Russia's 'big bang' in Central
Asia By M K Bhadrakumar
A period of intense high-level exchange is
commencing this week between Russia and its
Central Asian allies - and Pakistan. What
characterizes the Russian strategy is a robust
attempt to develop comprehensive partnerships with
these countries in preparation of the post-2014
scenario in Afghanistan with the expected
withdrawal of the troops of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO).
The Russian
focus is, not surprisingly, on the three countries
to the north and south of Afghanistan -
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's
forthcoming visit to Bishkek on Thursday promises
to be a turning point in Moscow's strategy.
He Russia's 'big bang' in Central Asia By M
K Bhadrakumar
A period of intense
high-level exchange is commencing this week
between Russia and its Central Asian allies - and
Pakistan. What characterizes the Russian strategy
is a robust attempt to develop comprehensive
partnerships with these countries in preparation
of the post-2014 scenario in Afghanistan with the
expected withdrawal of the troops of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The
Russian focus is, not surprisingly, on the three
countries to the north and south of Afghanistan -
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's
forthcoming visit to Bishkek on Thursday promises
to be a turning point in Moscow's strategy. He
is following it up in
early October with visits to Islamabad and
Dushanbe.
A raft of Russian-Kyrgyz
agreements has been negotiated, to be signed
during Putin's visit to Bishkek. The indications
are that Russia may write off two-fifths of the
debt owed it by Kyrgyzstan (converting some of it
for acquiring assets in Kyrgyzstan) and is
committing itself to deeper involvement in the
Kyrgyz economy, including renewed assistance in
the construction of the Kamarata-1 hydroelectric
dam project (despite objections by Uzbekistan).
The agreements include a strategic accord
on the extension of the lease for Russia's
military facilities in the Central Asian country
reportedly for a further 15-year period from 2017.
These agreements taken together are expected to
restore the mutual trust in the Russian-Kyrgyz
relations, which had eroded in recent years
leading to the ouster of Kyrgyz president
Kurmanbek Bakiyev in a violent popular upsurge in
April last year.
Bakiyev had reneged on
his earlier plan to evict US forces from Manas Air
Base, and Russian-Kyrgyz ties suffered a serious
jolt.
The current leadership of Kyrgyzstan
has also expressed its intention to join the
Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus -
although attaining full membership is going to be
a long haul, given the weakness of the Kyrgyz
economy in relation to the other three prospective
partner countries.
The recent change of
the Kyrgyz government led by Prime Minister
Omurbek Babanov has not affected the momentum in
the recent strengthening of Russian-Kyrgyz ties.
The political changes in Bishkek may even work to
Moscow's advantage insofar as the presidency gains
the upper hand and Moscow enjoys warm equations
with President Almazbek Atambayev (although
Russian influence with Kyrgyz politicians is
fairly widespread).
Atambayev has openly
called for the termination of the US base in Manas
when the lease expires in 2014. He has spoken
about converting the military base into a civilian
facility (which the US can also make use of). But
Washington has not accepted that this could be
Atambayev's final word on the subject.
Therefore, Putin's visit to Bishkek this
week will be keenly watched in Washington,
especially whether Moscow proposes to strengthen
its military presence in the volatile southern
region bordering Fergana Valley. Manas is vital
for the US as a transit hub for supplying the
troops in Afghanistan, especially for their
rotation. The hectic US efforts in recent months
to tie up alternative basing facilities in Central
Asia (in the event of eviction from Manas) have
not borne fruit so far.
If anything, these
efforts suffered a setback recently with
Uzbekistan passing legislation banning foreign
military bases on its soil. Moscow is carefully
calibrating its relations with Kyrgyzstan with a
view to influencing Uzbek policies vis-a-vis the
US.
