Putin Maneuvers for Influence in Central Asia

By Patrick GoodenoughCNSNews.com International EditorOctober 17, 2007(CNSNews.com)

- Russian President Vladimir Putin has used a summit meeting of five countries adjacent to the resource-rich Caspian Sea to challenge U.S. influence in the region. It's latest move in what some political analysts are calling a new "great game," a reference to the British-Russian rivalry in the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries.Although much of the attention given to the summit in Tehran revolved around Putin's visit to Iran -- the first by a Russian leader since Stalin -- and Moscow's ambiguous stance towards Tehran's nuclear aspirations, his pursuit of a policy of undercutting Western interests in three former Soviet states on Russia's southern flank also is highly significant.The message coming out of the meeting in Tehran appeared intended to warn the U.S. against viewing two of the Caspian littoral states, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as potential partners in its regional security strategy.Iran is the immediate focus, but the region's strategic location vis-a-vis Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Russia itself ensures its long-term importance for policy-makers in Washington and Moscow alike.It has long been rumored that the U.S. may hope to use Azerbaijan, Iran's northern neighbor, as a launch pad for a possible attack against Iran -- speculation that was fuelled when CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden paid a low-key visit to the capital, Baku, late last month.Azerbaijan, like Iran, is largely Shi'ite, but it is also predominantly secular. Its relations with Iran are currently strained over a trial in Baku of a group of Islamists accused of plotting against the state, allegedly financed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Kazakhstan, the large, oil-rich state across the Caspian from Azerbaijan, has become increasingly important to the U.S. since another of the former Soviet "stans," Uzbekistan, fell out with U.S. in 2005 over human rights violations and expelled U.S. forces from a military base there -- to Moscow's evident delight. The U.S. has described Kazakhstan as a "regional anchor," and a top U.S. Navy commander recently visited the country to discuss helping its developing Caspian naval operations. For Putin, therefore, the meeting of the Caspian five provided an opportunity to counter U.S. efforts. He has similarly used another regional grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to pursue the same aim.In a clear reference to Iran, Putin declared in Tehran that "no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state."The five participants -- the fifth member is Turkmenistan -- put their names to a joint statement. According to the Tehran Times, the document said, among other things, "the sides agree that they will never launch a military attack against any of the littoral states [and] the sides reiterate that they will not let any country use their soil for a military attack against other littoral states."Another important decision coming out of the meeting, according to both Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was an agreement that only ships flying the flags of the five littoral states may navigate the Caspian's waters.On the issue of pipelines through which Caspian energy supplies are carried to world markets, Putin said their construction must be based on consensus among the five states.Russia has long enjoyed a regional pipeline monopoly -- and the resulting economic and political benefits -- but a U.S.-backed pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has broken that monopoly by bypassing Russia.The U.S. also supports a new pipeline project that would carry natural gas from Turkmenistan along the Caspian seabed to Baku, thus again bypassing both Russia and Iran. Russia's proposal that all five countries would have to agree before any of them can build pipelines appears intended to obstruct that plan.The Caspian group -- which met only once before, five years ago -- has now agreed to meet more regularly, with foreign ministers gathering every six months and leaders annually.The Caspian Sea is the world's largest enclosed body of water, roughly the size of Montana. Disputes persist among the littoral states over the sea's legal status, and consequently how they share its oil and other resources.