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Nazarbayev’s Successful Diplomacy in Kyrgyzstan Signals Deeper Strategic Shifts
Roger N. McDermott
Indeed, an analysis of the nuances in approach, media coverage, and official statements offered throughout the crisis, confirms how concerned some regimes are about their own internal stability, weaknesses in civil society, and their vulnerability to external influence. While, Kazakhstan’s leadership emerged with an enhanced reputation for contributing to defusing a possible civil war in neighboring Kyrgyzstan with the timely evacuation of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on April 15 to Taraz in southern Kazakhstan, its underlying motives relate more to personal ambition and geostrategic maneuvering around the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Moscow’s efforts to promote a new European security architecture.
Silence in
First, the silent regional observers must be identified. Since April 7, and the bloodshed on the streets of Bishkek that signaled the beginning of the end for the Bakiyev regime, drowning in corruption and promoting family interests at the expense of economically and politically developing the state, the governments and state media were predictably silent in both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
In the latter, only one official statement, through the Uzbek foreign ministry news agency “Jahon” noted that a “confrontation” had occurred resulting in “human casualties.” Understandably, since the authorities remain sensitive to the memory of the uprising in Andijan in May 2005 that witnessed a crackdown on civilians which resulted in widespread international condemnation, and in due course was one of the contributory factors in
After all, the events in Andijan erupted within two months of the “Tulip Revolution” in neighboring
Tashkent’s official reluctance to comment on the recent Kyrgyz crisis, characterized as “above all an internal affair,” did not prevent its government from stepping up domestic security on April 8 in the border areas, and later sending more police officers to patrol the streets of Andijan to prevent the emergence of any instability.
Jahon’s website referred to the potential for “destabilizing effects,” spreading from its neighbor, yet only made this comment in the Russian language version of the website, and airbrushed it from the Uzbek and English versions. Government and pro-government Uzbek media reproduced this particular statement, but added no further details. Only independent foreign media, based in
Government run media, by contrast in
Openness in
However, within 24 hours of Bakiyev’s fall from power, the state-run Khovar news agency began to release detailed information and the privately owned Asia-Plus online offered coverage from the outset while unofficial media offered “lessons learned” for the Tajik government ranging from the weaknesses of the Kyrgyz economy, increases to electricity prices, corruption and “forgotten promises.”
There was even some speculation on
Kazakhstan’s Media Campaign: Promoting the Peacemaker
Kazakh media coverage was by far the most open in the region, yet this cannot be divorced from the extent to which the government pushed certain aspects in order to enhance its own image and achieve wider diplomatic objectives. The role of its government, currently holding the rotating chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in extricating Bakiyev highlighted more complex factors at play in the crisis. It was a valuable opportunity for the Kazakh leadership to burnish its image, and cast President Nursultan Nazarbayev as peacemaker.
By April 15, Nazarbayev was uncontrollably buoyant in his mood and his more colorful claims, for instance, to have successful averted a civil war in
Throughout the initial crisis period, Nazarbayev admitted he had remained in telephone contact with Bakiyev and the interim Kyrgyz government, as well as liaising with Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev. Yet, reportedly, Bakiyev had entered Kazakh airspace on April 7, and was denied permission to land, and within a short time Air Astana suspended flights between the Kazakh capital and Bishkek in an attempt to prevent the exile of regime members fleeing into the country.
While the veracity of these claims cannot currently be tested, the opportunity for him to flee to
Of crucial importance, in this context, was Nazarbayev’s trip to
On April 16, Nazarbayev said that on the previous day he had ordered the mission to evacuate Bakiyev and his family. He said Kazakh servicemen would be decorated for the role they played in preventing a “civil clash growing into a clash between the southern and northern parts of the country,” adding, “we have performed a good mission on behalf of the OSCE and the heads of state, who were really worried.”
His claim that the country was slipping toward civil war, before his masterful intervention is certainly subjective, especially since the interim government in Bishkek appeared to be maintaining complete control over the armed forces and security structures. The only player involved in the crisis to mention the possibility of civil war was Medvedev, when on April 14, he warned of north-south split and possible descent into war, calling on Bakiyev to leave, and saying the fragile Central Asian state might in due course become a “second Afghanistan.”
Clearly basking in his international role, Nazarbayev also claimed this as a success for the country’s chairmanship of the OSCE. Pro-government media in
Upping the Ante in US-Kazakh Relations
Prior to Nazarbayev’s arrival in Washington, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda indicated that his main goal was to secure the backing of the Obama administration for his much vaunted scheme to host the first OSCE summit in eleven years, even going as far as suggesting it was provisionally earmarked for November. Meeting on the sidelines of the nuclear summit, he failed to secure a clear commitment to push for such a summit.
There were other less weighty failures, such as only receiving only lukewarm acknowledgment of his proposal to create an international nuclear fuel bank in
Obama and Nazarbayev reportedly discussed ways of enhancing the NDN, on April 12, Michael McFaul, the Special Assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs in the National Security Council, duly announced on April 12 that Astana had agreed to open a second important air route, allowing US aircraft to fly across the North Pole and through Kazakh airspace, which is more convenient than the trans-European flight path, saving time and money. Its agreement was doubtless prepared by the visit to
Moreover, during his meeting with Obama, according to Prime Tass and www.politikom.ru, Nazarbayev offered to ensure that existing commercial contracts with
Clearly, the predatory appetite on the part of the Kazakh state to revise such contracts revealed in the dispute over Kashagan finally resolved in late 2007, which recently resurfaced with hostile moves against the KPO in Karachaganak, has become a bargaining chip in Kazakh diplomacy. Nonetheless, this offer was most likely unexpected by administration officials.
What is significant, albeit thus far underestimated by western commentators, is that the Kazakh government has effectively placed such a guarantee on the table, and the price appears linked to
Politically, then, the reluctance on the part of the Obama administration to provide an unequivocal “yes” to the possible summit arises from skepticism over President Medvedev’s draft European security treaty, strongly lobbied by Russia and the Central Asian states. Astana has its own reasons for pushing this initiative, and recognizes the main forum for its discussion is the OSCE, which would serve to boost its portrayal of success as the current chairman.
Equally,
Nazarbayev is so committed to his summit idea that he is effectively offering
While Nazarbayev played a pacifying role in the Kyrgyz political crisis, at least in terms of solving the most urgent problem, safely removing Bakiyev, its timing and strategic implications as well as how it fits Kazakh diplomatic maneuvering, must not be undervalued.
By. Roger N. McDermott for Oilprice.com who focus on Geopolitical analysis, Energy markets, Crude oil, <a href="http://www.oilprice.com/articles-renewable-energy.php" target="new">Alternative Energy</a> and Finance. They also have a Free Investment intelligence newsletter that informs investors of the most breaking events taking place around the world. Visit http://www.oilprice.com
April 22, 2010