Engine of integration Both
Moscow and Tashkent are adept at fine-tuning this
sort of delicate diplomatic waltz in their
"time-tested" relationship. Arguably, there are
signs of new thinking in the Uzbek policies in the
most recent weeks in deference to the Russian
interests. On the whole, September has turned out
to be a good month for the Moscow-led integration
processes in the Central Asian region. Uzbekistan
has once again stated its intention to join the
CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) Free
Trade Zone Treaty before the end of this year.
Uzbekistan and Russia had signed a
memorandum of understanding on the FTZ issue
during Putin's stopover in Tashkent in June, but
since then, Uzbek policies have become
increasingly unpredictable. Thus President Islam
Karimov's affirmation of the Uzbek decision in a
joint statement with Kazakh President Nurusultan
Nazarbayev after their talks in Astana last week
will be duly noted in Moscow.
At present,
Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are
signatories of the FTZ Treaty. Uzbekistan's
accession will provide a shot in the arm for the
CIS integration process, given the size of its
market and its diverse economy.
Equally,
last week, the three countries belonging to the
Customs Union (which is slated to evolve in due
course into the Eurasian Economic Community) have
taken a significant step toward forming a Eurasian
Parliament. A working group to study the
modalities of setting up the parliament met in
Moscow last Thursday.
Evidently, the
expectation is to create a broad-based political
platform that brings together the political elites
on a regular basis on the pattern of the European
Parliament for harmonizing various national
interests and formulating common positions and
policies. Russia has thoughtfully mooted Astana as
the seat of the proposed Eurasian Parliament.
The Speaker of Russia's Federation Council
of the Federal Assembly, Valentina Matviyenko,
described Kazakhstan in this context as the
"engine of Eurasian integration". It is a
revealing statement pointing toward the key role
as "facilitator" that is increasingly played by
Astana by helping out with the removal of wrinkles
that appear from time to time on the Moscow-led
integration processes.
However, what is of
tangible significance to regional security in the
near term is the report that appeared last week to
the effect that Russia and Tajikistan have agreed
on the terms of the continued presence of Russia's
201 Motorized Division for another 30-year period.
This issue has been hanging fire for some time,
and there have been protracted negotiations, which
often erupted into public statements by both
sides.
Tajikistan has been the focus of
intense great-power rivalries lately. The US was
hoping to secure basing facilities in Tajikistan.
As per earlier indications, US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton is due to visit Dushanbe in
the third week of October. A visit by Putin to
Dushanbe in October also seems to be in the cards.
At the eleventh hour, Moscow seems to have ensured
that it will not be squeezed out by the Pentagon
in Tajikistan.
Thus, all things taken into
account, we are witnessing a "big bang" in
Moscow's Central Asia policy. Most certainly, it
needs to seen against the backdrop of the
sustained efforts by the United States in the
recent months to create "lily pads" in Central
Asia and the lengthening shadows of Chinese
presence in the region. From the Russian
viewpoint, NATO's drawdown in Afghanistan and the
uncertainties of the post-2014 regional security
scenario demand proactivism in its regional
policies.
Again, there is also the big
picture - Putin's Eurasia Union project. Another
round of summits of the Eurasian bodies, including
the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), is being scheduled for the third week of
December in Moscow, which will be the second such
enterprise after Putin's return to the Kremlin in
May.
How Moscow and Tashkent propose to
follow up on the latter's recent decision to
"suspend" its CSTO membership will be a key
salient of the Moscow conclave. Moscow's reaction
so far has been one of reticence, which would
suggest that it expected some sort of rethink on
the part of Tashkent.
The heart of the
matter is that the CSTO, without Uzbekistan in it,
cannot hope to gain traction as a vehicle of
collective security in Central Asia. In a manner
of speaking, therefore, the Russian moves in
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have a much broader
regional reach than their bilateral content would
suggest.
The sort of role that Moscow
chooses to play in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would
have great bearing on Tashkent's policies. Having
said that, the alchemy of Russian-Uzbek relations
is a critical vector of Moscow's Central Asia
strategy; this was so even during the Soviet era.
Congruence of interests Clearly,
Putin's visit to Pakistan, which is now expected
to take place in October, has been scheduled at a
most critical juncture in Russia's Central Asia
strategy. The visit was slated originally for
August but Moscow evidently sought first to
consolidate its strategic understanding with its
Central Asian allies (especially Tajikistan)
before hopping over to the south of the Pamirs and
the Hindu Kush.
Most certainly, Russia's
acute concerns over the stabilization of
Afghanistan provide the raison d'etre of
the steady normalization of ties with Pakistan,
but the geopolitical situation in the Central
Asian region and the overall impasse in the
US-Russia reset also need to be factored in. To be
sure, Russia and Pakistan are eager to put behind
them their past indifference toward each other and
are showing interest in approaching the issues of
regional security and stability as stakeholders.
The announcement in Islamabad that the
Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani,
will visit Russia this month at the invitation of
the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces
of the Russian Federation, General Nikolai
Makarov, is a dramatic indicator of the stirrings
in the air.
That the visit by Kiani to
Russia is being scheduled just ahead of Putin's
arrival in Islamabad on October 2 on a two-day
visit merits attention. Moscow would take a good
look at Kiani's reputation as a staunch exponent
of Pakistan's strategic autonomy. His visit
underscores that Russia is open to
military-to-military cooperation with Pakistan.
On October 3, Pakistan will host a session
of its quadrilateral summit of the heads of state
from Russia, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The key
agenda item for the summit will be the struggle
against terrorism in the Central Asian region.
The emergent geopolitical reality is that
Russia and Pakistan have realized that they have a
congruence of interests in the post-2014 scenario
of regional security and they simply cannot afford
to remain indifferent toward each other anymore.
The tensions and the fracture in the
US-Pakistan relationship have compelled Islamabad
to seek out Russia and mend bridges with it, while
Moscow is gearing up for an expansion of its
strategic profile not only in Central Asia and
South Asia but in the Greater Middle East as a
whole, where Pakistan has a looming presence by
virtue of being a nuclear power and a major Sunni
Muslim country.
The ground reality is that
while the US might keep the Soviet-era military
bases in Afghanistan, the transit routes that
ferry supplies for those bases happen to be under
the control of Russia or Pakistan. And if Russia
and Pakistan coordinate their approach, it will be
to mutual advantage.
The administration of
US President Barack Obama is maintaining an air of
strategic ambiguity in its regional policies in
Pakistan and Central Asia. A clearer picture of
the US intentions may be available only after the
November election. But Moscow has begun posing
taunting questions.
Addressing a regional
audience last week in Astana, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov termed NATO's plans to keep
permanent military bases in Afghanistan as
"controversial". He demanded, "We need clarity
here: If the anti-terrorist mission is complete
(and this is still in doubt), then are the bases
being kept for some other purpose?"
The
Russian angst will find resonance in Islamabad.
There is no sign of any let-up in the US pressure
on Pakistan. Islamabad counted on the Taliban as
its "strategic asset" in the Afghan end-game, but
there is no visible urgency on Washington's part
to engage the Taliban in substantive talks.
The latest decision by Washington to brand
the Haqqani Network a terrorist group grates on
Pakistani policy and puts added pressure on the
Pakistani military to commence operations against
the group's sanctuaries in North Waziristan.
Meanwhile, the United States' drone attacks
continue relentlessly despite Pakistani protests.
Through the Russian connection, Pakistan
hopes to create more negotiating space vis-a-vis
the US by the time Obama revisits the Afghan
problem after the November election is out of the
way.
However, Moscow cannot but be mindful
of the imperatives of its "special and privileged
strategic partnership" with India. Equally, the
Pakistani elites cannot easily jettison their
choice of the United States as the preferred
partner. Which would probably make the
Russian-Pakistani waltz appear in US and Indian
eyes as a mere spectacle while the music lasts.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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