Subscribe Donate
en | fr | +
Accéder au menu
Previous article : « Silent diplomacy »
>

OSCE, in the name of peace in Europe

Kazakhstan or Eurasian geopolitics

Russia and Kazakhstan share an endless border, a language and many mutual interests. There should be no relationship crisis, yet the young central Asian republic is increasingly trying to assert its independence

by Régis Genté 

Kazakhstan has put everything into making a success of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit being held on 1 and 2 December in Astana, the new capital of this former Soviet central Asian republic. Few believed at the start of 2010 that President Nursultan Nazarbayev – whose country holds the rotating presidency – would achieve his dream of bringing representatives from the 56 member countries, including heads of state and government and foreign ministers, to the steppe heartlands.

“It’s not just about holding an open debate at the highest levels. The Eurasian community needs a new comprehensive document similar in its reach to the Helsinki Accord and the Charter of Paris” (1), Serjan Abdykarimov, director of the OSCE section of Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry recently explained to the Russian business daily Vremya Novostei  (2). (See interview on page 4 with Kanat Saudabayev).

You can’t blame Astana for trying to position itself at the centre of the international stage. That’s the way of the world. There is no point in denying Kazakhstan’s doubtless sincere desire to help solve planetary problems. This is not the place to discuss the real need for reform of an organisation which has been shaken to its foundations for several years. The Kazakh president’s determination to organise the event has as its logic a way of formulating his country’s geopolitics and of concocting an adequate foreign policy.

Abdykarimov’s use of the word “Eurasian” is quite deliberate. He is placing it in the official parlance of the young republic to articulate internal and external issues. “Eurasism”, an ideology borrowed from Russian nationalism, lies in defining a country’s identity by its “cultural geography” lying between Europe and Asia. Nazarbayev explains this in one of his books: “Kazakhstan is unique in Asia in that its European and Asian roots are interwoven… This combination of different cultures and traditions allows it to take the best from both European and Asian traditions” (3).

Used since the start of the 1990s when the country became independent, the term “Eurasism” came in response to a primordial preoccupation with Russia’s influence. At that time it was an internal issue: Nazarbayev feared Moscow’s territorial ambitions on North Kazakhstan, which has a Russian ethnic majority (4). As far as international relations go, “Eurasism” serves not just to keep big brother Russia at bay but also to form the new republic’s geopolitical ambitions, its foreign policy objectives and its official posture on the world scene.

No gestures

Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997, is the living, three-dimensional expression of this strategy. Built out of almost nothing, on what was Tselinograd – a small town founded by Nikita Khruschev as part of his colonisation of virgin territory and lost in the middle of the uninhabitable steppes – it was chosen to represent Kazakstan’s immense hinterland better than Almaty, the former capital, which lies in the far south of the country, at the opposite end from the regions where Russians live.

Astana’s architecture strives hard to be Eurasian: it’s a mosaic of buildings mixing ultramodern, all-glass towers with oriental decoration (cupolas don’t count) and Soviet-style blocks. Right in the city centre, the 97-metre Bayterek Tower is modelled on a tree of life from Kazakh folklore. Its metallic superstructure is crowned by a huge orb of golden glass. The tower is meant to represent the renaissance of the Kazakh people, and no visiting overseas leader can avoid saying a few flattering words about it.

One major trait of Nazarbayev’s foreign policy is caution towards Moscow. There is no flag-waving, and above all no provocation of the old colonial power – unlike some other leaders of former Soviet republics. Every decision taken by the Kazakh head of state seems to have a twin objective: to limit Russia’s influence without causing annoyance.

The central Asian state, of course, shares a 7,591km border with its powerful neighbour. Economic interweaving between the two countries is considerable: of the 14 Kazakh oblasts (administrative regions) seven front onto a Russian region. In some oblasts it’s hard to find any businesses which don’t treat with Moscow. Interdependence created by regional development policies during the Soviet era survives in part, sustained by an entwined communications infrastructure. Despite independence in 1990-1991, links have been maintained. On 1 July 2010 a customs union incorporating Kazakhstan, Russia and Belorussia came into operation largely thanks to Astana’s determined insistence.

