Analytical Articles

Since the beginning of the 1990s, South Korea has positioned itself as one of the main Asian allies of the Central Asian states. Today, it is the fourth largest commercial partner of Uzbekistan, with US$ 904 million in exchanges in 2008, and the ninth-largest of Kazakhstan, with US$ 864 million worth of exchanges. Often presented as one of the rising regional powers in Central Asia, Seoul continues to invest in strategic fields such as uranium and to aid the opening up of the region in terms of transport.

In mid-August, BP Azerbaijan announced that oil from Turkmenistan is now entering the BTC in Azerbaijan and will constitute between four and five percent of its present throughput of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is being upgraded to 1.2 million bpd with a view towards eventual inclusion of oil from Kazakhstan’s offshore Tengiz field. These practical steps of cooperation with Azerbaijan, combined with the mid-August announcement in Ashgabad of new directions in Turkmenistan’s gas export policy, point the way towards a European direction for future Turkmenistani production, not forgetting China and the possibility of South Asia, while Iran is given only marginal reference and Russia is ignored.

Kabul and Islamabad recently signed the Afghanistan Pakistan Trade and Transit Agreement. Under the agreement, Afghan trucks are allowed to carry Afghan transit export cargo to Pakistani ports and also to the Indian border. If implemented, the agreement has the potential to boost Afghanistan’s development and regional trade. While it excludes Indian exports across Pakistan for the time being, over time it may also create insurmountable pressure within Pakistan and Afghanistan to open up trade across the border with India, thus providing a substantial stepping stone in the integration of South and Central Asian economies. 

Anti-government protests on August 5, 2010 in the capital of Kyrgyzstan ended with the riot police dispersing crowds of demonstrators and arresting the organizer, Urmat Baryktabasov, on charges of coup attempt and illegal possession of weapons. Baryktabasov gained notoriety as a result of his alleged first attempt at seizure of power in June 2005, weeks following the Tulip Revolution. Even though the police and security services successfully coped with the challenge this time, the situation in Kyrgyzstan is far from stable.

During the crisis in Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, the European Union published a Joint Progress Report by the Council and the European Commission to the European Council on the implementation of the EU Strategy for Central Asia. This took place three years after the launching of the first strategy, initiated by the German presidency in 2007. Beyond its partly self-congratulatory and sometimes technocratic discourse lauding the progress that has been made in many areas, the balance sheet is mixed.

The websites of the North Caucasus insurgency reported the resignation of the Caucasus Emirate leader, emir Dokku Umarov on August 1, where Umarov in a short video announced his decision to step down and that he would be replaced by emir Aslambek Vadalov. The following day, Umarov in another video, disowned his previous statement and stated it was impossible for him to resign. These two contradictory statements within only a few days raise questions regarding the causes of Umarov’s canceled resignation and the future of the insurgency. 

Bulgaria and Romania have over the course of the summer been setting down their markers as regards the Nabucco and South Stream pipeline projects in an on-again, off-again manner. What they finally decide may determine which pipelines from the South Caucasus and Turkey get built where in Southeast Europe. Major investment decisions are also on the line in coming months. It is consequently little exaggeration to say that the next year, if not the next half-year, will set the main lines of the blueprint for Caspian/Black Sea hydrocarbon development for the better part of the oncoming decade.

On July 16, 2010, Azerbaijan and the European Union (EU) started to negotiate for the signature of an Association Agreement. In the framework of the Eastern Partnership, launched in May 2009, it will provide a new basis for the relationship between Baku and Brussels. These negotiations will help updating the latter, highlighting both the changes of perceptions of Azerbaijan in Brussels and the new regional role Baku intends to play in the South Caucasus.

In recent months, the Russian government has stepped up its attacks on NATO governments for failing to curb Afghanistan’s exploding opium production and the resulting surge in Eurasian drug trafficking. Since Western troops occupied Afghanistan in late 2001, opium cultivation has soared and the Russian government argues that NATO should take more vigorous action to repress the cultivation of narcotics in Afghanistan. Russian officials have indicated that they will press for aerial spraying of herbicides on the poppy fields. Although sympathetic to Russian concerns, neither the Afghan government, nor its NATO backers, are prepared to take such risky action, which could greatly assist Taliban recruitment efforts.