Entries from Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia tagged with 'Kazakhstan'
Kazakhstan continues economic recovery
Currency devaluation and banking reforms appear to have set Kazakhstan strongly on the road to recovery. A ministerial shake-up, which appears more rational than President Nursultan Nazarbaev's usual reorganizations, and higher oil export duties next year, should help to maintain the economy's strength
Turkmenistan signals Nabucco intentions
"We are currently constructing the East-West Pipeline [across southern Turkmenistan, which] will be laid along the coast of the Caspian Sea. … Nabucco is associated with this project." Thus spoke Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow at a press conference last week,...
Turkmenistan Confirms Export Shift Away From Russia
In mid-August, BP Azerbaijan announced that oil from Turkmenistan is now entering the BTC in Azerbaijan and will constitute between four and five percent of its present throughput of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is being upgraded to 1.2...
Nazarbaev faults Europe on Nabucco
President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan publicly endorsed the Nabucco natural gas pipeline earlier this month, then criticized Europe for putting too much talk into the project and not enough action....
Turkmenistan Diversifies Gas Export Routes
Turkmenistan has broken Russia’s stranglehold on its gas exports by opening a pipeline through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. The country’s president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has just made his first trip to New Delhi where the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project...
Россия пробует "любовь втроем"
В столице Казахстана Астане под несколько приглушенные звуки фанфар было заключено очередное многостороннее соглашение об экономическом сотрудничестве между некоторыми из стран-наследниц Советского Союза. На встрече Евроазиатского экономического сообщества (ЕврАзЭС) три его члена (Белоруссия, Казахстан и Россия) из пяти (остальные —...
Russia tries a ménage à trois
With moderate fanfare, yet another multilateral economic cooperation agreement was signed among a limited number of the Soviet successor states this month, in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed up to a customs union in the...
Nekünk Azerbajdzsán kell
Robert M. Cutler amerikai politológus-tanácsadó szerint a közép-európai országoknak muszáj együttműködniük az orosz befolyás csökkentéséért. Az oroszok a gázt politikai fegyverként használják, és a nagy nemzetközi vezetékekért folyó küzdelem akár fegyveres konfliktusok kitörésében is szerepet játszik. Az azeri gázmezők válthatják...
Tectonic shift under way in Turkmen gas
Events this week confirm that Turkmenistan has taken a decisive strategic decision to diversify its gas exports not only beyond Russia but also beyond China....
Interview by European Center for Energy Security Analysis (ECESA)
As you know, Europeans with an interest in energy affairs get very excited when discussing the source of the gas they’ll in 5-10 years. Especially in Italy, where Berlusconi’s center-right government is openly defying EU policy on the matter and...
Ukrainian Elections Complicate Southern Energy Corridor
Viktor Yanukovych came first in the presidential elections in Ukraine, but Yuliya Tymoshenko has instructed lawyers to bring to the courts evidence of voting irregularities to put Yanukovych’s margin of victory under question. Even if the latter is able to...
Turkmenistan-China Gas Pipeline Becomes a Reality
The opening of the first segment of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline last month is only one in a series of recent events in Caspian Sea basin energy developments. It signifies Turkmenistan’s first real moves to break its dependence upon Gazprom...
Reconfiguring Nabucco
With the entry of Iraq into the mix of potential suppliers of natural gas for the Nabucco pipeline to Europe and the proliferation of alternative supply lines beyond the Russian-sponsored rival South Stream pipeline, the "classical" variant of the Nabucco...
Caspian Diplomacy Should Intensify
For over 15 years the U.S. has worked to promote cooperation over energy issues among the newly independent states in the Caspian Sea region. A proclaimed goal of U.S. energy policy in the region since the early 1990s has been...
Kaspickú diplomaciu je nutné zintenzívniť
UE; viac ako 15 rokov sa Spojené štáty usilujú zintenzívniť kooperáciu medzi nezávislými krajinami kaspického regiónu v oblasti energetiky. Od začiatku 90. rokov je cieľom americkej energetickej politiky zabezpečiť, aby tieto krajiny nezáviseli len od jednej vývoznej trasy, ktorá by...
Iran claim clouds Turkey's energy goals
An Iranian official's declaration that his country has entered into negotiations with European firms about the supply of natural gas into the Nabucco pipeline intended to supply Europe via Turkey was rejected this week by one of the firms concerned....
