Asia-Plus (Tajik) news agency, Dushanbe
Aug 11 2008

Tajik expert describes S Ossetia crisis as conflict over "Caucasian
oil"

Dushanbe, 11 August: The conflict in South Ossetia is an explicit
confrontation between Russia and the USA, which boils down to a
geopolitical struggle for the Caucasian oil, a Tajik political expert,
Abdughaffor Kamol, believes.

In an interview with Asia-Plus, he noted that after repeated
concessions in different regions of the world, Russia does not want to
be defeated in a large geopolitical dispute with the USA near its
borders.

"And the USA will reply by looking for new vulnerable spots in the
Caucasian region, for instance, in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechnya
or Nagornyy Karabakh, and Russia will lean on its allies like Iran and
China. The developments with regard to the South Ossetian conflict may
prompt Russia to give its consent to Iran’s and India’s membership of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the near future," Kamol
noted.

Kamol also expressed his concern over yesterday’s discussion between
Russia’s [permanent] representative [to the UN], Vitaliy Churkin, and
the USA’s representative [to the UN], Zalmay Khalilzad, who, as he put
it, held the discussion with a tone alien to diplomats.

In the expert’s view, it is always ordinary people who suffer as a
result of such disagreements between superpowers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress