Analytical Articles

Late in June, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayat Quliyev stated that his government would welcome the resumption of the activities of the Turkmen embassy in Baku. He insisted that the embassy could resume its operation \"at any moment\", while referring to the Azerbaijani embassy\'s operation in Ashgabad as \"quite normal\". The Turkmen government, which closed its embassy\'s in Baku about two years ago over disputes with Azerbaijan, has recently sought to improve ties with its neighbours as reflected in its interest in normalizing relations with Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan seems to have appreciated this new conciliatory mood in Ashgabad, which they want to explore to end the current unfriendly relations with their Caspian neighbour.

Since December 2002, Russian authorities have sent two extradition requests to Washington for the return of eight Russian citizens held in Guantanamo Bay. The eight were held after being captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, but extradition requests have seen no reply. Russian displeasure with American silence on this matter was expressed by Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky, who pointed out to U.S. authorities that these requests were not simply ‘friendly correspondence’, but require a response. The eight ‘Russian Taliban’ demonstrate dissatisfaction with the squabbling leaders of Russian ‘Official Islam’ in the Russian Islamic community.

In July 2003, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson visited Kazakhstan during a trip to Central Asia to promote NATO’s relations with these states. Whilst generally praising Kazakhstan for its increasingly deepening cooperation with the Alliance, Robertson particularly thanked President Nazarbayev and the Kazakh parliament for deciding to offer a small number of troops in support of post-war reconstruction in Iraq. This development clearly signals Astana’s commitment to its cooperation with NATO, contributing to the stabilization forces within Iraq, despite the international controversy that surrounded the US decision to prosecute the war. However this is only a small part of growing evidence that Astana is actively pursuing a more pro-western approach to its foreign policy and military cooperation.

As the election campaign intensifies before the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2 November 2003, the unwillingness of President Eduard Shevardnadze to seek compromise with the strong opposition over key issues of the election code prompted former U.S. State Secretary James Baker to suggest election guidelines during his July 5-6 visit in Georgia. The election race is entering an increasingly confrontational mode, which is likely to further discredit already weak state institutions, and to push the mounting protest voters out of the non-violent political domain into violent civil disobedience and anarchy.

Speaking at a Washington event, the former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Ross Wilson underlined the Host Government Agreements (HGA) concluded between energy companies and governments of the transit countries for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) as an outstanding example of regional cooperation and the most positive development during his recently concluded tenure in Baku. However, the BTC pipeline has come under increasing fire on specious grounds advocated by human rights and environmental groups, endangering an infrastructural project that is widely supported by the population in the region, and is set to benefit the economy of the Caucasus positively.

Security is at the top of the Georgian political agenda, but Georgia still lacks a clear and coherent security concept. This bears importance for reform of the military and security structures in addition to showing political priorities for domestic and international actors. The general election of 2 November and the Presidential election in 2005, along with NATO aspirations, Russian unwillingness to let go of the South Caucasus as a sphere of influence and the many frozen conflicts in the region, illustrate the urgency of adopting a national security concept. The passing of such a concept will provide predictability and legitimacy for Georgia’s future undertakings and be the compass for reform and policymaking.

Many observers have commented on the implications of the recent Russia-Turkmenistan gas deal for Russian energy and gas policy or on Russian policy in Central Asia. But with the passage of time since the deal was announced, it has become clear that other aspects of this deal that at the time received less attention are now becoming much more important. Two of them in particular merit close scrutiny, the importance of the agitation in Russia against the deal’s implications for Russians in Turkmenistan and the importance of the Trans-Ural firm to this deal.

In the aftermath of the Iraqi war, leaders and countries in the Caspian littoral are competing to obtain maximum geopolitical and economic advantage by attracting investors through lower bureaucratic barriers and reduced political risk. The Iraq war has generated rethinking on the part of regional governments, who now have to adapt to a more competitive situation. Iran’s stance is still ambiguous with contradicting hard and soft lines, while some Balkan operators are beginning to involve in the pipeline discussion.

The resignation of Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Imangali Tasmagambetov on 11 June, followed by the swift parliamentary approval given to the appointment of Daniyal Akhmetov, the Governor of Pavlodar, as his successor on 13 June might, at first glance, appear merely to indicate the willingness of the country’s executive and legislature to move quickly to seek resolution of the long-running dispute over land privatisation. However, the events of the last week in Astana also have the potential to impact beyond the agrarian sector, to the broader national policy-making process, and could even possibly reshape the fabric of Kazakhstan’s political system itself.

The alleged coup attempt against President Saparmurat Niyazov in November 2002 unleashed a new wave of repression within Turkmenistan, ultimately resulting in hundreds of arrests, draconian restrictions on both internal and foreign travel for Turkmen citizens and the revocation of a dual citizenship agreement with Russia. Although widely believed to have been staged by the President\'s own security forces, new information revealed by one of Niyazov\'s most prominent rivals indicates that the attack was a failed coup attempt organized and carried out by former foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov and his fellow oppositionists. Regardless of who was responsible for the attack, Niyazov has managed to bounce back from the incident, seizing the opportunity to incarcerate some of his major opponents and to atomize Shikhmuradov\'s People\'s Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan.