In the current situation, after the withdrawal of the US military contingent from Afghanistan and the Taliban (the movement is banned in Russia) came to power in this country, Washington is actively making adjustments to its strategy in Central Asia. As can be seen from the changes in the actions of the White House, on the one hand, Washington is not ready to come to terms with the loss of influence in the region. On the other, it seeks to turn Central Asia into a geopolitical confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and several countries in solidarity with them. At the same time, the US is striving to preserve its monopoly on managing extensive cross-border processes its intention to dominate world politics.

Washington’s updated strategy for Central Asia today includes counteracting the activity of China and the influence of Russia in the region, ensuring regional isolation of Iran to remotely control the situation in Afghanistan, creating or maintaining a hotbed of tension in the center of Eurasia and the SCO space. The main goal of these actions is to export destabilization from Afghanistan, for which there are tremendous opportunities: drug trafficking, the growth of religious extremism and terrorism, etc.

As part of the long-term work of the US in the Asian direction, there is a desire to create a Washington-London-Tel Aviv-Doha-Islamabad axis to annex the capitals of individual Central Asian countries. In general, it reflects the well-known concept of Greater Central Asia voiced by Professor Frederick Starr.

To strengthen aggressive actions, the NATO bloc is activating in the West. The Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) is in the East, with the desire to entice India into the anti-Chinese military-political link. The creation of AUKUS, a trilateral defense alliance of the United States, Great Britain and Australia, is also aimed at this.

After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, for the loss of the possibility of conducting technical intelligence in the territories of neighboring countries of Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan by the United States, military-diplomatic activities are unfolding on the development of new facilities for conducting legal, technical intelligence in the direction of Afghanistan and adjacent regions on the territory of one of the countries of Central Asia, as well as Pakistan. The US began searching for new opportunities for the deployment of the US Army, particularly in Central Asia, right after the withdrawal of the armed forces from Afghanistan on August 31, 2021. Information about this was already appearing in The Washington Post and several other American media outlets. Although Russia, like the Central Asian republics, initially opposed such desires of the US, American diplomats persistently continued to explore various options for restoring access to bases in Central Asia, including facilities in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where they were previously located. So, these aspirations of Washington can be traced in its negotiations with Uzbekistan. It is proposed to bypass the legislative ban on the deployment of military bases of foreign states on the territory of this country by creating the so-called “counter-terrorism centers.” American representatives are making similar attempts in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

To implement its updated strategy for geopolitical confrontation with Russia, China, Iran and some countries in Central Asia, Washington began to actively involve Asian states close to it, especially South Korea and Japan, using them to slow down Eurasian integration. In particular, it was evidenced by the example of Mongolia, which, under the influence of Washington, rather quickly signed two agreements on free trade zones (FTZ) with South Korea and Japan, which complicated its conclusion of the same deal with the EAEU. Similar aspirations can be traced concerning Uzbekistan as part of the preparation for a similar agreement on creating a free trade zone with South Korea, which may also become a deterrent in its legal rapprochement with the EAEU.

An essential aspect of the adjusted US strategy in Central Asia is the preservation of instability in Afghanistan using various proxy resources and anti-Taliban forces. And here, according to Washington’s plans, the use of American private military companies would play an important role. In early December, the meeting in Dushanbe between the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, Ahmad Massoud and the founder of the US private military company Blackwater, Erik Prince, was clear proof. Previously, Massoud had appealed to what he called “Afghanistan’s friends in the West” to speak for him in Washington and New York, in Congress and Joe Biden Administration.

According to the New York Times, in mid-September, Ahmad Massoud Jr., the leader of the new anti-Taliban resistance, hired a public relations company in Washington to help him gain military and financial support from within the United States. At the same time, the publication quoted the representative of Massoud in Washington, who confirmed the fact of signing a contract with the lobbying firm Robert Strike. According to him, the main goal is to stop any attempts by any government to give legitimacy to the Taliban or anyone else, apart from Massoud as the legitimate leader of Afghanistan.

At the same time, Politico reported in September that Republican Senator Lindsay Graham had declared his support for former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh. To bolster the legitimacy of the anti-Taliban resistance as part of a revised White House strategy in Central Asia, Graham linked Saleh and Massoud to prominent British and Indian diplomats and important media figures.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On November 28, the 15th Summit of the Leaders of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Member-States was held in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, with the participation of the heads of state and governments of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan, the countries that are members of the organization.

The ECO summit agenda included further expansion of multifaceted cooperation within the organization in such priority areas as trade, investment, “green” economy and innovation, digital technologies, transport, logistics, tourism, etc.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation (ECO) is a regional interstate economic body established in 1985 by the Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries. It is the legal successor of the Organization for Regional Cooperation for Development operating on the basis of the Izmir Treaty signed by the three founding countries — Iran, Pakistan and Turkey on March 12, 1977. It was later joined by Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

As President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov stressed out in his speech, the development of cooperation in the transport and energy areas is among the most important priorities of the ECO, since these spheres are effectively defining the trends of global economic growth. In keeping with the practical implementation of these initiatives, ECO has proceeded with the large infrastructural projects. The latter include, in particular, building of transmission lines Turkmenistan — Afghanistan — Pakistan, the railway from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, the gas pipeline Turkmenistan — Afghanistan — Pakistan — India. Strong emphasis has been also made on the activation of transport and transit communication along the East–West and North–South lines and, in particular, on the creation of transport corridors Uzbekistan —Turkmenistan — Iran — Oman, as well as Afghanistan — Turkmenistan — Azerbaijan — Georgia — Turkey. In this context, it is essential to establish a goal-oriented dialogue between the ECO and such interstate associations as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. “The implementation of major infrastructure projects with the participation of ECO member-states, without exaggeration, means a qualitative breakthrough in establishing a new geopolitical and economic space on the continent; it offers great opportunities for cooperation, attracting large external investments and tackling a number of important social challenges,” Turkmenistan’s president said.

Speaking during the Forum, the leaders of the ECO member-states, as well as the Secretary General of the Organization emphasized that the current summit, as well as the Organization itself in general, has become an effective platform for making decisions on topical and key aspects of regional economic cooperation in the ECO space.  The Organization has put in place all conditions for the further development of multilateral regional cooperation, for the socio-economic growth of the member countries, as well as the expansion of effective mutual cooperation in the field of trade, industry, transport and communications, agriculture, energy, health care, education, science and culture. Following the results of the ECO Summit, the Final Document was adopted.

The Iranian President was very active during the 15th ECO Summit, announcing Tehran’s position and proposals regarding strengthening regional and international relations, as well as removing obstacles and increasing the level of cooperation between ECO member-states. He also held meetings with his foreign counterparts in order to explore the possibilities of expanding bilateral ties. As the spokesman for the Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) said earlier, the country’s value of trade with ECO member-states from March 21 to October 22 (which corresponds to the first seven months of the Iranian year) increased by 48.5% amounting to 20.3 million tons of goods worth $9.2 billion. The share of Iran’s exports in this figure totaled 17.4 million tons of goods valued at $6.03 billion while the exports of ECO member-states amounted to 2.88 million tons, which corresponds to $3.3 billion in value terms.

As part of the deepening ECO cooperation, the 9th meeting of Iran-Pakistan Joint Trade Committee was held in Tehran on November 6 –7. During the talks both sides agreed to expand trade exchanges to $5 billion and create a barter trade mechanism. In the follow-up to this agreements, on November 24, Islamabad negotiated the purchase of Iranian liquefied gas through the barter system. At the same time, Iran agreed to meet the energy needs of Pakistan through the implementation of the gas pipeline project.

Meanwhile, Jeyhun Bayramov and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Iran, met on the sidelines of the summit. The sides discussed the current regional situation, as well as the Sochi declaration that had been adopted following the meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia. The ministers also touched upon the implementation of trilateral statements, as well as the importance of cooperation in the “3+3” format.

A day earlier, on November 27, Ashgabat hosted a business forum of the ECO member-states. The business forum was attended by representatives of the ECO Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the Asian Development Bank, CCIs of ECO member-states, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, the Turkish-Pakistani Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as by relevant ministries, public organizations and various companies. About 300 foreign representatives participated online; bilateral meetings were set up in a range of sectors: oil and gas industry, chemistry, agriculture and food industry, textile industry, trade. The ECO business forum saw the signing of contracts worth more than $35.5 million. Within the framework of the ECO business forum, a Memorandum was signed with the purpose of increasing cargo shipping through the Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan–Iran railway corridor, with Turkmenistan companies signing contracts for the export of confectionery products to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Deals were also struck on the supply of equipment from Turkey for the production of furniture in Turkmenistan, grain supplies from Kazakhstan, etc.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is well known for his resounding appeals built on the political doctrine of Pan-Ottomanism, which emerged in Turkey in the 1970s, according to which all subjects of the Ottoman Empire are members of a single nation, the Ottomans. However, such verbal passage has been recently increasingly followed by actual actions, which, without a doubt, can be regarded as an attack on the territorial integrity of other states.

To understand the reasons behind Erdogan’s behavior, it is worth recalling that the current Turkish President was born in Istanbul in 1954 in the family of a coast guard worker, Adjarian Lazs, who migrated to Istanbul from the Caucasus province of Rize in the northeast of Turkey. As his family was poor, he had to earn his keep since high school by selling lemonade and buns in the lower streets of Greater Istanbul. The same street has fostered many qualities in Erdogan.

As a child, he got into religion. For his religiosity at school, he was called ‘hoca’. At the age of 19, in 1973, he graduated from the Istanbul Imam-Hatip Madrasa, becoming imam and hatib (head of the collective prayers, which is responsible for prayers in Islam). Subsequently, this religion was transferred to politics, which he got involved in during his University days, joining the National Student Association at the age of 20. Three years later, he headed the district youth cell in the Islamist National Salvation Party and, after that, all of Istanbul.

The 1980 military coup led by Ahmet Kenan Evren deprived Erdogan of his party and his job. In 2014, the Erdogan government convicted Evren Kenan for life for crimes against the state. Remarkably, Kenan Evren’s reign was accompanied by massive political repression (178,000 people arrested, 64,000 sent to prison, 30,000 stripped of their citizenship, 450 died under torture, 50 executed, and thousands missing), something the rule of Erdoğan has become increasingly similar to, who has already imprisoned many people accused of complicity in the coup attempt in 2016 in the last five years alone, not counting punitive military operations against the Kurds, both in Turkey and neighboring Syria and Iraq.

Another fact worth mentioning is that in 1998 Erdogan was sentenced to 10 months in prison by a Turkish military court for reciting an Islamist poem at a rally. But in 2011, Erdogan’s Turkish justice would send the then Chief of the Turkish General Staff, Ismail Hakki Karadayi, to the dock, clearly recalling his involvement in the fate of current Turkey’s President in 1998.

Nevertheless, at 45, Erdogan returned to politics and started with a clean slate: He headed the reformist wing of the new Fazilet (Virtue Party), which in its short history, from 1997 to 2001, became the third party in Parliament in 1999. When it was abolished for its “jihad sympathies” and attempts to impose sharia law in the country, Erdogan united young politicians into his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Over the years, Erdogan’s imperial ambitions have only grown stronger. Erdogan pays special attention to the Islamic factor in his expansionist policy, capturing the general trend of increasing the role and significance of Islam in the world and the emerging process of Islamization of the planet. During his rule, Turkey visibly “turned green,” away from a Kemalist, secular republic into a Muslim regional power. Erdoğan is seriously claiming the role of the leader of the Sunni Muslim branch of Mohammedanism. He is trying to use this factor in his national and foreign policies with the support of “his loyal Turkish army,” whose capacity and loyalty to the current government he has always attached great importance to.

Therefore, Erdogan has emphasized using the Islamic factor in his expansionist policy with the support of the military. And this is evident, particularly in Erdogan’s desire to replace Assad’s pro-Iranian regime in Syria with a pro-Turkish one under the auspices of moderate Islamists from the country’s Arab Sunni majority and Turkomans.  Hence the active reinforcement of the Turkish leader’s grouping of troops in this direction, the increase of his stationary observation posts, the provision of opposition fighters and groups of radical Islamists with a new shipment of weapons and ammunition, including ATGM and MANPADS.

The Turkish leadership does not reduce its interest in neighboring Iraq, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean and does not hide its plans to conquer the pearl of the former Ottoman Empire, Egypt. All the more reason to march victoriously across the Maghreb, across North Africa, to the borders of Morocco, as well as to actively seek to implement its expansionist plans in the Transcaucasus and Central Asian countries.

It is clearly demonstrated by the Turkic Council Summit that took place on November 12 in Istanbul (with participation of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and, of course, Turkey, while Turkmenistan and Hungary have the status of observers), which Erdogan wants to present as an absolute triumph: the participants decided to rename the Turkic Council into the Organization of Turkic States. This wording suggests a higher level of “cooperation” under the direct auspices of Ankara, which is also documented: the summit adopted a Turkic World Vision 2040. Also noteworthy is the decision taken at this summit to “form a common alphabet.” Given that Turkey uses the Latin alphabet and some Turkic countries like Kyrgyzstan use the Cyrillic alphabet, the motion vector is clear – strengthening the separation of post-Soviet states from Russia, including through the abolition of the Cyrillic alphabet adopted in Russia.

Thus, the coordinating body evolved into something more politically significant. Erdogan has previously stated that his dream is the emergence of six states and one nation.

This consolidation by Turkey of the post-Soviet republics, which are allies of Russia in the EAEU and the CSTO, is taking place with Ankara’s increasing military cooperation with these states. This is particularly evident in Turkey’s military aid to Kyrgyzstan after the conflict with Tajikistan, and Turkey’s military involvement in the recent events in Karabakh, where the Shusha Declaration, signed by the victorious countries, laid the foundations for Turkey’s future expansion.

One cannot remain silent about Erdogan’s openly hostile stance on Crimea, Prime Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu participation in the Crimean Platform summit in Kyiv, and Ankara’s declaration of Ukrainian ownership of the peninsula, with the explicit aim of Turkification of the peninsula.

And the cherry on top for Russia was Erdogan’s recently demonstrated map of the “new Turkic world,” which includes a large part of Russia, including Siberia. In particular, several Russian regions, from Dagestan and the Orenburg region to Altai and Yakutia, could be identified. Ankara’s “new world” includes Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the Balkans, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, part of the territories of Mongolia and Iran, Europe.

Time will tell how far Erdogan will go in realizing his ambitions to recreate the Ottoman Empire in modern terms and conquer Europe and other countries. However, in any case, the mentioned expansionist policy of Erdogan can hardly be regarded otherwise than as an attack on territorial integrity. And the states on the map of “Erdoğan’s new world” will undoubtedly demonstrate their official assessment of such actions to him.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

It has long been noticed that the candidates appointed as US and UK diplomatic ambassadors all have impressive experience of military or intelligence service, which in a way shows that the tasks these countries assign to their foreign representative offices are rather of military and strategic nature, than simply a diplomatic mission.

The increasing presence of the US “military cavalry” among the country’s ambassadors in post-Soviet space has been a theme and a subject of many discussions by NEO’s authors. As has been the fact that many of those persons had quite well-formulated tasks set for them by the White House: to corrode ties between these countries and Russia by initiating various “color revolutions”, protest actions against the existing regime, which is usually unwanted by Washington, and lobbying the appointment of their insiders into the newly established government agencies of the young independent post-Soviet states.

The US shows an example and urges its NATO allies, in particular, the UK, to use these patterns in the activities of their representative offices in the post-Soviet regions. An obvious example of using this pattern described in media, is, in particular, the appointment of Charles Garrett as the UK’s ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, a former MI-6 intelligence officer who held a position of the Deputy Director of the intelligence service in charge of political issues. Another example is the appointment of Michael Gifford as the UK’s ambassador in Kazakhstan, who previously worked for the UK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was in charge of security issues.

The UK’s enhanced activity in Central Asia has a simple explanation – London has its own strategic interest in this region, which is no  less important to the UK than it is to the US. The White House has failed to have any true “victories” in the Central Asia, as did the CIA with its latest attempts of political destabilization inside the post-Soviet space: in particular, the attempts to initiate public protests in Russia and Armenia, total failure of rebellion in Belarus, other failed “color revolutions” in some of the countries in the Central Asia, all of which forced London to attempt to play its own card in the region. In addition, the reader should remember that Britain cannot give up its imperial ambitions, and continues to consider Central and Middle Asia an area of geopolitical interest. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in 2019, it was Charles Garrett, the closest friend and associate of Richard Moore, the director of MI-6, who was appointed as the British Ambassador in Kyrgyzstan. Garrett’s task was to lure Kyrgyzstan back into the field of the UK’s influence by building an alternative to Kyrgyzstan’s friendly relationship with Russia and China.

This is why the actions of the British embassy in Bishkek, from the moment when Charles Garrett arrived there in summer 2019, have been in close focus. The Balkan media previously covered Garrett’s very “specific” actions in Macedonia, in particular his “efforts” to remove from the power the Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. Charles Garrett is an experienced orchestrator of “color revolutions”, including the one in the North Macedonia, where he had been the UK’s ambassador till the summer 2019. It was him who inspired the rebellion to remove from the power Macedonia’s legally elected government, and to bring victory to Zoran Zaev’s western-minded proponents during the extraordinary election. During an episode of the Milenko Nedelkovski Show, hosted by a Macedonian journalist and presenter, the participants stated that the UK’s ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, Charles Garrett, was an ideologist and orchestrator of the 2015 “color revolution” in Macedonia. Milenko Nedelkovski claims that the next target for the UK’s ambassador may be Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan or Tajikistan.

The Kyrgyz media outlets have often included the actions of this UK’s ambassador in the scope of their coverage, as he contributed much to the attempt of the first rebellion in October 2020 in Kyrgyzstan.

As witnessed by Kyrgyz observers, in 2010 the rebellion in this country was orchestrated by the Americans, while in 2020 it was the British, in particular, the British ambassador, who took the initiative in operational leadership when preparing the rebellion.  From April to August 2020, Charles Garrett had a series of informal negotiations and consultations with the leaders of pro-Western parties and foundations: Omurbek Tekebayev, the head of Ata Meken party, Adil Turdukulov, the chairman of the Progress Foundation, and many others. In October 2020, Delo N, a newspaper famous for its journalistic investigations, published a number of photos proving the fact that the British communicated with pro-Western NGOs in Kyrgyzstan and the transferred some amounts of money to them. According to Kyrgyz World, the main point in these conversations was to provide instructions on how to discredit and compromise the parliamentary candidates from the current government. In view of the upcoming parliamentary elections, Charles Garrett, the British ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, tried to unite all the opposition forces against the Kyrgyz government. As he realized that what he was doing did not match what he was supposed to do in the position he held, Charles Garrett ordered his subordinates in the British diplomatic mission, under the pretext of “humanitarian aid”, to arrange funding of the “operation” through their controlled structures – the Fund for Conflict Prevention, Promoting Stability and Security of the British Foreign Ministry, as well as the Non-governmental Organization Institute for War and Peace Coverage.

To provide a more complete understanding of the personality of the British ambassador Charles Garrett, the Kyrgyz media recalled that back in July 2020, three months before the Kyrgyz elections, Garrett, supported by US Ambassador in Kyrgyzstan Donald Lu, organized closed-door negotiations at the US Embassy in Bishkek between the officers of the US and British structures (most of whom had long been known to have direct or indirect links to intelligence services) and the leadership and activists of local pro-Western media and NGOs. The coordinator of that event was a certain adviser to the US Department of Homeland Security named Parker, who, as he said, “was a specialist in containing and counteracting the expansionist policy of China in the Central Asia.” It is worth noting that, as a positive example of counteracting China in strengthening its positions in Kyrgyzstan, Mr. Parker cited Charles Garrett’s actions to organize mass rallies against the construction of infrastructure facilities for the development of the Salton-Sary gold deposit by Zhong Ji Mining, a Chinese company. At the end of this meeting, Mr. Garrett, who clearly exceeded his “diplomatic powers”, addressed the local media representatives to prepare a series of anti-Chinese materials, and called on the NGO representatives to use this newsworthy occurrence to initiate active protests in the Kyrgyz Republic against the Chinese threat.