Қазақстан туралы шет елдерден келіп түскен күнделікті жаңалықтар
«Asia Times Online» басылымының авторы Роберт М.Катлер (Robert M Cutler) қазанның 10-ы күні «Kazakhstan points route out of crisis» атты мақала жариялап, соңғы уақытта біздің еліміздің халықаралық деңгейде үлкен саяси-экономикалық маңызы бар шешімдерге қол жеткізіп, дағдарыстан шығар жолды көрсеткені туралы...
Казахстан указывает на путь выхода из кризиса
Визит президента Франции Николя Саркози в Казахстан для подписания сделки по трубопроводу ознаменовал собой неделю, на которой произошло два других важных события (в том числе новый подход к реструктурированию банка), "отслеживающие", как страна, приведенная в боевую готовность, стремится преодолеть экономический...
Kazakhstan points route out of crisis
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Kazakhstan for the signing of an energy pipeline deal marked a week that included two other significant events, including a novel approach to bank restructuring, that trace how the embattled country is seeking to...
Серьёзные ставки в переговорах о газопроводах
Фридрих Энгельс писал, что исторические события зачастую представляют собой «нежелательный результат» различных импульсов в «параллелограмме сил»....
Эксперт по евразийской политике: «США высоко ценят проводимую Азербайджаном независимую политику»
Азербайджан является важнейшим звеном в транзите каспийской нефти на европейские рынки, отметил в ходе встречи с журналистами старший научный сотрудник Карлтонского университета, известный эксперт по евразийской политике профессор Роберт Катлер....
Azərbaycan müstəqil enerji diplomatiyası yürüdür
News article (interview) first published in Yeni Azərbaycan (Baku), 30 September 2009.
Обозреватель “Asia Times” Роберт Катлер считает
В 2002 году Тегеран негативно отреагировал на военные маневры России на Каспии и отказался направить на них военных наблюдателей. Теперь ситуация иная. Россия с большими сомнениями относится к энергетическим проектам в регионе, поддерживаемым США. Кроме того, Москва не удовлетворена тем,...
««Nabucco» mübahisəli yataqlara görə ertələndi»
Interview on Caspian energy security, broadcast in Azeri translation from the original English, and also published in Azeri by Azadlıq Radiosu [Radio Liberty] (Baku), 29 September 2009, under the by-line of Arifə Kazımova.
Nabucco is becoming more real
Excerpt from news article (interview) by Turan News Agency (Baku).
Four-way street in Kazakhstan
The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan ended their meeting in Kazakhstan's resort city of Kenderly last weekend with its purpose and consequences as clear as distant figures in an early autumn mist. Two elements did emerge more clearly...
Azerbaijan has a key role to play in Nabucco project
Robert Cutler, Senior Research Fellow at Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University spoke to Day.Az in an interview. Published under by-line of T. Teymur.
«У Азербайджана ключевая роль»
Интервью Т. Теймурa (Day.Az) с канадским ученым, исследователем Института европейских, российских и евразийских учений Карлтонского университета, Робертом Катлером.
The Caspian boils again
Iran expects to deploy its first deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig in the Caspian Sea next month, following the conclusion that the country's shallow-water sector has no exploitable resources, according to hydrocarbon energy industry sources....
Синьцзян - энергетические ворота Китая
Волнения в Синьцзян-Уйгурском районе разразились спустя 15 лет после начала масштабной трансформации этого региона в геоэкономический трамплин для китайского прыжка в бывшие советские республики....
Nabucco ink starts to flow
The signing this week of a transit agreement to govern the Nabucco natural gas pipeline marks an important staging post in bringing to reality the long-touted energy route, which is projected to run 3,300 kilometers from the Caspian Sea region...
Xinjiang: China's energy gateway
The unrest in China's far-west region of Xinjiang, notably in the local capital of Urumqi, comes after 15 years of development and transformation of the area to be a geo-economic springboard for projecting influence into Central Asia and the Caspian...
Azerbaijan can look the other way
Azerbaijan, for two decades a reliable energy supplier for the West, may reconsider that "partnership" as Europe drags its feet over the proposed Nabucco pipeline and the Caspian country sees its hope that it could eventually join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization extinguished.
Азербайджан может отвернуться в другую сторону
Более ста лет назад сэр Халфорд Макиндер (Halford Mackinder) произнес знаменитые слова о том, что территории к востоку и северу от Каспийского моря могут стать "географической осью истории", выдвигая свою геополитическую теорию о евразийском "центре мира". Этот термин сейчас в...
China deal helps out Kazakhs
The US$10 billion deal this month allowing China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to purchase 50% of Kazakhstan's privately owned MangistauMunaiGaz (MMG) and a $5 billion loan from China will come as welcome boost to the Central Asian country's economy, which...
