Pentagon aims to bolster security in Caspian Sea region
Stars and Stripes (European edition)
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
By Russ Rizzo
The Department of Defense will oversee a $130 million effort in the next
six years to increase security in the volatile Caspian Sea region,
according to European Command officials coordinating the effort.
The U.S. hopes to improve patrolling on the Caspian Sea and secure
borders of countries in the area to stop the flow of terrorists, weapons
and drugs, and to stabilize a region with significant U.S. political and
business interests, officials said.
The program, called the Caspian Guard Initiative, focuses on Azerbaijan
and Kazakhstan – the two most western-leaning countries in the area that
lie on opposite sides of the sea – but could expand in future years,
said Army Lt. Col. Scott Sweetser, who helped coordinate the program for
European Command.
European Command Special Forces and contractors began training members
of Azerbaijan’s Navy last year on intercepting terrorists, drugs and
weapons trafficked on the Caspian Sea. Future training will include
border patrol, Sweetser said.
In both countries, the U.S. hopes to build command-and-control centers –
similar to the one used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – as
well as centers to direct air and maritime security operations, Sweetser
said.
The U.S. also built an interim maritime command and control center in
Baku, Azerbaijin, which it hopes to expand, Sweetser said. The U.S.
State and Energy departments also are taking part in the program.
Interest in the region developed as EUCOM officials looked at potential
threats in their area after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
Sweetser said.
`We started to look at where the threats were and realized this one was
glaringly obvious,’ Sweetser said.
Azerbaijan is a particular interest to the United States because it
shares borders with Russia to the north – with the nearby region of
Chechnya – and Iran to the south, making it potential transit point for
terrorists, Sweetser said.
`You’ve got a central point, if you drew a line between those, that make
Azerbaijan vulnerable to the movement of terrorists,’ Sweetser said.
The new interest in the region also comes as Azerbaijan situates itself
as a key player in the U.S. effort to reduce dependency on Middle East
oil. An oil pipeline running from Baku to Tbilisi, Georgia, to the
Mediterranean port city Ceyhan, Turkey, opened earlier this year and is
considered crucial to that cause, according to news reports.
EUCOM officials were quick to downplay the role of oil in the Caspian
Guard Initiative, saying that securing natural resources are only part
of the overall strategy.
`The idea is to protect regional stability,’ Sweetser said. `If you
create regional stability, it makes the security of economic
infrastructures that much [greater].’
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress