#14 - JRL 7273
Asia Times
July 31, 2003
Rough road to Russian-Tajik cooperation
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - Russia has repeatedly pledged to safeguard security in Central Asia. Yet increased Russian military deployment in the volatile region tends to take longer than expected.
In recent months, war games have been Moscow's favorite stratagem to demonstrate its strategic interests. From Tuesday to Saturday this week, Russia is holding joint military exercises with Tajikistan at the Sumbula military test site in Shaartuz district, Khatlon region, some 150 kilometers south of the Tajik capital Dushanbe. The 191st Regiment of the 201st Division along with Tajik soldiers, some 500 personnel in all, is taking part, according to Tajik Defense Ministry spokesman Zarubiddin Sirodzoyev. The war games, designed to train troops on measures to support border guards who are protecting the nearby border with Afghanistan, were to involve live artillery barrages on Thursday.
Meanwhile, some Russian media reports indicate problems in Russia's deployment in Tajikistan. In July, the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reported an allegation that Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov had been offered US$1 billion in US aid in exchange for refusing to set up a Russian military base in Tajikistan.
Also in July, a Russian military delegation headed by General Alexander Morozov, chief of staff of Russian ground troops, traveled to Dushanbe to discuss the issue of the "fourth military base". Yet no concrete agreements were signed and, in the wake of the talks, Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev reportedly announced that the Russians themselves were to blame for slow progress in the talks over the base. According to earlier agreements between Moscow and Dushanbe, the Russian 201st Division is due to be transformed into Russia's "fourth military base". The Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted division deputy commander Colonel Alexander Rubtsov as saying that in recent months the 201st Division underwent a personnel cut from 8,000 to 5,500.
Tajik Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Sattarov reportedly described speculations over the US aid as "allegations of enemies of relations between Russia and Tajikistan". So far, there has been no official reaction in Moscow. Russian analysts remain unconvinced by official Tajik denials. When feeling threatened by, say, Afghan warlords, Tajikistan seeks Russian assistance, but once the threat seems over, the Tajik leadership starts drifting toward the United States, argues Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Moscow-based think-tank Merkator.
Stability in Tajikistan has been shaky since the end of the country's 1992-97 civil war. One of the instability factors is that nearly 5 million of the country's 6 million people live in poverty, according to United Nations estimates.
Rakhmonov's accession to power was in larger measure connected with Russian military and political backing. Under the terms of a June 22 referendum, Rakhmonov could run for two more terms, theoretically staying in office until 2020.
Moscow has been using economic tools to consolidate its clout. Russia and Tajikistan have harmonized their respective customs rules by an estimated 70 percent, Eurasian Economic Community general secretary Gennady Rapota told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday. He also pledged to go ahead with projects to build hydro-power plants in Tajikistan but revealed no further details.
Also, on May 15 Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom signed a 25-year strategic agreement with Tajikistan to explore gas fields and promote domestic energy independence. Officials hope the Gazprom agreement will enable the country to increase its gas output at least to meet the needs of the central region, including Dushanbe.
Meanwhile, the illicit drug trade remains an irritant in bilateral relations. Every year, Russian border guards and Tajik police confiscate tons of Afghan heroin, the price of which in Russia would reach tens of million of US dollars. But, as the border guards admit, their "catch" does not exceed 10 percent of the narcotics that cross Tajikistan.
According to Fayzullo Gadoyev, head of the Tajik Interior Ministry's anti-drug department, the amount of heroin confiscated since the beginning of 2003 was double the amount seized during the same period the previous year.
In yet another highlight of the drug issue, on Wednesday Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov announced the arrest of alleged Tajik drug traffickers near Moscow and seizure of 220 kilograms of heroin, the largest drug bust in Russia so far.
Another irritant in bilateral relations has been Russia's tough policies toward Tajik migrants. For instance, on July 16 more than 300 Tajik citizens were deported home as illegal aliens from Russia's Omsk region. It was the latest in a series of recent deportations that have sparked formal protests in Dushanbe.
Unofficial estimates indicate that roughly 800,000 illegal Tajik aliens send hundreds of millions of dollars from Russia to Tajikistan every year. The loss of this cash inflow would be a blow to Tajikistan's fragile economy.
On the other hand, some deportations were presumably intended to please Tajik authorities. In June, Russian law-enforcement agencies detained former Tajik interior minister Yakub Salimov and promptly extradited him to Tajikistan. Salimov, who held the cabinet post from 1993-95, was sought by Tajik authorities on murder charges. However, critics argued that Salimov was a political opponent of Rakhmonov.
In the meantime, the Russian Air Force prepares to take over a military airfield in Kant, about 20km east of Bishkek. The deployment is to become the most significant outside Russia's borders since the Soviet collapse in 1991. The move is presumably designed to reassert Russia's military influence in a region where the United States has its own semi-permanent military presence, with bases in Kyrgyzstan as well as Uzbekistan.
The force is ultimately due to include more than 20 Russian aircraft and more than 700 troops. The Kant base deal was expected to be clinched on July 8, but now Russian jets are unlikely to arrive there before October.
The Russian task force is to provide the air power for a contingent of ground forces. Known as a rapid-reaction force, this group could total more than 5,000 troops from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, members of an alliance of former Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Meanwhile, despite unresolved disputes over Russian military bases, the alliance seemingly seeks a bigger role in the region. On Wednesday, CSTO general secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha told a meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York that his organization was "ready to operate throughout the territory of all [the] Central Asian region". The CSTO collective rapid-deployment forces "have became a real factor of stabilization in Central Asia", Bordyuzha was quoted by the Russian Information Agency.
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