Moscow and Ashgabat Fail To Agree over the Caspian Coastal Pipeline
The leaders of Russia and Turkmenistan have been unable to agree on terms for the (re)construction of a Soviet-era gas pipeline in western Turkmenistan. While subsequent negotiations are not excluded, Ashgabat has declared its intent to allow companies other than...
Europe keeps Nabucco on life-support
The European Council, in a meeting principally devoted to determining the European Union's policy towards its eastern members and preparing an EU position for next week's Group of 20 summit in London, also took an important decision last week on...
ВСТО: сигнал о новом сближении между Китаем и Россией?
В середине февраля Россия и Китай подписали соглашение, по которому китайские кредитные учреждения выдадут заем в 25 млрд. долларов российским энергетическим компаниям 'Транснефть' и 'Роснефть' в обмен на строительство ответвления нефтепровода 'Восточная Сибирь - Тихий океан' от Сковородино до китайской...
Тенге продолжит слабеть
Тенге может еще больше ослабить позиции из-за продолжающегося ухудшения платежного балансa...
Does the ESPO Signal a New Sino-Russian Rapprochement?
In mid-February, Russia and China signed an agreement providing for Chinese agencies to lend US$25 billion to the Russian energy trusts Transneft and Rosneft in return for the construction of a branch from the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline...
China on buying and lending spree
The agreement announced late last month between Russia and China for construction of a pipeline branch to China from the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline is only one aspect of a relatively new strategic policy direction from Beijing to...
Divided Ukraine skirting default
Rising concern that Ukraine, suffering tumbling demand for its exports as the global economy slows down, is heading towards default on its international debt may yet nudge its government to rein in political infighting, even as leading factions position themselves...
Нынешняя девальвация тенге может оказаться не последней
Обзор Прессы Есеном Смагуловым (Радио Азаттык).
Зарубежные эксперты считают
… что нынешняя стабилизация тенге является краткосрочной, а об укреплении национальной валюты можно будет говорить только после повышения сырьевых цен и решения проблем коммерческих банков. За прошедшие после 4 февраля дни о девальвации в Казахстане успели написать почти все влиятельные...
Kazakhstan's tenge far from secure
Kazakhstan, its economy roiled by the global fall in prices of key earners oil and gas, may have to let its currency weaken further following the 18% devaluation earlier last week as the current account balance continues to worsen. On...
Russia deepens gas hegemony
Eastern Europe freezes as Brussels fiddles, while with Moscow's help Gazprom extends its grasp of energy production in the Caspian Sea region....
Kazakhstan Looks at the Trans-Caspian for Tengiz Gas to Europe
As Russia and China seek to augment their influence over the development of Kazakhstan’s energy production, Astana looks for other routes to overcome the restraints. The reinvigoration since 2007 of prospects for a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) with Turkmenistan's participation...
Turkmen gas almost in reach
The crisis over Turkmenistan's gas, transmitted by Russia via Ukraine, demonstrates the need for other energy routes from the Caspian Sea region to Europe....
Reality wins over energy grand design
The re-eruption of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia over payments for gas deliveries illustrates that developments in Eurasian energy geo-economics do not take vacations, even over the New Year holidays. The Ukrainian-Russian dispute, for example, takes place in circumstances...
Euro-Caspian energy plans inch forward
Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR and Kazakhstan's state monopoly KazMunaiGaz this month signed an agreement setting out the main principles for a transport system to convey Kazakhstani oil across the Caspian Sea for entry into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline and...
Kazakhstan reins in oil majors
The Kazakh government, concerned about the failure of ExxonMobil and other oil giants to get production flowing from the vast Kashagan oil reserves in the Caspian, has beefed up its role in the mostly foreign-run consortium running the project. The group, led by Italy's Eni, also now risks losing millions of dollars in sunk costs if a new deadline is not met
РК вытаскивает из банкротства его нефтяной фонд
Стоимость свопов кредитного дефолта снизилась...
Kazakhstan does its own bailing
Kazakhstan, whose economy has endured a switchback progress since independence from the Kremlin in 1991, is discovering the benefits of salting away wealth in the good times as it seeks to survive the global downturn without recourse to foreign aid....
Türkiye’nin İşi Zor
Türkiye’nin ekonomik ve siyasi gerçekleri tek başına, piyasalardaki yaz canlanmasının canına okurdu. Rusya’nın Türkiye’nin arka kapısı Gürcistan’ı işgali de bunu kesinleştirdi....
Turkey has a rough road ahead
The realities of Turkey's economy and politics would alone have killed off the summer revival in the country's stock markets. Russia's invasion of Georgia, on Turkey's back doorstep, made sure....
Ukraine clash threatens oil to Europe
Corruption and politics in Ukraine threaten to choke off, at least in the near term, the expansion of oil exports from Azerbaijan and eventually Kazakhstan to Europe. This is the significance of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko's efforts in July...
EU's Central Asia partnership, one year on
The one-year anniversary of the EU's Partnership Strategy with Central Asia gets off to a slow start but is not without potential....
Gas pipeline gigantism
Ground was broken in Kazakhstan last week for construction of that country's segment of a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China, set to be the longest and most expensive such pipeline in the world - its length is usually...
Kashagan Leads Kazakhstan To Increase Trans-Caspian Oil Exports
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have culminated years-long negotiations with agreements that increase the amounts of Kazakhstani oil to be shipped across the Caspian Sea, supplementing Azerbaijani crude in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Still more significant, redevelopment and expansion of ports on...
Р. Катлер: "Политическая элита США всегда признавала значение Узбекистана для Центральной Азии и Евразии"
Известный американский эксперт по евразийской политике профессор Роберт Катлер поделился своим видением развития геополитических и экономических процессов в Центральной Азии и Евразии с нашим внештатным корреспондентом Мавляном Юлдашевым....
Kazakhstan announces new energy directions
Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Karim Masimov has announced major energy-related decisions in the wake of President Nursultan Nazarbaev's address to the nation last week. First, and most strikingly, he has ordered the suspension all negotiations with foreign investors on exploration, development...
A New Chance for the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline?
A significant indicator of Turkmenistan's future diplomatic and economic course is whether new President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov will undertake a rapprochement with Azerbaijan....
Slow Progress on Reforms in Kazakhstan
Robert Cutler with the Institute of European and Russian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, "The thing to understand about Kazakhstan is that there is political pluralism. But it is extremely restricted to a relatively not very numerous political elite."
Politics of Oil Dominate Shanghai Summit
The underlying purpose of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is for Russia and China to assert their influence in Central Asia. This is especially true of China, with its bid to secure energy resources.
Energy Security for Turkey Is Energy Security for Others
A geopolitical and geo-economic inventory of Turkey's assets in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century reveals such strengths, beyond its military capa-bilities and other state institutions, as industry, population, and, above all, geographic lo-cation. These are...
CACO integrate EurAsEc
The Central Asian Co-operation Organization (CACO, comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and since October 2004 Russia) has taken a decision to meld itself into the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEc, which includes also Belarus and has until now excluded Uzbekistan). CACO,...
Karachaganak Gas and the Future of Kazakhstan's Pipeline System
The Karachaganak energy field sends gas for processing to a Gazprom plant in Orenburg, Russia. The decision where to process oncoming increased Karachaganak volumes has significant implications for future development of Kazakhstan's national pipeline system.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Moves into First Gear
After a slow start in 2002, the SCO's St.-Petersburg summit in May 2003 approved development of a military arm to assist SCO anti-terrorist cooperation. The organization’s first multilateral military exercise (called “Interaction-2003”) took place that August in Kazakhstan and China,...
В МИДе РК продолжают темнить? Дела приграничные
Как в прошлом номере освещалось, опять пошли разные толки о приграничных с Китаем землях Казахстана. Первым этот вопрос поднял Мурат Ауэзов, в прошлом посол РК в КНР, сохранивший личные связи с послом этой страны в Казахстане. Ссылаясь на дружеские беседы...
Из-за чего страдает рыба в Балхаше и океанариуме Астаны
На минувшей неделе пресса продолжила комментировать итоги недавнего визита президента Путина в Казахстан....
Новый треугольник Россия-Казахстан-Китай
В Евразии происходят глубинные тектонические сдвиги в области обеспечения безопасности и экономического сотрудничества....
Emerging triangles: Russia-Kazakhstan-China
The significance of the agreements on energy cooperation achieved during Russian President Vladimir Putin's recently completed visit to Kazakhstan is only an indicator of the consolidation of deeper tectonic shifts in Eurasian security and economic affairs. A new triangle is...
Kazakhstan's Economic Promise Revisited
Real GDP fell throughout the first half of the 1990s in all newly independent states, declining by about half in Kazakhstan. The country was also adversely affected towards the end of the decade by the Asian and Russian crises as...
Russia Begins Oil Swaps with Iran
Iran has been seeking since the mid-1990s to undertake oil swaps with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan as a way to increase its own exports. Such swaps involve Iran’s importing oil in the north on its Caspian Sea coast for domestic refining...
Kazakhstan’s New Foreign Investment Law
Late last year, the flagship venture TengizChevrOil took the unusual step of holding its board meeting in Almaty and voting to suspend the next stage (planned at $3 billion) in the project’s development. A number of explanations filtered out over...
Self-Determination Issues in Central Eurasia
Central Eurasia, which is what specialists have taken to calling most of the geographic area once covered by the Soviet Union, has a long history of ethnopolitical complications and related struggles focused on collective identities. Tsarist Russia had moderate success...
How Deeply Will Iran Penetrate the Evolving Eurasian Energy Networks?
In late 2000, the EU and Russia began extensive high-level commercial talks about the prospects for European importation of Russian energy resources over the course of coming decades. However, Russia's failure to pursue adequate investment in its natural gas industry...
Redrawing the Architecture of Central Asian Security
Washington has not only blocked the impending closure of Sino-Russian hegemony over Central Asia, but also finessed Russian strategic opposition to the American project for deploying a space-based defense. The new U.S. presence in Central Asia has reinforced the emerging...
Government Crisis in Kazakhstan: Warm-Up for the Succession to Nazarbaev?
On November 15, deputy National Security Council director Rakhat Aliev resigned from his post after his boss Marat Tazhin forbade him to give evidence to a parliamentary commission investigating corruption in government. Three days later, deputy prime minister Uraz Dzhandosov...
U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan: Implications for Central Asia
Just when it looked the Central Asian countries were facing the growing joint political hegemony of Russia and China in the region, the events of September 11 opened the door to an increased and indefinite-term U.S. military presence....
The Shattering of the Sino-Russian Entente over the Shape of Central Asia?
Before the terrorist acts in New York City, the U.S. looked to be largely absent diplomatically and militarily, while limiting its economic presence to Caspian energy development in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Yet the formation of a U.S.-sponsored ‘global anti-terrorist coalition’...
The Anti-Terrorist Coalition: A "New World Order" Redux?
Just as the post-cold war transition to a new international system seemed to be ending, the terrorist acts of September 11 and the U.S. responses have re-opened the question of Central Asia's strategic orientation and, through that, the structure of...
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline: Off the Drawing-Boards and into the Field
The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) has sought for nearly a decade to develop for export Azerbaijan’s “Contract of the Century” oil fields, i.e., the major offshore deposits in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli sectors. As it was determined that the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline...
Islamic Militancy in Central Asia: What Is To Be Done? (2/2)
Airstrikes on Afghanistan put U.S. policy in Central Asia in a delicate position. Authoritarian streaks in Central Asian governments may harden, and popular opinion there may tie U.S. to those policies, complicating postauthoritarian transitions.
Central Asian energy and security in light of the Afghanistan crisis
The effect of events in Afghanistan on public opinion in Central Asia is difficult to gauge. Yet this public opinion is already in general either exhausted by economic hardship or increasingly discontent with political repression. That very situation is what...
Cozying up to Karimov?
In its new war on terrorism, Washington is quickly moving to put its "strategic partnership" with Uzbekistan to work. It has already turned to Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov, who has spent the past decade cracking down so hard in his...
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium Beats the Skeptics
Oil from the Tengiz deposit in western Kazakhstan is being pumped westward through a pipeline through southern Russia. The pipeline, built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), has cost $2.6 million to construct: twice the originally estimated cost. It will...
Renewed conflicts in the Caspian
A good deal of attention has been devoted in recent days to the incident in the south Caspian on July 23, when Iranian military airplanes buzzed vessels that had been chartered by BP to begin exploring the Alov deposit, a...
Kazakhstan’s Search for Export Pipelines
In late March, Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Kasymzhomart Tokaev turned the tap at the Tengiz field to begin filling a pipeline built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). This 1,580-kilometer pipeline was built to take oil from Tengiz (estimated to hold...
"Mavi Akim" Doğalgaz Projesi: Artik Bir Rüya Değil
Mavi akım projesinin tamamlanması konusundaki kuşıkular son dönemlerde daha da arttı. Bunun birinci nedeni, Türkiye'deki krizin sürmesi ve bizzat Mavi Akım anlaşımasına yönelik yolsuzluk soruşıturması....
The "Blue Stream" Gas Project: Not a Pipe-Dream Anymore
It is projected that the Blue Stream pipeline will increase Turkey's dependence on Russian sources of natural gas from the current two-thirds level to about four-fifths. For this reason, the United States has reportedly raised hesitations to Ankara over the...
