Entries from Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia tagged with 'Uzbekistan'
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...
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...
Сложные эволюции в раскладе сил
В том, что касается разработки и использования энергоресурсов бассейна Каспийского моря, Китай постепенно превращается в игрока, с которым приходится считаться. Вкупе с давно сложившимся пересечением региональных интересов России, Европы и США это должно послужить напоминанием о динамично меняющейся ситуации в...
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...
The Importance of the Caspian and Central Asia as a Source of and Transit Route for Energy
Prepared remarks to the Wilton Park Conference The South Caucasus and Wider Black Sea Neighbourhood: Regional Developments and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Wiston House, West Sussex (U.K.), 23–26 November 2009. China's emergence as an important player in the development and use of...
The Rise of the Rimland?
Recent energy and other developments in Southwest Asia, particularly involving Turkey, Iran and Iraq, sketch the outline of an imminent reorganization of international relations in the region. This will have knock-on effects for Eurasia as a whole and the shape...
Туркменский газ становится цицероновской тайной
В этом месяце были подняты вопросы о том, являются ли на самом деле газовые ресурсы Туркменистана столь огромными, как было установлено в прошлом году английской фирмой "Gaffney Cline & Associates ". "Gaffney Cline & Associates" подтвердила, что новое газовое месторождение...
Uzbekistan and the CSTO
Email interview with Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan.
Узбекистан будет стараться сохранять членство в ОДКБ как можно дольше
Несмотря на пассивность Узбекистана в качестве члена Организации Договора о коллективной безопасности (ОДКБ), Ташкент будет стараться сохранить членство в организации как можно дольше, считают эксперты....
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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....
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,...
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,...
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...
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 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...
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...
Did Putin Shanghai Bush?
The institutionalization of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization represents the incipient coalescence of a Sino-Russocentric geopolitical bloc in Asia, for which China's vision is to countervail any strategy putting the U.S. at the forefront of 21st-global politics.
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....
Euro-Caspian energy and the political crisis in Ukraine
In one of the generally less remarked-upon recent political earthquakes, the reform-oriented government of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine has lost a no-confidence vote in the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) but will stay on at the head of a caretaker...
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.
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 (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...
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...
How Shah-Deniz is changing the equation (7/9)
The article examines once more the results of the Shah-Deniz find for the Russia-Turkmenistan-Ukraine triangle. It first dissects the most recent developments in their interactions over energy supplies and policy. It then examines the question of what the Russian contract...
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 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...
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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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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