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Asia Times
July 29, 2002
Securing Moscow's southern flank
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - At the same time that Moscow has been pushing for a larger economic and diplomatic role for the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth (EEC) in Central Asian affairs, it has also been quietly floating a concept of even greater potential regional impact: an EEC security role in the form of a common border policy.
The EEC was created in May 2001 with the stated goal of creating a free-trade zone comprising member states Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Yet trade between the states has hardly been burgeoning; in 2001, the overall trade turnover between the EEC states reached a mere US$29 billion, EEC secretary general Grigory Rapota told journalists in the Kyrgyz resort city Cholpon-Ata on July 26. That amount was just 1 percent higher than in the previous year, he said.
At that same meeting, however, the EEC integration committee discussed, among other issues, a draft agreement on "cooperation in the protection of external borders" of the EEC. Now here is where the EEC gets interesting; as Russia's neighbors to the south are well aware, a common EEC border policy could serve as the perfect legal tool by which Russia achieves the permanent stationing of its troops along large stretches of the former Soviet southern border.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin diplomatically summed up the decision the other EEC member states will soon face: "Russia has to determine whether it needs to fortify its border with Kazakhstan, or guard [the Kazakh border further south]." In other words, either let us help guard your southern border, or watch us put troops on your northern border (with their guns pointing at you).
When you put it that way ...
Delegates to the Kyrgyzstan meeting said that they expected a formal common border policy to be signed by all EEC member states next May. And some EEC states aren't even waiting that long. On July 25, General Abdurakhmon Azimov, the Tajik border-guard commander, announced that the country's border-guard force would be tripled within the next two years, taking it to a level of some 30,000 personnel - as many troops as America has stationed in South Korea along one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world.
Neither is Moscow waiting to take unilateral steps to secure its southern flank. Last April, Putin ordered major naval exercises to be held in the disputed Caspian sea on August 1-15. Some 10,000 military personnel, 60 naval vessels and 30 military planes are due to take part. Officially, Moscow claims the Caspian Flotilla exercises are needed to combat drug traffickers, organized crime and terrorism. Turkmenistan and Iran have their doubts. Those two countries have long disagreed with Russia's plan for splitting the Caspian bottom along a "modified median line" while keeping the waters in common, and they sea the exercises as an example of "gunboat diplomacy".
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan, which had already clinched a separate deal on Caspian Sea borders with Russia last May, announced on July 24 that the country would be conducting a week-long Caspian naval exercise of its own beginning August 7 in the Mangustau littoral region. The fact that these exercises will overlap with fellow EEC member Russia's own maneuvers is explained away as a mere coincidence, with Russian officials arguing that, for their own part, at least, the maneuvers are prompted by legitimate security concerns.
To non-EEC nations like Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan, however, the prospect of hundreds of military craft of all kinds buzzing around a closed sea like the Caspian comes across more like a warning shot across the bow. To their eyes, it can hardly be a coincidence that the Russian naval exercises were announced shortly after Turkmenistan had voiced its reluctance to join the Russia-sponsored Eurasian Gas Alliance. On July 23, the Turkmen government said in a statement that it would favor bilateral gas deals "until the aims of the proposed gas alliance are determined".
The idea for such an alliance - a "Central Asian OPEC", as the Russian media has dubbed it - was first revealed by Putin on January 21 during a meeting in Moscow with Turkmen President Niyazov. Putin suggested setting up a new economic body, to be called the "Eurasian Alliance of Natural Gas Producers," that would organize the producers of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan around the nexus of Russia's system of gas pipelines.
Last March, leaders of the four countries approved a joint statement on "cooperation in energy policy and measures to defend interests of natural gas producers", yet the statement fell well short of Putin's original vision.
Apart from Caspian disputes, Russia has other reasons to want to project power along the EEC's southern borders, notably in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where Russia is still present militarily. For instance, Russia and Kyrgyzstan have maintained close political and military ties, and President Askar Akayev has tended to support the Kremlin's policies in the region.
Since early this year, the Akayev administration has faced a storm of protest among its southern clans over a number of issues, including the reluctance of President Akayev's northern clan to share the power. Notably, last March five protesters were killed and dozens wounded during riots in southern Kyrgyzstan. Also, last June the first secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan was shot and killed in downtown Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. On July 7 and July 25, two Korean businessmen were shot and killed in Bishkek in apparent contract hits.
In response, Akayev has attempted to defuse tensions with a roundtable discussion with the opposition on July 26. According to media reports, Akayev urged his opponents to find common grounds yet warned them against "extremism".
Although Kyrgyz authorities have hinted that outside forces could have been behind the riots and contract hits, but they are yet to disclose any evidence. However, with a backdrop of Kyrgyz volatility, the EEC border guards may soon be deployed in the Kyrgyz mountains in the name of common security.
If the EEC common border policy is followed through, it would surely be the first of many such Central Asian troop deployments to come.
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