SARKOZY DEVELOPS "STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP" WITH KAZAKHSTAN
By: Roger McDermott
Jamestown Foundation
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 187
October 13, 2009 03:08 PM
On October 6 the French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Astana on
a state visit and met his counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev. During
his one day visit he also held talks with Kazakhstan’s Foreign
Minister Kanat Saudabayev and the Minister of Economics and Budget
Planning Bakhyt Sultanov. A Kazakh-French business forum coincided
with his trip, which was designed to deepen bilateral relations
(Interfax-Kazakhstan, October 6).
A wide range of issues were discussed and the 24 agreements signed
ranged from energy deals to nuclear fuel and space cooperation. Trade
deals valued at $6 billion will further boost bilateral energy
cooperation. The French energy companies Total and GDF-Suez agreed to
a 25 percent share worth $1 billion in the Russian-Kazakh Khvalinskoye
gas field, in the Caspian Sea, in partnership with Lukoil (50 percent)
and KazMunaiGas (25 percent). Significantly, a consortium of French
companies headed by Spie Capag (Vinci group) signed a draft agreement
on a pipeline between the Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea and
Baku, which will take Kazakh oil to Europe bypassing Russia. If the
negotiations prove successful, it will yield an initial 1.2 billion
Euros ($1.76 billion) for French companies.
In this context Sarkozy recognized that Kazakhstan faces genuine
problems as it pursues its "Path to Europe" policy, but he decided not
to focus on these. Instead, he preferred to promote France’s economic
interests and praise the country as a model of peace building in the
region, which was a reference to its decision to abandon the nuclear
weapons that Kazakhstan had inherited from the Soviet Union. Sarkozy
emphasized, that he had privately discussed questions of democracy
and human rights with Nazarbayev (Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, Kazakhstan
Today, October 6). However, given the importance of the bilateral
eco es going out of his way to stress how much value Paris attaches
to Kazakhstan. He characterized the country as the "giant of Central
Asia," among the "top 50 countries in the world," Paris’s "strategic"
or "privileged" partner, before adding that he will visit the country
frequently and had not arrived with an arrogant attitude, but hoped
to genuinely reach out in a spirit of cooperation. His approach
was certainly welcomed by a regime that places great emphasis upon
its image.
Sarkozy evidently also wanted to strengthen the formation of ties
between Central Asia and Afghanistan, primarily aimed at ending
the country’s economic isolation. He advocated the creation of a
regional strategy in order to work out ways in which each country
might assist in this venture. He suggested that such an approach
would benefit Afghanistan, and serve the interests of Central Asia
(Interfax-Kazakhstan, October 6). Some of these issues will be explored
through the new mechanism of a Sarkozy-Nazarbayev commission, which
has been formed in order to facilitate bilateral dialogue and retain
control over the direction of joint initiatives (Kazakhstan Today,
October 6). In terms of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the OSCE in 2010,
Sarkozy believes it might play a key role in Karabakh, Abkhazia and
South Ossetia.
Indeed, the bilateral security agenda was dominated by
Afghanistan. Sarkozy has proposed an international conference on
Afghanistan in either Kabul or Astana, in order to coordinate
greater efforts towards stabilizing the country and rebuilding
its economy. Both leaders stated that their stance on the issue
coincides; emphatically denying that there can be any military
solution to Afghanistan. Nazarbayev said: "We both believe that
there is no military solution to this problem. It is necessary to
structure the assistance so that people in Afghanistan find their
way to normal life and stop producing drug-bearing plants." Moreover,
they stressed that this issue and Iran directly affect Central Asia
security, though Nazarbayev also extended this to include Iraq and
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Interfax-Kazakhstan, October 6).
In this context the French company Thales signed a $150 million
contract to supply radios to the Kazakh army. It hopes this will lead
to a larger ($3 billi supply communications equipment to Kazakhstan’s
armed forces -a market dominated by Russian suppliers. A bilateral
military transit agreement was signed between Paris and Astana, which
will allow France to use Kazakh territory and airspace to supply its
3,070 troops deployed in Afghanistan. This will involve both lethal
and non-military supplies (Interfax-Kazakhstan, October 6).
Inadvertently, this agreement and Paris’s unique relationship with
Astana might help secure a policy objective long pursued by Washington
and London. This relates to convincing Astana to operationally deploy
peacekeepers from its peacekeeping brigade (KAZBRIG) to support the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. U.S. and
U.K. military cooperation with Kazakhstan since 2003 has focused,
among other key goals, on developing the country’s peace support
operations (PSO) capabilities, in line with its NATO Partnership
for Peace (PfP) goals (Interfax, September 25). While Washington
and London have extended such assistance to expand the battalion
to brigade strength, persuading Astana to send an element of this
force into Afghanistan has been problematic. It runs the risk of
conveying an impression that western assistance is based on expecting a
payback, while underestimating the Kazakh memory of the Soviet Union’s
humiliation in its war in Afghanistan; veterans of the Soviet-Afghan
war continue to serve within the Kazakh armed forces. To date, this
policy goal has centered on appealing to the good will of the Kazakh
government based on the possibility that KAZBRIG might achieve the
coveted accolade of being declared as NATO interoperable. Although
it has progressed towards this status during the annual Steppe Eagle
exercises conducted jointly between the U.S., U.K. and Kazakhstan,
full interoperability has not been achieved, but it is close enough
to permit a political decision to deploy abroad.
Sarkozy is now strongly placed to convince Astana to make such a bold
commitment, not only since France enjoys closer relations with Russia,
but in light of deepening Franco-Kazakh ties and more importantly
the request might be less open to misinterpretation. In any case, it
is unlikely that KAZBRIG would send more than a company, and almost
certainly it will not participate in combat operations. Nonetheless,
the prospect of Kazakh participation in force protection operations,
which would be of interest to ISAF, could also be facilitated by
Paris supporting KAZBRIG’s continued logistical weakness, using the
new bilateral military agreement as its legal mechanism.