Politics
Russia Facing Resistance With Allies On CIS’s Southern Flank
Reading Time: 5 minutesRussias relations with the three states that make up the southern flank of the Commonwealth Of Independent States — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan — have suffered severe setbacks of late.
By Bruce Pannier
Russia’s relations with the three states that make up the southern flank of the Commonwealth Of Independent States — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan — have suffered severe setbacks of late.
Uzbekistan has annoyed the Kremlin by scaling back its participation in Russian-led security organizations, and by passing a customs law that promises to heavily tax Russian companies involved in production-sharing agreements that deal with the export of Uzbek natural gas.
Tajikistan wants Russia to pay rent on military bases Kremlin forces have used since the closing days of World War II and recent incidents involving some of those Russian troops have angered Tajik communities.
Turkmenistan is unhappy with the state of its natural-gas dealings with Moscow and is awaiting the reopening of a key gas pipeline that exploded in early April and for which it blames Russia’s Gazprom.
It came as only a mild surprise, then, to learn that the presidents of the three countries would not be attending an October 9 CIS summit in Chisinau, Moldova. They will be joining fellow Central Asian state Kazakhstan in sending lower-level delegations.
The absence of the Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen presidents has led to speculation that they may be sending a defiant message to Russia, which dominates the regional grouping, and has added to the pall already cast on the summit.
The decision not to attend by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev — who is perhaps the biggest booster of the CIS, after Russia — came as a complete surprise in Astana and his office offered no explanation for the move.
Georgia, which formally withdrew from the post-Soviet grouping this past summer, will not be represented at the summit.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reportedly has no plans on meeting on the sidelines of the summit with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, putting the spotlight on tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.
Troubles With Uzbekistan
Of the three states that make up the CIS’s southern flank, Russia’s biggest problem this year has been with Uzbekistan.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who has frequently missed CIS summits over the years, has long been known for resisting the encroachment of Russian influence and for his efforts to bolster his own country’s regional influence.
The most glaring recent example of discord in the Uzbek-Russian relationship is Uzbekistan’s abrupt reduction of participation in the Russian-led CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). During recent CSTO training exercises, Tashkent declined to send any troops.
Matthew Clements, Eurasia analyst at the London-based IHS Jane’s Information Group, explains that Tashkent has not welcomed Moscow’s plans to create a special CSTO counterterrorism force.
"We’ve seen it [Uzbekistan] very much take a back foot on the CSTO front, whereby Russian desires to create a regional rapid reaction force in Central Asia has been met with a very frosty reception by Uzbekistan, who have toned down the agreement that was signed earlier in the year," Clements says.
Clements refers to a CSTO rapid-reaction force agreement that Tashkent did sign in February. But Uzbekistan has since voiced objections to putting its troops under CSTO command, as fellow members (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan) have agreed to do. Tashkent’s most publicized worry is that its troops could be misused in resolving "frozen conflicts."
Clements noted in a recent interview that, aside from the CSTO, Uzbekistan is also scaling back participation in another multilateral organization heavily influenced by the Kremlin — the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
"Indeed, just a couple of days ago, [Tashkent] announced it was going to sit out the upcoming SCO military exercises, both of which are pushed quite strongly by Russia as a way of maintaining its military influence in Central Asia," Clements says.
Curious Timing
Uzbekistan has also sent a stern trade message to Moscow. In late August, Uzbekistan’s parliament passed legislation imposing an excise tax of 25 percent on the customs costs of natural gas for "nonresident" participants in production-sharing agreements (PSA).
There are three PSAs dealing with Uzbekistan’s energy sector — all of them multimillion-dollar projects. In two, Uzbekistan’s sole partner is Russia’s LUKoil, while in the other LUKoil joins four Asian energy companies.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s official reason for not attending the CIS summit is that he will be in Turkmenistan, where he will meet with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
But the curious timing of the meeting — during which the two presidents are expected to discuss Turkmen electricity supplies to Tajikistan, which has experienced power outages the last two winters — highlights signs of a increasingly frosty mood in Dushanbe’s dealings with Moscow.
Much has been made about the Tajikistan’s approval this week of a law that dropped Russian as an official language in the country, while designating Tajik as the sole "language for interethnic communication."
The new law, which states that all official papers and education in the country should be conducted only in the Tajik language, prompted a Russian diplomat to warn this week that the law could negatively affect minorities in living in Tajikistan.
But a Russian military base in Tajikistan is a main source of tension.
Representing the best-trained and best-equipped fighting force in Central Asia, the Russian 201st Division has had a presence in Tajikistan for decades. It was of great comfort to the Tajik government during the 1992-97 Tajik civil war and when the Taliban started operating just across the Tajik border.
But seeing NATO and U.S. forces paying high rent prices for bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan needed for the Afghan war effort, and Russia paying rent for its military base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, Dushanbe is setting terms for the 201st Division’s continued use of its base, including the payment of rent.
‘Please Pay For It’
Zafar Mirzoev, an independent Tajik political analyst, explained in an interview with RFE/RL’s Tajik Service the mindset behind Dushanbe’s demands.
"I think Russia has no choice but to accept the conditions put forward by our government," Mirzoev says. "When you see the forces of NATO increasing — doubling, tripling — on the opposite side of theAmu-Darya…Russia wants to maintain its presence and strengthen it. And we should say, ‘Brother, if you want to use [our soil], please pay for it.’ "
The rent demand comes at an especially sensitive time for the 201st. In September, two of the division’s soldiers killed a taxi driver and dumped his body in a Tajik river. The soldiers had reportedly argued earlier with a different taxi driver and allegedly decided to get revenge on any taxi driver.
Just days later, a truck from the 201st collided with a minibus. Five people were killed in the crash, including three civilians, but soldiers of the 201st are not subject to Tajik law and thus cannot be prosecuted. Any punishment handed down to the soldiers involved will be determined by the division’s Russian command.
Turkmenistan is not a full member of the CIS, having "associate member" status, but its president’s absence at the summit is notable.
As he hosts his Tajik counterpart, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov will also be awaiting the resolution of a number of issues with Moscow.
Ashgabat and Russia are experiencing severe problems related to their natural-gas agreements. Turkmenistan usually supplies between 40 to 50 billion cubic meters of gas to Russia annually.
Last year, when world gas prices hit record highs, Russia’s Gazprom moved to corner the Central Asian gas market, promising to pay the Central Asians "European prices." European prices for gas when contracts were signed exceeded $300 per 1,000 cubic meters. Now the price is somewhere around $200 and falling, prompting Gazprom to advise the Central Asians to lower their selling prices.
Turkmenistan strongly disagreed. During subsequent and touchy price negotiations, an explosion along the gas pipeline carrying Turkmen gas to Russia halted Turkmen exports.
Russia blamed Turkmenistan’s aged pipeline system for the early April explosion. But the Turkmen government blamed Gazprom, saying the Russian energy giant had reduced the flow of gas in Russia without informing Turkmenistan. Gas continued to fill the pipeline until it exploded due to the pressure, according to the Turkmen argument.
Gazprom officials now say the pipeline might start working again at the end of October or early November. But Berdymukhammedov might be waiting to see those promises realized before keeping close company with the Russian president.
Berdymukhammedov recently extended an invitation to Medvedev to visit Turkmenistan in December, officially for the opening of a Russian school there. Perhaps by then the contentious energy issues will be resolved.
A new football club has earned a leading place in the UEFA Champions League groups and starred in the headlines of worldwide football news yesterday. The Football Club Sheriff Tiraspol claimed a win with the score 2-1 against Real Madrid on the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. That made Sheriff Tiraspol the leader in Group D of the Champions League, including the football club in the groups of the most important European interclub competition for the first time ever.
International media outlets called it a miracle, a shock and a historic event, while strongly emphasizing the origin of the team and the existing political conflict between the two banks of the Dniester. “Football club from a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Moldova pulls off one of the greatest upsets in Champions League history,” claimed the news portals. “Sheriff crushed Real!” they said.
Moldovans made a big fuss out of it on social media, splitting into two groups: those who praised the team and the Republic of Moldova for making history and those who declared that the football club and their merits belong to Transnistria – a problematic breakaway region that claims to be a separate country.
Both groups are right and not right at the same time, as there is a bunch of ethical, political, social and practical matters that need to be considered.