Despite the failed attempt by the UK and Mr. Garrett personally to organize a rebellion in Kyrgyzstan in October 2020, keep in mind that in October 2021, parliamentary elections will be again held in this country, and it is rather unlikely that Ambassador Garrett will abandon the MI-6’s task and sit idle by.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The presidential campaign has started in Kyrgyzstan among candidates for the position of head of state, and elections for that are scheduled for January 10. The presidential elections will take place under very difficult economic and epidemiological conditions for this country, and against a backdrop of a plethora of events in 2020 – some of which were purely local in nature, and some had an impact across the entire region.

In particular, it is worth recalling the clashes that occurred along the nation’s borders with Tajikistan, two of which resulted in human casualties; on May 8, one of the sides even opened up mortar fire.

For a whole slew of reasons, Kyrgyzstan wound up in a difficult financial situation in 2020, and Chinese projects were suspended in this country, whose national debt owed to China is now more than $ 1.7 billion. In addition, the situation with the pandemic has demonstrated how critically Kyrgyzstan depends on foreign assistance, and namely from Russia, China, EU countries, and other foreign players.

After the results of the October 4 parliamentary elections were tallied, the third “October coup” took place. There were many reasons for this, including the repercussions of the pandemic and the financial and economic difficulties that went along with that. On top of that, the attempts to concentrate power in the hands of both the Jeenbekov presidential clan and the Matraimov clan (the Matraimovs are a clan of southern oligarchs that controls the transportation of goods from China to Kyrgyzstan) led to the fact that other clans reacted sharply to the threat posed to their prosperity, and actively joined the political struggle going on in the country.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the upcoming presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan are attracting the attention of not only the numerous domestic players, but also external ones; this was particularly evidenced by the significant number of candidates that were initially announced for the country’s presidency. In the final count, out of the more than 60 applicants who submitted documents to participate in the elections, which included politicians, businessmen, teachers, artists, and even the unemployed, the country’s Central Commission for Elections and Referenda registered 18 candidates for its highest office. Consequently, chiefly major businessmen and politicians with some kind of track record will be the ones competing for the presidency. Owing to the fact that not all candidates for country’s highest post have presented their programs yet, it is still difficult to say what they are bringing to the race.

Nevertheless, according to observers, many consider the main contenders for victory to be Sadyr Japarov, Major General Kursan Asanov, the former Deputy Interior Minister, and Major General Abdil Segizbaev, the former Chairman of the State Committee for National Security, both of whom enjoy wide popular support, as well as some other heavyweights in the presidential race, such as Adakhan Madumarov and Kanat Isaev.

Sadyr Japarov came into politics after the March 2005 revolution, for several years was an adviser to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and later was a deputy twice. In 2012, he faced charges under several articles in the Criminal Code for organizing, together with Kamchybek Tashiev (now the head of the State Committee for National Security) and Talant Mamytov (who is the speaker of the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan and the current acting President of Kyrgyzstan), a rally on Bishkek’s central square to nationalize the country’s largest gold mine, Kumtor. In 2013, all three were found guilty by the Supreme Court and received a year in prison, but were released in the courtroom due to the sentences’ expired terms. Then, after another criminal charge was filed against him, Japarov was forced to flee the country and returned to his homeland in March 2017. He planned to participate in the presidential elections, but was detained as soon as he crossed the national border; in August that same year, he was convicted and sentenced to 11.5 years in prison. In October this year, during the riots, Japarov was released by his friend and associate Kamchybek Tashiev, and after that in no time Japarov’s career shot to dizzying heights: from prisoner to prime minister and acting president of Kyrgyzstan.

Following the results of the referendum, which will be held simultaneously with the elections, if Kyrgyzstan’s population votes to adopt the new Constitution, then the new head of the republic and that person’s team will start to reinforce their power, and the transition to a presidential form of government will begin there. That is why foreign players, and especially the United States, have energetically joined the contest for the nation’s presidential candidate.

The majority of Kyrgyzstan expresses support for Japarov’s candidacy – and not only in the north, where he is originally from – but also in the country’s troubled south. He has decent support on social media, and in outlying provinces he is virtually seen as the one that can save the country. Over the past few days, Japarov has clearly defined his pro-Russian position.

However, for Washington, which is actively striving to impose its judgment about this country’s future on Kyrgyzstan – and regain the Kant military base that it lost after driving Russia out of there – Japarov’s candidacy is not fitting at all. That is why the US State Department and its local embassy have recently ratcheted up the pressure on Kyrgyzstan. Media outlets and NGOs, which have fostered the United States for many years in both Kyrgyzstan and the region, were actively brought on board by Washington to wage the fight against Japarov.

To undermine the situation in the republic along the line dividing north and south, the US embassy began to twist the arms of Kyrgyz authorities, prompting them to arrest and put on trial the former deputy head of the Kyrgyz customs service, Raimbek Matraimov, who was named as the “main corrupt official” in Kyrgyzstan by opposition journalists. However, Bishkek did not officially prosecute Matraimov, who remains the informal leader of the country’s southern clans, since arresting him would automatically create a rift between the north and south fraught with the risk of civil war. Temporarily in charge of the republic, Japarov forced Matraimov to return practically all the “illegally earned” millions to the state treasury.

However, on December 9, the US Treasury Department added Matraimov to the “Magnitskiy List” as “a foreign person who is a current or former government official involved in corruption.” At the same time, Washington, in its political confrontation with Bishkek, involved a network of US-funded NGOs and media outlets – and started speaking a language that had threats targeted directly at Japarov.

During the Internews Stremlenie awards ceremony, US Ambassador Donald Lu made a statement about the existence of a “criminal empire” in Kyrgyzstan, publicly calling the events taking place in the republic “similar to a Hollywood mafia movie.” Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the actions by US Ambassador Donald Lu, which became public evidence of Washington’s attempts to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs.

Now the United States, under the guise of allegedly fighting corruption and organized crime groups, is actively imposing its “assistance” on Kyrgyzstan during the presidential elections, while at the same time blackmailing the republic’s authorities by saying that it is willing – if there is any refusal to cooperate – to disclose information that compromises a wide range of Kyrgyz politicians.

They will announce the name of Kyrgyzstan’s new president on January 10, 2021. On that same day, the Kyrgyz people will have to decide – in the form of a referendum – what kind of government they want to live under: a presidential or parliamentary one. And the author would like to believe that they will make their own choice – and without any interference in the Kyrgyz Republic’s domestic affairs foisted on them by Washington.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Hopelessly bogged down in its influencing of the Ukrainian crisis, which did not go as expected in Washington, the United States has been actively trying to defocus Russia’s attention in recent years by organizing riots in other CIS countries. One of them is Kyrgyzstan, which is vulnerable to external interference due to social instability, weak economy, and a milder political regime compared to other Central Asian countries.

Kyrgyzstan has always been of interest for the United States as one of the most crucial border countries in Central Asia near Russia. It has an excellent geographical position where it is possible to carry out transit communication with the Middle East countries. Kyrgyzstan borders the famous Fergana Valley, through which drug trafficking flows from the Middle East.

Until 2014, an American military airbase was located near the capital of Kyrgyzstan. It was equipped at the Manas international airport of Bishkek in 2001 to serve the NATO contingent in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, and for transferring cargo and military personnel to the Afghanistan territory.  Over the twelve and a half years of operation of the base in Kyrgyzstan, 5.3 million servicemen have passed through it (about 30 thousand soldiers monthly). Due to the urgent need to refuel NATO aircraft in the skies over Afghanistan, the US base Manas helped solve this problem. It gained particular importance after Uzbek President Islam Karimov demanded that the US military leave the base in Khanabad within six months in 2005, in response to US criticism of the actions of the Uzbek authorities to suppress the riots in Andijan.

It was clear that the US would like to keep the Manas military base for a long time, and the war in Afghanistan was only a pretext for this. The robust electronic intelligence infrastructure created in the Manas base allowed the Americans to track the armed forces of Russia and other Collective Security Treaty Organization CSTO states and such a giant neighbor of Kyrgyzstan as the People’s Republic of China.

For Kyrgyzstan, the withdrawal of the American base from the country was a huge event – it decided on its geopolitical orientation for the coming years, followed by joining the EAEU and other steps aimed at even greater integration with Russia.

Of course, the United States could not readily agree with the military base’s loss in Manas and its former dominant positions in that country. All the US resources in terms of influencing public opinion in the republic were turned on at full capacity – representatives of Kyrgyz NGOs funded with the help of grants, the media, experts who strenuously argued that the base was “the only guarantee of Kyrgyzstan’s national security.” To implement Kyrgyzstan’s planned return to the zone of American influence, significant CIA forces became involved. This work has been carried out until recently, and the 2019 journalistic investigation into the CIA officers’ activities on preparing Kyrgyzstan’s rebellion, with the publication of photographs and specific documents, sheds some light on the direction of such US actions.

Kyrgyzstan has been a sovereign state for only 30 years. This state is one of the key strategic objects of the new “Great Game” in modern Central Asia.  Within the framework of the multi-vector foreign policy proclaimed by the Kyrgyz Republic, it has established close relations with the West, China, and the Islamic world. Since the collapse of the USSR, relations with Russia have always played an important, if not a key role in foreign policy and the republic’s internal political life.

Although Kyrgyzstan’s political life is characterized by frequent changes in ruling groups in recent years, the state-forming people of the country, until recently, by historical standards, led a nomadic lifestyle, which makes it difficult for external players to create a strong pro-Western opposition in this country.

Nevertheless, Washington does not stop believing that some of the political elites in Kyrgyzstan should be under external control, as is the case, for example, in Ukraine. These are the forces that must come to power or, otherwise, destabilize the situation in the country. And the attempts by the United States to create such a critical situation do not stop, which, in particular, was demonstrated by the failed attempt to carry out a political coup in Kyrgyzstan in October.

Under these conditions, the United States, no longer hiding that it controls the elections in the “oscillating” limitrophe states along the perimeter of Russia, in recent weeks began to show increased activity not only in Ukraine, Moldova but also in Kyrgyzstan. Thus, the US Embassy in Bishkek announced that it would provide financial assistance in the parliamentary elections (Joğorku Keŋeş, Supreme Council) and early presidential elections on December 20 (January 10, 2021 year) in Kyrgyzstan through the USAID agency, well known for its active participation in organizing “color revolutions” around the world. It is quite understandable that any external financing of such events and USAID’s participation in the Kyrgyz electoral processes is, in fact, interference in the country’s internal political affairs. Such actions will undoubtedly mean that the republic will increase the flow of money to finance non-profit organizations beneficial to the United States, which, of course, will be mainly to the opposition, national-democratic organizations. And possibly also nationalistic and national-religious ones. Such an “awakening” in a country with a weak economy and significant social contradictions will increase political chaos.

However, there are other players in Kyrgyzstan today, with different goals, which will oppose Washington and the American leadership and the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

Nevertheless, reports of this kind of “US initiatives” are a reason to be on the alert not only for political forces in Kyrgyzstan but also in other countries that do not want to exchange their independence for unquestioning, in fact, slavish submission to Washington’s dictatorship.

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Over the past few years, the lion’s share of the countries in Central Asia (CA) have been undergoing a period involving social, economic, and political transformation. The region desperately needs to put transportation and social projects in place, create new jobs, industries, and energy facilities, and improve the quality of education and healthcare, all of which entails tremendous financial costs that the governments of these young countries are not ready to spend due to the glaringly obvious lack of funds. That is why the leadership in Central Asian countries has objectively been forced to turn to various players on the outside for help resolving their domestic troubles, and to obtain outside investments.

Although the scope of financing allocated by the World Bank and its organizations is measured in tens of millions of dollars per year for this or that country across Central Asia, that is usually targeted toward very narrowly focused projects, and cannot influence the overall economic situation. The volumes of loans and financial assistance provided by the IMF are somewhat larger, but they are most frequently used to help balance a country’s budget, and cannot be something that drives growth either.

In this situation, that country pins the bulk of its hopes on other countries that it partners with. Rather significant assistance is provided through the EAEU, but the total amount of resources that this organization has at its disposal is still relatively small.

In these conditions, from among the main external players that are present in this region – Russia, China, and the United States – the role played by the PRC in recent years has taken on the most prominence since, unlike the United States, China’s strategy in Central Asia has not changed for several decades, and is based on three main rules: not to interfere in the domestic affairs of countries, or their relations with each other; to focus on economic cooperation; to strive to boost its international reputation. The policy China espouses in Central Asia completely suits the current leadership in that region’s countries.

As a result, China has bolstered its position in the region as its largest and most important investor in recent years, especially since Central Asia is of particular importance to China. Beijing’s interests are underpinned by three considerations. First, Central Asia is a kind of buffer zone between Afghanistan and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which pose danger for countries adjacent to them. Second, there are the natural resources in the region. Third, the region is geographically located in the center of the Eurasian continental area, and could easily become its land transportation hub. In this situation China, with its substantial financial reserves, and its One Belt, One Road Initiative, evaluated at hundreds of billions of dollars, remains the largest, most attractive source for financing the development of the region’s domestic economies.

Out of all the countries in Central Asia, China has recently paid steady attention to Kyrgyzstan, and has significantly expanded its economic ties with it, since this country and the area it is located in play a key role in implementing China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.  The attention Beijing is expressly paying to Kyrgyzstan also stems from both its geographical proximity to the troubled Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and prominent commercial presence the PRC has in this former Soviet republic: at present, it has more than 400 Chinese organizations, and another 1,890 Kyrgyz-Chinese joint ventures. Beijing is Bishkek’s largest investor and trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $6.35 billion in 2019, according to official Chinese statistics.

However, at a time when Beijing is expanding its economic presence in Central Asia by implementing the One Belt, One Road initiative, China is also running into increasing resistance to its economic projects in Kyrgyzstan. This country is now particularly active in staging protests against Chinese economic activities, mainly in those villages and towns close to where the Chinese are involved in extracting mineral resources. For example, an enraged public in the village of Maidan, in Batken Province, locked a Chinese gold company worker in a metal cargo container a year ago, accusing Chinese workers in the company of “illegal” gold prospecting work. In April 2018, villagers from the southern Jalal-Abad Province, fearing for the environmental situation in their area, attacked the Kyrgyz-Chinese joint venture Makmal GL Developing, and set it on fire. In the beginning of 2019, unrest broke out in Bishkek, caused by rumors that ethnic Kyrgyz in China were being maltreated: according to widespread statements made by the protesters, in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region their compatriots are being sent to “re-education camps” with horrid conditions.

According to analysts at Stratfor (USA), anti-Chinese demonstrations will continue to grow as China continues to expand its economic presence in Kyrgyzstan, which in turn may negatively affect Beijing’s plans to invest in the country, and implement infrastructure projects.

Chinese businesses incurred a certain degree of damage during the Kyrgyz unrest that began in October: rioters stormed and plundered gold, coal, and copper mines, taking management hostage. Now, on the very dawn of another revolution, Bishkek owes Beijing more than $4.7 billion, which is about 26% of its national budget. However, while Moscow has waived more than half a billion owed by Bishkek since 2013, China is not Russia at all, and does not intend to forgive any loans. For every dollar borrowed, the Chinese can take natural resources cheaply, since the country has nothing else to offer as payment. Currently, the main interests held by the PRC in Kyrgyzstan are related to energy resources and minerals: in 2002, China and Kyrgyzstan signed a cooperation agreement to develop oilfields located in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan; in 2014, Beijing received the right to participate in developing the Mailuu Suu 4, East Izbaskent, Changyrtash, and Chyyrchyk fields; In 2016, the Chinese had plans for the Naryn River, which has serious potential in terms of building a cascade of hydroelectric power plants (while 100% of the electricity generated by this power plant cascade would go to the bordering Chinese Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which experiences continuous energy shortages).

The “revolutionary situation” that has emerged against the backdrop of the October 4 parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan has also put China’s assets in the republic, already at risk due to anti-Chinese sentiments, in a vulnerable position. Therefore, despite its growing economic presence in the region, and especially in Kyrgyzstan (Chinese financial institutions account for over 43% of the country’s $4.7 billion in foreign debt), the Chinese Foreign Ministry limited itself to simply publicly expressing its hope that the situation in the country stabilizes. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying stressed that this is due not only to the geographical proximity of Kyrgyzstan to the troubled Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, but also to the fact that Beijing is the largest investor and trading partner that Bishkek has. Against this background, China, which is adjacent to Kyrgyzstan, emphasized that it cannot help but pay attention to how its economy is undergoing yet another test of strength following another coup and warring clan factions. The Chinese Embassy in Bishkek also did not go beyond the bounds of just warning citizens about the danger, and opened up a special hotline.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On October 4, Kyrgyzstan is scheduled to hold its parliamentary election for the 7th consecutive time since the republic gained its independence. The Supreme Council is the unicameral Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic. These elections are quite important for Kyrgyz society because starting in 2010, when a constitutional referendum was held, the nation embarked on a path to become a parliamentary democracy.

In the post-Soviet space, the Kyrgyz Republic is known for its turbulent political landscape on account of its active civil society, especially during electoral campaigns, as evidenced by, for instance, the Tulip Revolution that began after the parliamentary election in 2005. In fact, since then, protests staged by opposition groups have occurred practically every year in this nation during various elections and processes of appointing high-ranking officials.

Hence, even nowadays, foreign players are using this factor to their advantage by pushing their political views on Kyrgyz society, thus creating a rift between the republic and, first and foremost, Russia, a country that Kyrgyzstan has traditionally enjoyed a friendly relationship and a multifaceted cooperation with. Recently, Great Britain and the United States have been particularly active on this front as they have been trying to undermine the election process in various ways.

For almost 30 years, the United States has been investing in Kyrgyz civil society while pursuing its geopolitical ambitions. Essentially, Washington has been treating the republic and entire Central Asia, for that matter, as testing grounds to perfect its new tools for influencing the public. From 1993 to 2015, it is believed that the United States did not implement a single economic development project in Kyrgyzstan. Clearly, such cooperation could not have been viewed as viable by Washington, after all, it is not typical of the US to give away money for no reason. Instead of much needed joint initiatives focusing on the Kyrgyz economy, Freedom House (a US-based organization) began its work in Kyrgyzstan. Numerous other NGOs, which are believed to be actively influencing public opinion in Kyrgyzstan, also sprang up in the republic. In addition, Washington initiated anti-Russia and anti-China propaganda campaigns in its own interests in Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia, for which purpose the United States has been using the Caravanserai information portal (controlled by the US Army).

Nowadays, it is quite easy to find concrete examples of the West interfering in Kyrgyzstan’s domestic politics online. For instance, gezitter.org reported that the National Endowment for Democracy (founded on Capitol Hill and deemed as undesirable in Russia) had provided financial support to opposition groups in Kyrgyzstan.

According to Kyrgyz media outlets, US diplomats have recently started actively pursuing similar aims, i.e. to influence the domestic climate in Kyrgyzstan. They have been trying to take advantage of the changing political situation in the nation with the view of reopening a US military installation, which was closed earlier for political reasons. With the aforementioned aims in mind, US Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Alice Wells visited Central Asia in January.

Still, it is important to point out that all the attempts made by the United States over the past five years to reassert its influence in Kyrgyzstan have not been very successful despite all the efforts by American diplomats. Even actively stepping up cooperation with Tajikistan (vs. Kyrgyzstan) has not helped Washington thus far.  After all, any flare-up on the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan border (i.e. one of the existing means of escalating tensions on the Kyrgyz political landscape and among its populace) is a blow to the Kyrgyz government, which the public has more and more often accused of being ineffective.

Foreign NGOs, financed by the US government and a number of other Western nations, are keen on rekindling old unresolved conflicts in order to destabilize the already turbulent situation in Kyrgyzstan stemming from election campaigns. The ongoing political rivalry is accompanied by efforts to destabilize the situation outside of Kyrgyzstan. For instance, it is believed that external players are continuing to incite conflicts along the Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan–Kazakhstan borders. Such efforts have been ongoing for quite some time, in fact, these “foreign agents” have paid to establish information gathering networks in the region and to train young activists on site.

Notably, a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in August (a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that collaborates with the US Department of State and USAID) showed that allegedly many respondents said they would vote “against all” if the election was held right then. Reporting such data serves the same purpose as promoting the “against all” vote, i.e. clearly to encourage the Kyrgyz populace to view the government in power as completely useless.

In addition to the meddling by the US, in recent months, the British Embassy has become increasingly active on the Kyrgyz political landscape by trying to exert its influence on these processes and openly interfering with them. For instance, ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, Charles Garrett, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, tried to unite all the opposition forces against the current Kyrgyz government. Earlier, while majority of the locals were busy fighting the Coronavirus pandemic by following recommended measures, the British diplomat chose not to isolate and instead hand-picked suitable protesters. From April to August of this year, Charles Garrett held a series of secret negotiations and meetings with the leader of the Ata Meken party, Omurbek Tekebayev; head of the “Progress” foundation, Adil Turdukulov, and supporters of former Presidents of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev and Roza Otunbayeva. The high-ranking diplomat asked the aforementioned individuals to discredit and compromise the reputation of the current government’s candidates for parliament during the discussions.

At Charles Garrett’s initiative, $3 million was allocated to the opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan on behalf of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (overseen by UK’s National Security Council) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF, a philanthropic organization).

The opposition in Kyrgyzstan is currently fragmented, with some members holding pro-Western views. Hence, it is unlikely that any of these parties will be able to win 7% of the national tally to gain seats in parliament. In such a climate, there have been reports in Kyrgyz media outlets about a plan (devised by the opposition at the behest of their Western puppeteers) to dispute the election results on account of their falsification. After October 4, these groups could also appeal to Western nations mimicking what happened in Belarus.

Vladimir Danilov, a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

]]> https://journal-neo.org/2020/10/01/west-hopes-to-play-its-belarusian-card-in-kyrgyzstan/feed/ 0 https://journal-neo.org/2020/07/10/okay-the-us-does-not-want-the-china-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan-railway/ https://journal-neo.org/2020/07/10/okay-the-us-does-not-want-the-china-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan-railway/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:23:37 +0000 https://journal-neo.org/?p=138812

If you live in the United States the mention of a country like Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan probably only registers on a subconscious “movie memory” level. Or, you assume all those countries with “stan” at the end are the same – foreign, off this world, and too far distant to matter. Unless, of course, you work in the intelligence community or at the US State Department. In this case, there is a job to do. The following is a crucial primer on what the term “national interest” really means.

If you want to know what’s “in the interest” of those who control the United States of America, all you need do is pay attention to Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Take the story “Kyrgyzstan The Missing Link In China’s Railway To Uzbekistan…And Beyond,” for instance. As I said, those “stan” countries do not even ring a bell for 99 percent of America, but the part “China and Beyond?” Well, several administrations in Washington have fanned the flames of fear over China’s dominance. Most Americans these days, they look on with suspicion as the local Chinese restaurant owner in Atlanta prepares their Peking Duck. So, a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway story on the US State Department propaganda channel seems like Beijing might be preparing for sending a troop train to Hoboken soon.

No, this is not the case, but you get the idea. America’s intelligence and foreign policy arms want to disconnect anything that unites “anybody” with “anybody else” but Washington. The story by Bruce Pannier tells of problems with the first freight train leaving the Chinese city of Lanzhou bound for the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. One link of the hookup is not completed yet. The author concludes:

“It would seem the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway is just another of those grand projects conceived decades ago that might never be built.”

Yes, there have been years of planning and negotiations about the best way to build the railroad. Most of the problems are about routes, funding, and so forth. But back in April Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia might participate in the completion of the CKU railway. The problem now, though RFE/RL did not emphasize, is that Kyrgyzstan is gripping by a resurgence of cases of COVID-19. The logistics and financing apart, the problem the United States has everything to do with China and other Russian neighbors hooking up Europe. In particular, Kyrgyzstan delivering more coal, gold, aluminum, iron, and other resources to China and the rest of the world might help Asians, but it won’t help US interests. Then there’s Line D of the Turkmenistan-China natural-gas pipeline, which is another “stan” story most Americans could care less about.

My point here is to show a facet of the world order of things we don’t often focus on. Our central observation in researching almost all the stories involving either China or Russia should not be geopolicy without geography. Think about this for a moment. Kyrgyzstan is 10,653 km from Washington, D.C. Culturally, the country is light-years apart from what Americans experience.

Kyrgyzstan sits at the crossroads of several great civilizations and was part of the Silk Road and other commercial and cultural routes that have been existence for thousands of years before the United States came to be. Formerly part of the USSR, resource-rich country has two official languages, one of which is Russian.

These “stan” countries are all close neighbors of Russia, just as Canada and Mexico are close neighbors of the United States. The country only has 6.5 million people living in an area of 199,951 square kilometers. Theoretically, with the mineral wealth beneath their country’s soil, the people there could one day become one of the most prosperous societies on Earth. This won’t happen if the US State Department gets its wish. While Washington bellyaches about despotism and corruption at the far reaches of the globe, the real message is about who profits. Naturally, Russia maintains close relations with Kyrgyzstan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was just on the phone with President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sooronbay Jeenbekov discussing how Russia could help with the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and topical bilateral cooperation issues in trade and the economy. I haven’t read about the United States offering anybody assistance or advice on the pandemic. Furthermore, I’ve not heard anybody ask the Trump administration for anything lately. The US president has tried building a wall between the US and Mexico, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t even meet with Trump because of the latter’s impetuousness and nasty attitude toward the neighbor to the north. If turnabout were truly fair play, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping would build a railroad to Canada over the Bering Strait.

The paper “Kyrgyzstan, the US and the Global Drug Problem: Deep Forces and the Syndrome of Coups, Drugs, and Terror”, shows us the darker side of “US interests” so far from home. This is about CIA clandestine efforts from Laos to Kyrgyzstan (let’s not forget the Tulip Revolution of 2005) and other countries. This is the side RFE/RL betrays when authors make predictions or say prayers that anything associated with Russia or China will fail. It’s common knowledge the thinkers in Washington have been trying to create another Afghanistan for Moscow for years now. In Moscow, the term for US policy in these “stan” countries is “narco-aggression” because of the US strategy of funding and setting up narcotics traffic and addiction in Afghanistan. Think about it. While state-run RT of Sputnik may spotlight some blunder in America or other parts of the western hemisphere, the channel is not hoping that Canada will erupt in violence or that railroads will be blocked by avalanches. We have no evidence that Russia or China are developing new narcotics and trafficking networks to poison Americans with.

The rhetoric, the narrative, even the market analyses we have today show us the United States and the UK still hell-bent on colonial affairs. Read this market assessment of Latin American mineral wealth and investment potential. The author brings up Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro as if he were a hero, and then proceeds to tell us about US/UK investors – not Chinese or Russian ones. Here’s the gist:

“Of course, profiting from mined metals is a risky business – Pizarro ended up being hacked to death, spending his final moments daubing himself with a cross in his blood. But from solid, London-listed majors producing a steady flow of earnings, to aspirational explorers looking for that next big find, Latin America has plenty to offer MoneyWeek readers.”

