Kremlin message :

Loud and clear

By Vladimir RADYUHIN

On February 19, the Kyrgyzstan Parliament voted overwhelmingly to terminate a 2001 agreement with the United States on the deployment of the U.S. air base at the Manas international airport in Bishkek. Once President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signs the bill, the U.S. will have 180 days to leave the base. Manas has been the Pentagon's only base in Central Asia after Uzbekistan shut down another U.S. airbase on its territory in 2005 after the Russia and China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) called on Washington to set a deadline for withdrawing its military from the region.

Russia has denied any role in the closure but it was in Moscow thatBakiyev announced the decision to evict the Americans after Russia offered him a package to bail out the crisis-hit Kyrgyz economy.

The Manas airbase has been a major logistics hub of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. According to the U.S. Defence Department, it handles about 15,000 passengers and 500 tonnes of cargo a month.

The western media predictably raised a hue and cry over Moscow "stabbing the U.S. in the back" in Central Asia. But official Washington was remarkably restrained in its reaction. As Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov revealed recently, a few days before the Kyrgyz leader made his bombshell announcement, Moscow quietly granted a U.S. request for overland transit of non-military supplies to Afghanistan. The first train with U.S.supplies is to leave shortly from Latvia on the Baltic Sea. The U.S. embassy in Latvia said 20-30 trainloads per week could go to Afghanistan if the route proved a success.

Confusing signals

Western commentators said Moscow was sending "confusing signals" to Washington, whereas the Kremlin's message was in fact loud and clear: Moscow is willing to help the U.S. in Afghanistan, but Central Asia will stay in Russia's orbit.Washington does not seem ready to agree to Moscow's terms. Even as it vowed to "reset" relations with Russia, the new administration of President Barack Obama is still sticking to the principle of "selective cooperation," which means taking all help Russia offers but refusing to recognise its interests and concerns. In the first presentation of the Obama administration's foreign policy at the Munich security conference earlier this month, Vice-President Joe Biden rejected the idea that Russia should have a "sphere of influence."

But this is exactly what a resurgent Russia has been doing - reasserting its dominance in the former Soviet Union. A day after Kyrgyzstan called for the removal of the U.S. airbase, Russia hosted a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a defence pact of seven former Soviet nations, which includes the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as Armenia and Belarus.

The CSTO leaders signed an agreement to establish "collective rapid reaction forces." Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said these joint forces would be as combat-ready as NATO forces in order to ensure security throughout the CSTO zone of responsibility, which includes the whole of former Soviet Central Asia.

Realities

Last August, Russia reasserted its supremacy in the Caucasus when it thrashed the U.S. ally, Georgia, recognised the independence of Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and announced plans to set up military bases in the region. Washington has no choice but to accept these realities on the ground.Having placed Afghanistan at the top of its foreign policy agenda, the Obama administration desperately needs Russia's assistance as it plans to almost double the 36,000-strong U.S. force in that country.

The existing U.S. supply routes through Pakistan, which account for 80 per cent of all Afghanistan-bound cargoes, have become glaringly insecure. According to Russia's NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin, roughly one half of all supplies are either stolen or destroyed between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pentagon urgently needs to set up alternative transit routes.But not many options are available. Transit through Iran would not be politically acceptable. The route across the Caucasus is complicated by the international status of the Caspian Sea. "The status of the Caspian Sea is such that Washington will need to obtain the consent of all countries of the Caspian region," said Russian legislator Mikhail Margelov, head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Federation Council Upper House. "Do you think Iran will give its consent? I do not," he added. "In a word, it comes down to the following: transit via Russia or no transit at all." At a NATO summit in Bucharest last April, Russia and the Atlantic Alliance reached an agreement in principle to organise the transit of NATO's food and non-military cargo and "some types of non-lethal military equipment" across Russia to Afghanistan. However, Washington rejected Moscow's proposal for NATO to sign a transit pact with the CSTO alliance, which NATO refuses to recognise as a force to reckon with.

The U.S. had to negotiate transit rights separately with CSTO member-states in Central Asia. For its part, Moscow allowed overland transit to Germany and France, but not to the U.S.The ice was broken after the Obama administration pledged to turn a page on relations with Russia.Shortly after Russia agreed to allow U.S. transit, Kazakhstan reached a similar deal with Washington, and Uzbekistan is expected to follow suit shortly.Given the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Washington would need much greater assistance from Russia than non-military transit rights.

Moscow let it be known that it is willing to provide all the help it can, including allowing U.S. military shipments and resuming defence aid to Afghanistan. "Russia and other Central Asian states, members of the CSTO, are ready for full-fledged, comprehensive cooperation with the U.S. and other coalition countries in opposing terrorism in the region," Medvedev said at the CSTO summit in Moscow.

In 2001, Russia did not object to the Pentagon setting up military bases in Central Asia and provided intelligence support to the U.S.-led war against the Taliban. It let the U.S. try its own solutions in Afghanistan. Seven years later, Russia says: You tried and failed; let's now work together on our terms.First, the U.S. should not have a military foothold in Central Asia. Mr.Medvedev said that no amount of "bases dotting [Afghanistan's] perimeter" would help to fight terrorism. Experts do not, however, rule out the possibility of the Pentagon, after the closure of the U.S. airbase in Kyrgyzstan, continuing to enjoy air transit facilities in Central Asia under a new arrangement with Moscow.

Terrorism

Second, Russia must be a party to the Afghan settlement and post-war rehabilitation. On a visit to Uzbekistan last month, Mr. Medvedev said the U.S. should stop pushing "unilateral solutions" and deal with the problem "on a collective basis," giving the countries of the region a "credible role" in Afghanistan.Third, the NATO-led coalition should tackle opium production, which has grown manifold in Afghanistan since the launching of the anti-terrorist operation. Russia also wants NATO to cooperate in setting up anti-narcotics belts to control drug trafficking form Afghanistan.

Fourth, the problem of Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means alone, but should be dealt with in a "comprehensive" way and should involve promoting "a political system that would remove conditions for the resurgence of terrorism," Mr. Medvedev said at the CSTO summit even as he warned that "democracy should not be foisted" on Afghanistan.

Greater say

The opening of an overland transit of U.S. supplies across Russia not only gives Moscow a greater say in the Afghan settlement but also makes the Russia-led CSTO defence pact a player.CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha announced last week that the alliance members agreed to "coordinate joint efforts" on issues involving the "nomenclature of cargoes, customs clearance and railway transportation."Next month, Russia will host a special conference of the SCO on Afghanistan to discuss ways of boosting the contribution of the security alliance led by Russia and China.Afghanistan is probably the only international issue where Russia and the U.S. have more shared perceptions than differences.Neither wants a Talibanised Afghanistan to export terrorism to its neighbourhood and beyond.

Once it establishes itself as a key U.S. partner in Afghanistan, Russia will be in a much stronger position to stop NATO expansion and the deployment of U.S. missile defences in its backyard.

(Courtesy: The Hindu)