Is it Moldova?
First of all, every Moldovan either from the right or left bank of Dniester (Transnistria) is free to identify himself with this achievement or not to do so, said Vitalie Spranceana, a sociologist, blogger, journalist and urban activist. According to him, boycotting the football club for being a separatist team is wrong.
At the same time, “it’s an illusion to think that territory matters when it comes to football clubs,” Spranceana claimed. “Big teams, the ones included in the Champions League, have long lost their connection both with the countries in which they operate, and with the cities in which they appeared and to which they linked their history. […] In the age of globalized commercial football, teams, including the so-called local ones, are nothing more than global traveling commercial circuses, incidentally linked to cities, but more closely linked to all sorts of dirty, semi-dirty and cleaner cash flows.”
What is more important in this case is the consistency, not so much of citizens, as of politicians from the government who have “no right to celebrate the success of separatism,” as they represent “the national interests, not the personal or collective pleasures of certain segments of the population,” believes the political expert Dionis Cenusa. The victory of FC Sheriff encourages Transnistrian separatism, which receives validation now, he also stated.
“I don’t know how it happens that the “proud Moldovans who chose democracy”, in their enthusiasm for Sheriff Tiraspol’s victory over Real Madrid, forget the need for total and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria!” declared the journalist Vitalie Ciobanu.
Nowadays, FC Sheriff Tiraspol has no other choice than to represent Moldova internationally. For many years, the team used the Moldovan Football Federation in order to be able to participate in championships, including international ones. That is because the region remains unrecognised by the international community. However, the club’s victory is presented as that of Transnistria within the region, without any reference to the Republic of Moldova, its separatist character being applied in this case especially.
Is it a victory?
In fact, FC Sheriff Tiraspol joining the Champions League is a huge image breakthrough for the Transnistrian region, as the journalist Madalin Necsutu claimed. It is the success of the Tiraspol Club oligarchic patrons. From the practical point of view, FC Sheriff Tiraspol is a sports entity that serves its own interests and the interests of its owners, being dependent on the money invested by Tiraspol (but not only) oligarchs.
Here comes the real dilemma: the Transnistrian team, which is generously funded by money received from corruption schemes and money laundering, is waging an unequal fight with the rest of the Moldovan football clubs, the journalist also declared. The Tiraspol team is about to raise 15.6 million euro for reaching the Champions League groups and the amounts increase depending on their future performance. According to Necsutu, these money will go directly on the account of the club, not to the Moldovan Football Federation, creating an even bigger gab between FC Sheriff and other football clubs from Moldova who have much more modest financial possibilities.
“I do not see anything useful for Moldovan football, not a single Moldovan player is part of FC Sheriff Tiraspol. I do not see anything beneficial for the Moldovan Football Federation or any national team.”
Is it only about football?
FC Sheriff Tiraspol, with a total estimated value of 12.8 million euros, is controlled by Victor Gusan and Ilya Kazmala, being part of Sheriff Holding – a company that controls the trade of wholesale, retail food, fuels and medicine by having monopolies on these markets in Transnistria. The holding carries out car trading activities, but also operates in the field of construction and real estate. Gusan’s people also hold all of the main leadership offices in the breakaway region, from Parliament to the Prime Minister’s seat or the Presidency.
The football club is supported by a holding alleged of smuggling, corruption, money laundering and organised crime. Moldovan media outlets published investigations about the signals regarding the Sheriff’s holding involvement in the vote mobilization and remuneration of citizens on the left bank of the Dniester who participated in the snap parliamentary elections this summer and who were eager to vote for the pro-Russian socialist-communist bloc.
Considering the above, there is a great probability that the Republic of Moldova will still be represented by a football club that is not identified as being Moldovan, being funded from obscure money, growing in power and promoting the Transnistrian conflict in the future as well.
Photo: unknown
Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilita, together with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicu Popescu, pay an official visit to Brussels, between September 27-28, being invited by High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles.
