UZBEKISTAN: A TURN TO THE WEST?
ALEKSANDR SHUSTOV

en.fondsk.ru
15.06.2009
Eurasia

The establishment of the Collective Forces of Operative Response (CFOR)
was proposed by Russia in the wake of the "five-day" war with Georgia
in August of 2008. In September of 2008 the heads of state of the
Organization of the Treaty for Collective Security (OTCS), Russia,
Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
stated their resolve to develop military and technical cooperation
and ensure security inside "the zone of their responsibility and its
close vicinity." Russia was prepared to provide the major part of the
20-thousand strong CFOR group, namely an airborne division and landing
troops (about 8,000 troops altogether) while Kazakhstan pledged to
supply about 4,000 landing troops. Other OTCS member-states were to
deliver a battalion each. The OTCS had the CFOR of 10 battalions
amounting to about 7,000 troops and the Russian aircraft group at
Kirghizia’s airbase of Kant (10 aircraft and 14 helicopters).

Aside from the CFOR Russia plans to set up a powerful army group in
the Central Asia, whose core is going to be the mobile OTCS force. This
group should protect the strategic Central Asian direction along with
the already formed Russian-Belorussian group at the Western, and the
Russian-Armenian group – at the Caucasian directions. Unlike CFOR
with its descent and special force units, the OTCF group in Central
Asia will be made up of complete army units, including armoured and
artillery units and the Caspian Sea naval force. At times of peace
the troops ill be stationed at their permanent locations, and when
facing the threat of armed conflicts they would be delivered to this
or that OTCS member-state. However, the creation of the CFOR to say
nothing of a powerful army group in Central Asia has been blocked
by Uzbekistan’s stance: without finally withdrawing from the OTCS
it predetermined its special position in the organization. At the
stage of working out an agreement on the establishment of the CFOR
Uzbekistan stated that it would not be a permanent part of the CFOR,
limiting itself by operations it would be interested in. According
to an Interfax press-release of June 4th that cited "a top-level
military and diplomatic source in "Moscow", Tashkent had submitted
four principal conditions of its participation in the OTCS mobile
force, namely: a consensus rather than a majority vote on their
use; dispatching the CFOR units to the member-states exclusively on
condition that that does not contradict their national law; a ban on
the use of CFOR units for the settlement of conflicts between the
OTCS member-states, and a preliminary ratification of an agreement
on its establishment by parliaments of all member-states.

Thus it may be construed that Uzbekistan is concerned over the
potential use of CFOR against it in the event of its conflict with
one of its CIS neighbours, a potentiality of such a conflict in
the conditions of the possible contradictions over the use of water
resources of trans-border rivers and a lack of regulation of border
problems between Uzbekistan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan cannot be ruled
out. As for the fourth condition, the use of CFOR units only after the
ratification of the agreement on their establishment by parliaments
of all the OTCS member-states, it can bury the idea of the Collective
force right at its inception.

Simultaneously with the stalling the CFOR project Uzbekistan has
begun to extend its relations with the United States curtailed after
the crackdown on an armed riots in Andijan in May of 2005.

Uzbekistan-US relations began to be restored as early as 2008. The
2008 annual report of the US Department of State on terrorism said "the
United States made steps aimed to restore close ties with Uzbekistan",
whose government in turn "made certain steps with an eye at resuming
counter-terrorist cooperation with the USA." The report also identified
the reason Americans became more attentive to Uzbekistan: that try is
"one of the major transport corridors for the delivery of military
cargoes to the army contingent in Afghanistan." Washington was also
urged to accelerate its getting closer to Uzbekistan by the pending
closure of the airbase Manas, the agreements on the use of which
Kirghizia denounced in March of 2009.

The USA views Uzbekistan as both a transit corridor for the transport
of cargoes to Afghanistan and as a potential site for the deployment
of its military base. According to Geoffrey Mankoff, a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations Washington ha already contacted
Tashkent on the issue of deployment its military base in Uzbekistan. As
Mankoff writes, the American presence in Central Asia has already begun
expanding. In view with the growing instability in Pakistan "US troops
have been deployed on a greater and greater basis in the post-Soviet
Middle Asia as an alternative route for delivered to Afghanistan." A
few days before that the press service of the Uzbekistan’s president
doled out information about I.Karimov’s meeting with Richard Norland,
US Ambassador to Uzbekistan at his residence Oskaroi. It also became
known that the USA and Uzbekistan reached an agreement on the use of
the Navoi airport "for the commercial transit of non-combat cargoes
to Afghanistan."

By way of demonstrating its disinterestedness in enhancing the military
component of the Organization of the Treaty for Collective Security
(OTCS) where Russia predominates, Tashkent is getting prepared to
not only a military confrontation with Kirghizia and Tajikistan,
but also to the role of a new US stronghold in "Greater Middle Asia."