#9
Itogi
No. 7
2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
DAMAGING RELATIONS WITH CENTRAL ASIAN STATES BECAUSE OF U.S. MILITARY BASES WOULD BE UNWISE AND ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGEOUS
By Oleg ODNOKOLENKO

According to public opinion polls, about two-thirds of Russian citizens are worried over the emergence in Central Asian states of military bases of the United States and its allies. The man in the street still considers this region a zone of Russian influence. Is it really so? Does the military presence of NATO countries in Central Asia threaten Russia's political and economic interests? Grigory RAPOTA, general secretary of the Eurasian Economic Community (the successor to the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), answered these and other questions in an Itogi interview.

Question: Some people think that our partners in the Eurasian Economic Community simply use Russia to serve their own interests and will take the side of richer countries as soon as an opportunity arises. For example, Central Asian members of the Community have accommodated NATO military bases.

Answer: I would not consider this situation at an emotional level. I have just returned from Tajikistan where I met actually with all Cabinet members. You see, when one understands their life better, many things look in a different way then. Not long ago, a civil war ended in Tajikistan. We gave them military aid - Russia's 201st division and border guard troops are deployed there. But we gave them no economic aid. Therefore they welcome any investments and, by the way, they first invited us. We have so far failed to find money for that. Should we now criticise them for letting Americans and Frenchmen into the country?

Question: Even before the events in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan proposed to the United States deploying a U.S. military base on its territory in payment of its debts. Apparently, this was not only an economic decision. It seems that our allies rely more on the United States' ability to ensure security in the region.

Answer: I am not ready now to comment on decisions of Central Asian leaders. I would only like to remind you that these are sovereign states pursuing independent policies. Yet it is indisputable that this region was and remains a sphere of Russian interests. However, one should not forget that Central Asia is, to the same extent, a sphere of interests of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which are members of the Eurasian Economic Community. And I think they are as interested in stability in the region as we are. Why they decided on military presence of the U.S.A. and its allies is another thing. After all, things turned out this way. Yet I would like to hope that the current U.S. activities in the region will not have a negative effect on our Community.

Anyway, all the five members of the Community are interested in successful completion of the antiterrorist operation. Our and U.S. interests coincide here.

Question: Are you sure that now, after ten years of disintegration, Central Asian countries will gravitate towards Russia? There is no trace of pro-Russian orientation in the region.

Answer: The five members of the Community equally seek to build something that will work efficiently. There is political will. And although we do not deal with security issues directly, Dushanbe, Bishkek and Astana understand very well that in a broader sense this security depends, above all, on good relations with their closest neighbours.

Question: Russia's political interest in Central Asia is understandable. And what is our economic interest in this not very prosperous region?

Answer: Rule One: if there is political interest, this is already enough. Rule Two: if something is unclear, see Rule One.

Actually, as an international official, I should not represent only Russia's position. But as a Russian citizen, I must say: our partners often have an impression that Russia knows very well what it does not want - for example, U.S. presence in Central Asia - but does not know what it wants. I don't think Russia is interested only in opposing Americans everywhere. Now about our economic interest. Take, for example, Tajikistan where the British have established a joint venture and begun to mine gold. They were not scared away by Russia's influence or the local situation. And isn't Askar Akayev's idea to revive the Silk Road attractive to Russia?

Question: Is the Eurasian Economic Community a supplement to the Commonwealth of Independent States, which has not yet come up to expectations, or a variant of the European Union for domestic use?

Answer: There seems to be no need to reform the CIS - it is useful already because it gives an opportunity to presidents to meet and discuss topical issues several times a year. As for the Eurasian Economic Community, I think it is a new cooperation model which presupposes a higher level of integration. When we were establishing it, we did use documents of the European Union and European experience.

As distinct from the CIS, all decisions made by the Community are binding on all the members. Votes are proportionate to countries' contribution to the Community budget. Russia's share is the greatest - 40 percent, this is why its voice is the weightiest.

Question: The analogy with the EU raises questions. It turns out that ours is a "union of the poor," while theirs is a "union of the rich." It is not difficult to predict their future.

Answer: Indeed, today we are a union of the poor. But our Community is a constructive response to the process of globalisation. No one knows where the boundary between the "golden billion" and the rest of humankind will lie. But we do not want to find ourselves in the doomed half, this is why we are uniting.

Question: Wouldn't it be better to simply join the well-off half? Some of the Community's members have already made such attempts.

Answer: Yes, they have, but their attempts failed - no one has so far been able to integrate into the Western economy at once. Our variant of integration has major advantages: we have similar economies, a similar technological level, and actually the same level of economic culture. Besides, we have a common history and can speak one language - Russian, which by the way is an official working language of the Eurasian Economic Community.

It is because we are so much alike that I do not lose hope that we will not only restore what has been destroyed but will also go further. At least, we will try.

Question: You're not sure of that?

Answer: Everything depends on Russia. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the first to come up with the idea to establish an economic union of states with economies at different levels of development, yet nothing would have come of it without Russia's will. Integration stalled, while Central Asia remained, for various reasons, outside Russia's sphere of interests.

Question: But participation in the Eurasian Economic Community creates certain difficulties for Russia. Some people think that it hampers Russia's integration into the world economy.

Answer: I would not consider Russia's wish to join the World Trade Organisation and its participation in the Eurasian Economic Community as opposites. Russia is a large state with its own interests. Besides, the Eurasian Economic Community is a structure for domestic use inside the CIS. It is not a monastery which one cannot leave.

Question: So you are not in a dilemma as to where Russia should turn - the West or the East?

Answer: Whatever decision we make today, there is an objective development of events. For example, the flow of migrants from Central Asia to Russia. Up to 300,000 people come to Russia from Tajikistan every year to earn money. Is it bad or good? Cheap manpower is useful for the Russian economy. It is also good for our partners hit by total unemployment. So it turns out that, while we were engaged in discussions, the East itself has come to us. This is a real people's integration. Of course, it was caused by poor living conditions, but we have set up the Eurasian Economic Community to civilise this phenomen, too. And damaging our relations with Central Asian states only because U.S. military bases have been deployed there would be absolutely unwise and economically disadvantageous.

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