ullyanovsk air base on the
Volga as a transit hub for the US and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. Third, Moscow cannot
insist Tajikistan should continue to provide
rent-free base when Kyrgyzstan insists on rent for
the US' base in Manas.
Waking up to a
dragon dance The Russian officials have
tried to frighten the Tajik side with the specter
of an apocalypse following a Taliban upsurge in
Afghanistan, underscoring that only Russia could
act as Tajikistan's savior. But the Tajiks are
unlikely to be impressed. They know Russia is
loathe to vacate the base, as it would then be
playing itself out of the Afghan chessboard.
Besides, in the Tajik estimation, there could be
other providers of security if and when the crunch
time comes.
China is today as much a
stakeholder in the security and stability of
Central Asia as Russia could be. Beijing has big
plans with regard to Afghanistan's natural
resources, and Tajikistan is the gateway for
China's transportation route from Afghanistan to
Xinjiang.
China is building railway links
via Tajikistan to connect Afghanistan with
Xinjiang. Discussions have just begun between
Beijing and Kabul to construct a transit pipeline
through northern Afghanistan, which could be
connected to the massive Central Asia pipeline
that China built from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang.
The Afghan government awarded the first
Amu Darya Basin tender last year to China's CNPC.
The Chinese company is now performing field
assessments and assessment of existing wells, and
tendering for services. It has a commitment to
produce at least 150,000 barrels of oil in 2012.
China is also expected to participate in
the tender for granting oil concessions on the
Afghan-Tajik border region, which Kabul is
finalizing at the moment. Bejing is eager to boost
incomes in Xinjiang and developing Afghanistan's
resources and importing them through the
communication links via Tajikistan will help
accelerate the economic development of China's
western region.
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