Today, Prime Minister had a meeting with Charles Michel, President of the European Council. The Moldovan PM thanked the senior European official for the support of the institution in strengthening democratic processes, reforming the judiciary and state institutions, economic recovery and job creation, as well as increasing citizens’ welfare. Natalia Gavrilita expressed her confidence that the current visit laid the foundations for boosting relations between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union, so that, in the next period, it would be possible to advance high-level dialogues on security, justice and energy. Officials also exchanged views on priorities for the Eastern Partnership Summit, to be held in December.
“The EU is open to continue to support the Republic of Moldova and the ambitious reform agenda it proposes. Moldova is an important and priority partner for us,” said Charles Michel.
Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita also met with Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economy, expressing her gratitude for the support received through the OMNIBUS macro-financial assistance program. The two officials discussed the need to advance the recovery of money from bank fraud, to strengthen sustainable mechanisms for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in Moldova, and to standardize the customs and taxes as one of the main conditions for deepening cooperation with the EU in this field.
Additionally, Prime Minister spoke about the importance of the Eastern Partnership and the Deep Free Trade Agreement, noting that the Government’s policies are aimed at developing an economic model aligned with the European economic model, focused on digitalization, energy efficiency and the green economy.
A common press release of the Moldovan Prime Minister with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission, Josep Borrell Fontelles, took place today, where the agenda of Moldova’s reforms and the main priorities to focus on in the coming months were presented: judiciary reform; fighting COVID-19 pandemic; promoting economic recovery and conditions for growth and job creation; strengthening state institutions and resilience of the country.
“I am here to relaunch the dialogue between my country and the European Union. Our partnership is strong, but I believe there is room for even deeper cooperation and stronger political, economic and sectoral ties. I am convinced that this partnership is the key to the prosperity of our country and I hope that we will continue to strengthen cooperation.”
The Moldovan delegation met Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Justice. Tomorrow, there are scheduled common meetings with Oliver Varhelyi, European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Adina Valean, European Commissioner for Transport and Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy.
Prime Minister will also attend a public event, along with Katarina Mathernova, Deputy Director-General for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.
Photo: gov.md
Politics
Promo-LEX about Maia Sandu’s UN speech: The president must insist on appointing a rapporteur to monitor the situation of human rights in Transnistria
The President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, pays an official visit to New York, USA, between September 21-22. There, she participates in the work of the United Nations General Assembly. According to a press release of the President’s Office, the official will deliver a speech at the tribune of the United Nations.
In this context, the Promo-LEX Association suggested the president to request the appointment of a special rapporteur in order to monitor the situation of human rights in the Transnistrian region. According to Promo-LEX, the responsibility for human rights violations in the Transnistrian region arises as a result of the Russian Federation’s military, economic and political control over the Tiraspol regime.
“We consider it imperative to insist on the observance of the international commitments assumed by the Russian Federation regarding the withdrawal of the armed forces and ammunition from the territory of the country,” the representatives of Promo-LEX stated. They consider the speech before the UN an opportunity “to demand the observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Russian Federation with reference to this territory which is in its full control.”
“It is important to remember about the numerous cases of murder, torture, ill-treatment, forced enlistment in illegal military structures, the application of pseudo-justice in the Transnistrian region, all carried out under the tacit agreement of the Russian Federation. These findings stem from dozens of rulings and decisions issued by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Russia is responsible for human rights violations in the region.”
The association representatives expressed their hope that the president of the country would give priority to issues related to the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region and would call on relevant international actors to contribute to guaranteeing fundamental human rights and freedoms throughout Moldova.
They asked Maia Sandu to insist on the observance of the obligation to evacuate the ammunition and the military units of the Russian Federation from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, to publicly support the need for the Russian Federation to implement the ECtHR rulings on human rights violations in the Transnistrian region, and to request the appointment of an UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova.
**
The Promo-LEX Association concluded that 14 out of 25 actions planned within the National Action Plan for the years 2018–2022 concerning respecting human rights in Transnistria were not carried out by the responsible authorities.
The association expressed its concern and mentioned that there are a large number of delays in the planned results. “There is a lack of communication and coordination between the designated institutions, which do not yet have a common vision of interaction for the implementation of the plan.”
Promo-LEX requested the Government of the Republic of Moldova to re-assess the reported activities and to take urgent measures, “which would exclude superficial implementation of future activities and increase the level of accountability of the authorities.”
Photo: peacekeeping.un.org
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