Recent developments in the self-organizing Caspian pipeline network
A sensational report has arrived that Moscow may be altering its policy on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) export pipeline, so as to permit Russian companies to participate in its construction and operation. Russia's foreign minister Ivan Ivanov is said to have...
Turkmenistani natural gas: The key to Ukraine's economy?
Two weeks ago, in the context of Turkmenistani President Saparmurad Niyazov's visit to Ankara for the Turkic-speaking countries' summit, this writer discussed how Ashgabat is currently situated in the "great game" over Caspian Sea energy resources, especially with respect to...
The Indo–Iranian Rappochement: Not Just Natural Gas Anymore
Earlier this month India's Prime Minister Atel Behari Vajpayee became only the second Indian head of government to visit Tehran since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the first in over seven years. At the head of a large delegation, he signed seven cooperation accords on energy, water, trade and science but sought to downplay efforts at bilateral defense cooperation
Do all roads lead to Ashgabat?
The recent summit of Turkic-language countries in Ankara provided Turkmenistan's President Saparmurad Niyazov with the opportunity to insist yet again that his country and his person are central, if not key, to the resolution of major problems in the region....
Five States (Still) in Search of a Caspian Sea Legal Regime
Following meetings with Turkmenistan's President Saparmurad Niyazov in Ashgabat, Viktor Kaluzhnyi, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy on Caspian affairs, announced earlier this month that the five-way summit to define the Caspian Sea's legal status and the question of its division...
Geo-economics and Energy Development in Central Asia
This article calls attention to overlooked aspects of the Central Asian energy balance, with special attention paid to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and the contrasts between them and the significance of those contrasts.
New Configurations around the Caspian Sea (4/4)
The selection several weeks ago of Italy's ENI as operator of the Offshore Kazakhstan International Operating Company (OKIOC), which is exploring the vast Kashagan deposit offshore from Kazakhstan, came as a surprise to most observers. Eni was a dark horse...
New Configurations around the Caspian Sea (3/4)
The current, contradictory phase of events around the Caspian is captured by the difficult realism of Viktor Kalyuzhnyi, Russia's deputy foreign minister, who also serves as President Vladimir Putin's special envoy on Caspian affairs. As developments continue to accelerate, Russia...
Islamic Militancy in Central Asia: What Is To Be Done? (1/2)
A new report by the International Crisis Group helps to answer questions about appropriate responses are to Islamic militancy in Central Asia, making recommendations to Central Asian governments, external powers, and international organizations.
New Configurations around the Caspian (2/4)
Significant events that will determine the fate of a number of Caspian export pipelines have continued to occur in rapid succession, even as the government of Turkmenistan made a surprise announcement postponing a long-awaited summit among Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan...
New Configurations around the Caspian (1/4)
In an official announcement, the government of Turkmenistan put its cards on the table concerning the diplomatic position that it plans to take on the demarcation of the Caspian Sea and the division of its resources at the summit meeting...
Putin’s Caspian Diplomacy
The results of the recent visit by Russian president Vladimir Putin to Baku have received different interpretations in different media. This week’s column focuses on figuring out exactly what those results are, and what they mean, for the aspects of...
The Unanticipated Consequences of Policy Blindness: Why Even Belarus Matters
A dangerous blind spot in the incoming administration's view of Russian affairs is its inadequate understanding of the significance of the newly independent states (NIS). The unanticipated consequences of such policy blindness are exemplified by developments in the 1990s in...
How Shah-Deniz Is Changing the Equation (8/9)
In my most recent installment in this series, I indicated that recent developments pointed towards the need to review Turkmenistan's options for export of its natural gas. That is the subject of this article....
Uzbekistan's Foreign Policy and Its Domestic Effects
The lack of economic momentum in Uzbekistan has led to a general decline of great-power interest in the country. In a vicious circle, Uzbekistan's profile in international and regional diplomacy has fallen in turn. Its response could be called an...
The CIS Is Dead, Long Live the CIS!
The CIS was originally a sleight-of-hand trick by which the presidents of the RSFSR and Ukrainian and Belorussian union-republics conjured the disappearance of the USSR. It is generally conceded now that Yeltsin's wish for revenge against Gorbachev was a sine...
Developments in the evolving Caspian legal regime (2/2)
I conclude the short series, on efforts to settle the international legal status of the Caspian Sea. Last week I addressed the inheritance from the Soviet period and surveyed the most salient events during the 1990s up to the end...
Developments in the evolving Caspian legal regime (1/2)
In view of some movement in the dispute over the division of the Caspian Sea, I interrupt my series on "How Shah-Deniz Is Changing the Equation" for a two-part analysis of these recent developments. I begin with a review of...
How Shah-Deniz Is Changing the Equation (3/9)
China has declared ownership of its planned pipeline from Xinjiang to Shanghai open to foreign entities. This follows President Jiang Zemin's visit to Turkmenistan, where he discussed the possibility of a pipeline to carry natural gas from that country across...
How Shah-Deniz Is Changing the Equation (2/9)
Fall-out continues from the Shah-Deniz gas find offshore from Azerbaijan. Several weeks ago, part one of this series examined developments around the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) from Turkmenistan, and Iran's problems with Turkmenistani gas imports. The evident withdrawal of PSG...
Russia, Turkey and Iran: An Eternal Triangle
The one formal organization is the Central Asian Economic Union which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The leaders of these countries have concluded several agreements on expanding economic cooperation, but these will remain a dead letter until the Uzbek...
Russia Reactivates Its Caspian Policy with a New Demarcation Approach
In a series of public statements last month including a May 17 seminar at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, Andrei Urnov, head of the Caspian Sea working group of the Russian Foreign Ministry, suggested a new approach...
How Shah-Deniz Is Changing the Equation (1/9)
On the natural gas front, all signs are "go" for Azerbaijani gas from the offshore Shah-Deniz deposit to find purchasers in Europe. The head of the European Union's TACIS (Technical Assistance for the Commonwealth of Independent States) program, visiting Baku,...
Caspian energy pipelines: Towards a self-organizing network?
One of the properties of increasingly networked relationships is that they seem to begin to take on a life of their own. The word "self-organization" is used for describing this. In the evolution of networks, events can occur that seem...
Russia and Central Asia: Playing the Turkmenistan Card
Russian President Vladimir Putin just spent the weekend of May 19-21 in Ashgabat where he reached an agreement in principle to increase Russian gas purchases from Turkmenistan. It is yet another indicator of Russia's renewed interest in Central Asia since...
Solving the Problems of Caspian Industrial Infrastructure (2/2)
Three weeks ago I began describing part of the industrial infrastructure problem in the Caspian region. Limitations of physical geography require relative self-sufficiency in the development of basic infrastructure and installation of production facilities. The amount of investment required to...
Solving the Problems of Caspian Industrial Infrastructure (1/2)
This week I begin a new, short series on an issue that few people talk about and fewer people do anything about. This is the industrial infrastructure problem. It is already clear that problems of energy development in the Caspian...
Russia Slouches towards Central Asia
U.S. Secretary Albright's week-long tour of Central Asia occurs against a backdrop of increasing regional Russian diplomatic activity. Together with Uzbekistan President Karimov's response, it will be a weathervane for the region's near-term strategic future.
Ethnic Russian Discontent Grows in Kazakhstan
Dissatisfaction among ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan is growing. Many have left since the country gained independence, and those who remain are feeling increasingly frustrated and excluded by "Kazakhization" policies.
Uzbekistan's Trade Liberalization: Key to Central Asian Economic Integration
Karimov's reelection has been followed by announcement a program of economic liberalization and privatization. Absence of full convertibility of the Uzbek som has been one of the the greatest roadblocks to development of the Central Asian Union.
Azerbaijan vs. Turkmenistan: The Caspian Offshore Oil and Gas Conflict
[Note: This article was written after Turkmenistan had agreed to resolve a territorial dispute, before it subsequently reversed that decision.] The territorial dispute over the Kyapaz/Serdar offshore oilfield that was a major stumbling block to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline agreement, no...
Kazakhstan's Ethnic Mix: Recipe for a Shatterbelt In Central Eurasia
Nearly two weeks ago, twenty-two individuals (twelve citizens of Russia and ten ethnic-Russian citizens of Kazakhstan) were arrested in Ust-Kamenogorsk in East Kazakhstan province. They were charged with planning an uprising to seize political power in the province and proclaim...
Instability in the Balance: The Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline
The signing of the Istanbul Protocol on the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline at the recent OSCE meeting was highly important politically to the leaders who signed it. But the project will in the long run be more important to the peoples of...
Just When You Thought Baku-Ceyhan Was Dead and Buried (3/7)
Part one of this series, published after BP-Amoco made an announcement in support of the Baku-Ceyhan Main Export Pipeline (MEP), reviewed the background to that decision and its implications with regard to the four agreements being negotiated between Turkey and...
Just When You Thought Baku-Ceyhan Was Dead and Buried (2/7)
This week’s commentary continues the analysis begun last week, of the terms and prospects for agreement on construction of the Baku-Ceyhan main export pipeline (MEP). The column last week discussed two of the four agreements being negotiated: the MEP agreement...
Just When You Thought Baku-Ceyhan Was Dead and Buried (1/7)
In mid-June, I wrote that "if and when construction begins on Baku-Ceyhan, it will be due to a major shift in a variable whose immutability everyone now takes for granted." Construction has not yet begun, but such a variable has...
Kazakhstan and International Energy Development (4/4)
The last article in this series distilled three central problems that have impeded the development and export of Caspian energy resources. From those three problems, three lessons were drawn. In turn, it was shown that those three lessons are directly...
Kazakhstan and International Energy Development (3/4)
The first article in this series discussed how the economic and physical geography of Kazakhstan has constrained and conditioned President Nursultan Nazarbaev's choice of export routes for Tengiz oil. The second analyzed recent events leading to the multiplication of export...
Kazakhstan and International Energy Development (2/4)
Three weeks ago, the first article in this series discussed how the economic and physical geography of Kazakhstan has constrained and conditioned President Nursultan Nazarbaev's choices for export routes for Tengiz oil. It gave a series of reasons why the...
Kazakhstan and International Energy Development (1/4)
Kazakhstan is now in the midst of a comprehensive re-evaluation of its export options. The strategies and choices open to Astana concerning international energy development must be seen in the perspective of the difficult political and economic problems facing the...
Finance Issues in Eurasian Energy Development (2/2)
This week's commentary concludes the theme begun last week on the unstable and constantly changing financial environment for energy development in the Caspian region. Last week I discussed the need for strategic alliances and their strengths and selected issues of...
The AIOC Has a Problem but Not the One You Think
The problem the AIOC has in the short term is the opposite of the one that everyone has been talking about in the long term. In the long term, the general opinion is that there will be a problem is...
Tengiz Oil in Search of a Pipeline
At the end of this summer, the Kazakhstani government is scheduled to reach a decision on the export route for Tengiz oil. Of course, in the AIOC main-export-pipeline tradition, it could decide to postpone the decision. Still, it is instructive...
Baku Continues at the Center of Negotiations
Transit of oil through the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline continues to be a problematic affair. Since the beginning of the month, the pipeline has been shut down three times. The reasons given are the age of the Russian section of the pipeline...
Tariff Competition in the Caucasus and a Test Case for Reform in Iran
Competition among export pipeline companies in the Caucasus is heating up, even while the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project remains on at least temporary hold. As predicted here some time ago, transit fees are beginning to play a major role in at...
Kosovo, International Security, and Caspian Energy
The military operations in the Balkans affect the calculations concerning export routes for Caspian oil. The near-term regional effect of the hostilities in Kosovo is to make the Baku-Ceyhan line slightly more likely....
Southwest Asia and the Caspian Region
Iran, Iraq, and Turkey continue to dominate energy developments in Southwest Asia. Most of the people in a hurry to get the energy out of the Caucasus and Central Asia are now the political leaders in the region itself.
Transit Tariffs Come to the Fore
A prospective loosening of investment controls by the OPEC states, formerly most concerned to constrain foreign direct investment, makes it likely that at least some attention will be diverted from the Caspian region to the Arabian peninsula. Both Saudi Arabia...
How To Orient Energy Regulation towards Economic Cooperation
In March, the private U.S. consulting firm Legal Technical & Advisory Services will hold a training session for energy officials from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. This high-level, hands-on seminar will focus on legislation, policy and regulations of the oil and...
Kazakhstan between East and West
When Nursultan Nazarbaev was re-elected president of Kazakhstan earlier this month, there was little surprise in the West and some disappointment. The disappointment was not that he won the election—the result was never really in doubt—but rather that he held...
Москва рискует изоляцию от Кавказа
Корреспондент "НГ" Игорь Ротарь в своей статье "Чеченские проекты получают международную поддержку" обратил внимание на новые аспекты кавказской политики, значение которых трудно переоценить. Речь идет об инициативах одного из чеченских лидеров Хожахмеда Нухаева по созданию "Общего рынка Кавказ - Евразия",...
The West's Irreducible Interests in Central Asia
With the dismantlement of the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal now under way, it is the apparent lack of well defined long-term goals (apart from "stability") that largely account for Washington's inability to clarify the nature of its engagement in Central Asia, leading it to deal with immediate issues (such as the Tajikistan situation) on a piecemeal basis. There are, however, at least two key areas of central Asian concern (not counting the burgeoning drug trade or the Tajikistan civil war) that directly engage "vital" U.S. interests. These areas are nuclear nonproliferation and energy security.
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