By Vestnik Kavkaza
The US Department of State stated that it has finished reconsidering US policy in Central Asia in the context of economic and political instability in the region. A representative of the State Department told Azattyk Radio that the USA was going to continue working with governments of Central Asia to “provide regional security, improve economic integration with regional and global markets, show respect for human rights and democracy, and encourage other bilateral and regional issues which are mutually interesting.”
At the same time, obviously, the Central Asian region is especially interesting for Russia as well. The editor-in-chief of 'Problems of National Strategy', Azhdar Kurtov, thinks that “if the foreign policy of the country is trying to establish Russia as a significant player, as a country that wants to regain a lot bigger status than the one in which we were herded into in the 90s, then we must look for potential partners around the world. Objectively, these partners can be countries of the Asian continent, including China, India and individual states of the Islamic world and the Middle East, such as Iran and Pakistan. Russia does not have direct borders with these countries, with the exception of China. In this sense, if the Central Asian region will drift in the direction of some of the world’s centers of power, neither associated with the Shanghai Organization nor with Russia, it will generate additional difficulties for the implementation of our calculations on partnership and cooperation with these countries.”
The policy of Central Asian states is in focus, due to the upcoming presidential elections – on March 29th in Uzbekistan and on April 26th in Kazakhstan. The director of the Caspian Cooperation Institute, political analyst Sergei Mikheyev, thinks that the results of the elections are not a secret. And international observers have already prepared the relevant decisions. “They will point out violations in both countries. In Kazakhstan, the OSCE mission has actually written its decision on the elections and the results are also well known to us. However, President Putin almost openly supported the candidacy of Nazarbayev in the upcoming elections, and it was done for clear reasons. Russia considers the current partnership with Kazakhstan as very important; it deeply appreciates the participation and contribution of Kazakhstan in Russian integration projects. I think that the political stability that is in Kazakhstan, maybe even accompanied by some costs, is the key to the continuation of this process,” Mikheyev is sure.
As for Uzbekistan, the political scientist believes that “results of the elections are also absolutely clear. Both domestic and foreign policy are unlikely to change. Uzbekistan will also play in the already well-known geopolitical game, trying to maintain good relations with everyone, while joining various associations, and leaving them.”
For Mikheyev, these processes in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan do not cause great concern in terms of the development of democracy: “Western-style democracy is contra-indicated to a large number of countries. It will automatically lead them to disaster and trying to make the world one-faced, for one person, so that all have the same face and the same answer to all the questions and look the same - without taking into account the specifics of it, in my opinion, is a damaging approach. The situation in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries has certain specific features - sometimes negative, but, in general, the maintenance of stability is much more valuable than matching to not-always-clear and questionable patterns of democracy.”
Speaking about Central Asia, they always stress that the region is potentially rich with natural resources. “Tajikistan claims that they have almost the whole Mendeleev periodic table. Maybe there are minerals, but the point is in modern mining methods and their prices. In this sense, only two states can be called really rich - Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Their wealth is in hydrocarbons – there are highly liquid resources on the world markets. However, certain types of metals and all others, with what Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, are rich - these things can be quite difficult to sell on the world markets, and it is not easy to obtain them. Prices for them are exposed to sharp fluctuations, and therefore, if we compare macroeconomic indicators, they are the highest in Kazakhstan and much lower in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. But Russia is interested in the fact that around the perimeter of its borders, including in Central Asia, there are states that do not create security issues, including economic. In this case, the more stable the national economies of our Central Asian neighbors is and the greater the wealth there is in families of Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks, then the fewer problems there will be in Moscow, including in connection with migration,” Azhdar Kurtov thinks.