Now, imagine a propaganda machine and a clandestine spy machine aimed at disrupting every American effort in the western hemisphere. What if every other word or wish out of the mouths of foreign diplomats was some dagger aimed at national collaboration in the west? What if every entity in China or Russia were so steadfastly accusative and dirty dealing under the table in these affairs? Now that would be a New York Times story! We would not need “unnamed intelligence sources” to reveal how the Russians were meddling. The proof would be an unfinished railroad or a Mexican uprising.

Just for those unfamiliar, the “stan” suffix is Persian. It appears in the names of many regions in Afghanistan, Iran, and Central and South Asia, as well as in the Caucasus and Russia. It means “land”, or sometimes the place of sand, garden, desert, flowers, and so on. It depends on the use. What’s important is that people with rich traditions and cultures live in these countries and that where understanding them and dealing with them is concerned, neighbors would seem to have more common interests than politicians, business people, and strategists a world away.

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

On 28 March 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid an official visit to Kyrgyzstan. His Kyrgyz counterpart, President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, called the trip historical. Media outlets have primarily focused on agreements, reached via negotiations between the two leaders, on the expansion of the territory of Russia’s operational Kant air base in Kyrgyzstan, and on other aspects of military cooperation between the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan. This is, after all, one of the most pressing subjects considering threat levels from terrorism in the entire Central Asia. Besides security challenges, Presidents of Russia and Kyrgyzstan also discussed many other issues in various spheres involving close and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries.

It is worth reminding our readers that the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan have been strategic partners for a long time. In 2000, the Declaration on Eternal Friendship, Alliance and Partnership, signed by the two countries, came into effect. The two nations share views on many issues concerning world and regional politics, including the role of Eurasia on global stage and the need for integration among Eurasian nations. The Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). In order to help Kyrgyzstan fully integrate into the EAEU, which the nation joined in August 2015, the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund was established, with active support from the Russian Federation. So far more than $300 million have been invested in the Kyrgyz economy via this fund.

Russia is one of Kyrgyzstan’s key trade and economic partners. For many years now, the Russian Federation has supplied Kyrgyzstan with oil and petroleum products on favorable terms and conditions for the Kyrgyz budget. The Russian Federation does not charge export duties on these goods, supplied in volumes required for the nation’s own needs (more than 1 million tons a year). According to Vladimir Putin, by March 2018, this arrangement had resulted in a direct economic benefit to Kyrgyzstan of $2 billion.

In 2018, bilateral trade between the two countries reached $1.56 billion, and Russia’s direct investment in the Kyrgyz economy exceeded $123 million, which puts Russia in second place after China, in terms of investment volumes.

In February 2018, Vladimir Putin confirmed that Kyrgyz debt, in the amount of $240 million, would be written off, before his visit to the country in March 2019. The government of the Russian Federation also announced that it intended to provide Kyrgyzstan with non-repayable aid of $30 million.

Activities that Russia’s energy company Gazprom has engaged in, in Kyrgyzstan, have generated quite a bit of interest. In July 2013, Russia and Kyrgyzstan signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the spheres of transportation, distribution and sale of natural gas in Kyrgyzstan. At the time, Gazprom undertook to supply Kyrgyzstan with this energy resource. In January 2015, the General Scheme of Gas Supply to and Gas Infrastructure Expansion in the Kyrgyz Republic until 2030 was adopted. As part of this scheme, Gazprom plans to supply almost 400 settlements and more than 845,000 apartments and houses with gas by the previously mentioned deadline. To achieve this aim, more than 7,000 km of gas pipelines will need to be installed. Gazprom promised to put in 100 billion rubles into this project, and, by the end of March 2019, more than 16 billion of it had already been invested.

Opportunities provided by the Russian Federation to labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan are also worth a mention. It is well known that money transferred from Kyrgyz citizens working abroad constitutes one third of the nation’s entire budget. In 2018, more than $2.68 billion were transferred to the country, with more than $2.63 of the amount coming from Russia. According to data from August 2018, more than 800,000 Kyrgyz citizens were registered with the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia.

As mentioned earlier, the Russian Federation helped Kyrgyzstan join the EAEU in 2015, which allowed Kyrgyz citizens to work in member-states of the union without the need to obtain work permits. During Vladimir Putin’s visit to Kyrgyzstan, he mentioned that much had been done for Kyrgyz migrants in Russia, and also talked about the migration amnesty, which was granted to citizens of Kyrgyzstan at the end of 2018 on request from Sooronbay Jeenbekov. As a result, thousands of Kyrgyz citizens who violated, for one reason or another, Russia’s migration legislation were able to return to Kyrgyzstan. They were then able to come back to Russia (without facing administrative punishment) and complete all the necessary paperwork for their stay, in accordance with Russia’s laws and regulations. In addition, Vladimir Putin said that, on account of the special relationship between the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan, the amnesty period would be extended until the end of April 2019.

It is no surprise then that Vladimir Putin’s visit was a truly vital event for Kyrgyzstan’s leadership, and it ended with the signing of 17 important documents. The ones on military cooperation included the Protocol on the previously mentioned mutually beneficial changes to the agreement on the presence of Russia’s Kant military base in Kyrgyzstan, and the agreement on cooperation in the sphere of postal and courier communications. The Russian President stated that the Kant base made a significant contribution to Kyrgyzstan’s security by strengthening its defense capabilities, and that it also played an important role in ensuring safety and stability in the entire Central Asian region. He added that the Russian Federation would continue to develop military cooperation with Kyrgyzstan by supplying it with military equipment and training Kyrgyz citizens in Russia’s military academies.

In addition, it has been reported that the Russian Federation respects Kyrgyzstan’s right to collaborate with other countries and will not interfere with the nation’s military-to-military contacts with China, the United States and NATO.

The other documents concerned cooperation in civilian spheres, such as the Protocol on changes to the agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan on oil and petroleum product supplies; Memorandum on Cooperation between the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, the Russian Railways company and Kyrgyz counterparts tasked with developing railroads in Kyrgyzstan; the road map for Gazprom’s investments in the Kyrgyz oil and gas industry; the agreement on cooperation between the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund; the road map on cooperation between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Eurasian Development Bank for the period of 2019 to 2021, etc.

The two sides agreed to promote all aspects of their trade and economic cooperation, to develop collaboration among banks, and to work together in the spheres of science, education, medicine, culture, sports, etc.

Russia intends to continue supporting Kyrgyzstan in every possible way. The Kyrgyz economy will need substantial investments before it reaches a stage of stable growth. Hence, in the nearest future, Russian companies are planning on investing $1.6 billion in the Kyrgyz economy. These outlays are bound to be rewarded, as Kyrgyzstan transforms into a peaceful, stable nation, grateful to Russia for its support, in Central Asia, which is one of the most turbulent regions in the world where truly destructive forces of global terrorism are competing for influence just as the Russian Federation, China and the West are. Security and socio-economic development of Kyrgyzstan, and that of other Central Asian nations also contributes, in large degree, to security in Russia itself.

Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”