By Sergey Markedonov - Russia Profile , June 16 Kazakhstan Aspires to Take on a Key Role on the Post-Soviet Arena
No sooner was Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Kazakhstan concluded and mutual assurances of eternal friendship and strategic partnership abated, than Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a law regarding assistance in the transportation of Kazakh oil through the “Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan” system. On April 24, the plenary session of the Kazakh Senate ratified the “Treaty between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Azerbaijan on the support of and assistance in the transportation of oil from Kazakhstan across the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijani territory to international markets through the ‘Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan’ system.” This system is considered a “political pipeline,” and Moscow views participation in it almost as a challenge. Meanwhile, the project also presupposes the enhancement of the Kuryk port, from which the oil from Kazakh fields will be delivered to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan system via the Caspian Sea.
On April 24 and 25, the seventh consecutive Eurasian media forum was held in Almaty, the southern capital of Kazakhstan. Traditionally, this event, which brings together influential political analysts, experts, and diplomats from around the world, has been a presentation of Kazakhstan’s “homework assignments” in both foreign and domestic policy. The latest forum was no exception: one of the central themes became Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010. This structure exercises supervision over the settlement of conflicts in the Southern Caucasus.
An OSCE Mission has been present in South Ossetia since 1993. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is also within the organization’s “zone of responsibility,” since the Minsk Group of the OSCE handles mediation between Yerevan and Baku.
Opening the forum, President Nursultan Nazarbayev addressed the topic of resolving conflicts in the post-Soviet space: “All the existing conflicts are still going on, and there are no less threats. There are even new ones. The world is again faced with the problem of separatism, which this time has caused a crisis for the system of international law. Events in Kosovo and in Tibet have immediately entered the arsenal of tools that is used in this global geopolitical struggle.” Thus Kazakhstan is clearly declaring that it is ready to come to the OSCE not just as a mute actor with a reactive foreign policy, but as a state that has its own perceptions of how to stabilize the ethno-political situation in Eurasia.
This is not the first time that the president of Kazakhstan has expressed such an interest. Even during the existence of the Soviet Union, Nazarbayev offered mediation efforts in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In September of 1991, the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, together with Nazarbayev visited the region of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Following the visit, a joint statement by the leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan was signed on September 23, 1991 in Zheleznovodsk, with representatives from the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic participating as observers. The objectives of this "Zheleznovodsk communiqué" were stabilizing the situation in the region, returning deported people to their places of residence, releasing hostages, accommodating information gathering groups of representatives from Russia and Kazakhstan in the conflict zone, and ensuring that objective information about the situation is available. In 1991, Nazarbayev’s mediation mission did not succeed.But even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan aspired (and still does) to take on the role of one of the integrators of the post-Soviet arena. Such intentions have quite a pragmatic basis. The favorite subject of Kazakhstan's foreign policy after 1991 is a diversified course, sustaining stable relationships with the big players (Russia, United States, the EU) as well as with individual ex-Soviet states. Pragmatism is more important than ideology for such a foreign policy. On the one hand, Kazakhstan constantly declares its commitment to friendship and strategic partnership with Russia. On the other hand, during the Istanbul OSCE Summit in late 1999, Kazakh authorities documented their "interest" in participating in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan "political pipeline," the very existence of which causes lasting heartburn for Staraya and Smolenskaya Squares. In Astana, participation in the "Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline" is seen as a manifestation of a multilateral foreign policy. [...]
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