SEPT. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint venture between a Kyrgyz company and Russia’s Gazprom will begin deliveries of jet fuel in November to the US airbase at Manas outside Bishkek, the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Pamela Spratlen, told media. The Kyrgyz-Russian JV will supply 50% of the fuel to Manas, a vital supply hub for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Overriding concerns about its human rights record, US President Barack Obama asked Uzbek President Islam Karimov to boost the capacity of a NATO supply line running through Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, media reported. The US is shifting supplies to the Northern Distribution Network, from Pakistan where its relationship with the government has soured.
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(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – After months of negotiations, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon announced on Sept. 2 that Russia would indeed extend the lease on its military bases in Tajikistan by 49 years.
Reuters also reported, without giving details, that Russian forces would once again patrol the Tajik-Afghan border — a deal Russia has been pushing for all year. The details still need to be thrashed out, including just how much Russia will pay for the bases, but the announcement was a significant milestone.
The deals secure Russia’s military might on the fringe of Central Asia where control has become increasingly important. NATO plans to withdraw from Afghanistan over the next couple of years and the Central Asian states have been worried about Taliban forces moving northwards.
Russia quit patrolling the Tajik-Afghan border in 2005 but has said throughout the year it wants to regain control to stem the drugs flowing from Afghanistan.
The Kremlin has also been thinking strategically about its military bases and has extended leases on large bases in Armenia and Ukraine. Its deployment in Tajikistan is one of its biggest with roughly 7,000 soldiers and hundreds of tanks and planes stationed there.
Both China and India have bolstered their economic, diplomatic and military reach in Central Asia over the last few years, so for Russia to secure its long-term hold on its military bases in Tajikistan represents a significant achievement.
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(News report from Issue No. 55, published on Sept. 6 2011)
AUG. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan could allow militant Islam to spread into Central Asia, Russian media quoted Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) as saying at a meeting in Astana. The CSTO is a loose security group of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
MAY 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov unveiled his country’s first military deployment to Afghanistan on May 27, nine days after the lower house of parliament agreed the mission. Kazakhstan will send four officers to Kabul in a non-combat capacity, he told a parliamentary committee.
The Kazakh mission to Afghanistan will probably not decisively tip the 10 year war NATO’s way but it is steeped in symbolism. The deployment will mean that soldiers from Central Asia, which is predominantly Muslim, will for the first time be serving alongside NATO forces fighting the Taliban.
In reality, the Central Asian states have been heavily involved in NATO’s war in Afghanistan for years, allowing NATO to use their airports, military bases, roads and railways to re-supply forces fighting the Taliban.
The Central Asian states have earned millions of US dollars from this supply chain deal but actually sending soldiers to Afghanistan is a far bigger step, as the Taliban recognised when it reacted to the announcement with a thinly veiled warning to Kazakhstan.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is adept at playing off different superpowers and Kazakhstan maintains good relations with Russia and China as well as with the United States.
He has also fostered increasingly close relations with NATO. Sending soldiers to support the war in Afghanistan now makes Kazakhstan a member of the US-led coalition fighting the Taliban and that’s important, no matter how big the contingent.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Parliament agreed to send soldiers to Afghanistan to back up NATO forces fighting the Taliban. The Kazakh group will be the first soldiers from Central Asia to fight in the US-led war. In response, the Taliban issued a warning to the Kazakh government.
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(News report from Issue No. 41, published on May 24 2011)
MARCH 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defence ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — met in Astana to coordinate policy until 2013. The SCO, a military and economic group, has increased its activities over the last few years and some analysts have even referred to it as a potential counterbalance to NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)
FEB. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States spent $28m in 2010 in Uzbekistan on supplies for NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said on an official trip to Tashkent. He also praised Uzbekistan’s role in the NATO supply chain.
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(News report from Issue No. 28, published on Feb. 21 2011)
OCT. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Tbilisi, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO remained committed to granting Georgia full membership of the alliance. The day before a landmine in Afghanistan killed four Georgian soldiers, including a colonel. Georgia has about 925 soldiers in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 10, published on Oct. 7 2010)