An uninterrupted dialogue

What’s true of goods is also true of people. In many ways the two countries’ citizens belong to similar cultural traditions. Russian is still widely spoken by the population of 16 million, including by ethnic Kazakhs (5). From Kostanay to Almaty, Aktau to Pavlodar, the most popular tv channels are those beamed from the powerful neighbour. The written word is essentially in Russian, whether for highbrow culture, science, for information or chat. Moscow remains an actor who cannot be avoided.

So Nazarbayev wastes no opportunity to repeat that “Russian affairs are Kazakhstan’s major foreign policy priority” or to underline that exchanges are marked by a “high level of confidence” between the two states. For almost 20 years there has been constant political dialogue on all issues and an uninterrupted flow of high-level delegations. These links are to be found in political life and the institutions. The two countries’ ruling parties, Nur-Otan and United Russia, have signed their own bilateral cooperation accords.

Astana sees Moscow’s power as stemming from Kazakhstan’s heavy integration in the Russian political-economic-cultural sphere; it has also a sharp understanding of the Kremlin’s determination to protect its own interests within this vast country on its southern flank. Such “interests” are rarely expressed in public; relations between Moscow and Astana are not often threatened by crisis.

The young Kazakh republic has adopted a “multi-dimensional” foreign policy to protect its independence, a self-defence mechanism which counterbalances Russian influence with that of other powers. The Eurasian paradigm justifies ties with China, the West (the US, the EU and other European countries), Asia (Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia) and the Middle East. Kazakhstan wants to be seen as a bridge between Asia and Europe. It also pursues multilateral ambitions via the OSCE, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and so on. By such means it demonstrates a real opening up to the world.

Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is, in the final analysis, surprisingly dynamic and rounded. December’s OSCE summit is just one of many signs. The country organises numerous conferences, welcomes those who join the debate and offers its services to them. In central Asia it has positioned itself as a pole of stability, particularly after the events around 9/11 brought the region back to the centre of world geopolitics. Nazarbayev quotes Singapore and Malaysia as role models for the way they have achieved impressive economic progress.

Politics as multivector

Kazakhstan’s great good fortune is to be found beneath its soil. The world’s 16th largest exporter of crude oil could be among the top five in the next decade when the huge Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea moves into full production. But the biggest potential lies in its spread of mineral reserves – including iron ore, chromium, manganese and gold. At the end of 2009 Kazakhstan became the world’s number one producer of uranium. All of which helps Astana effect “multi-dimensional” policies with a certain dexterity.

China is already a major player in Kazakhstan’s hydrocarbons sector. An oil pipeline bearing Kazakh crude to West China was inaugurated at the end of 2005. Another pipeline, heading west under the Caspian Sea, will allow Kazakhstan’s black gold access to western markets. It is being built by a consortium of international oil companies which includes Total. These two pipelines are in addition to the ones heading north into Russia, operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and Atyrau-Samara. Aside from oil, Kazakhstan is trying to flesh out its “Eurasian” ideology by promoting road and rail transport links between west China and west Europe and by putting itself at the centre of large flows of goods.

France recently signed up to Nazarbayev’s “multi-dimensional” policy. On 6 October 2009 President Sarkozy made a fleeting visit to Astana, allowing just time enough to recognise Kazakhstan as a “strategic partner” and to sign unilateral contracts and protocols worth ?4bn. A year or so later the jelly seems to have set. Astana is negotiating contracts with France’s flagship defence industries (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, Thalès, Eurocopter) which would enable Kazakhstan’s head of state to reduce dependence on Russia by introducing an actor whose own relations with Moscow are by and large good. Ordering US or Chinese equipment would seriously irritate the Kremlin. Nazarbayev certainly plays the balance of power game with brio, helped by his immense reserves of oil, uranium and other sought-after minerals.

Whether this stance will succeed in forging a solid diplomatic basis for the young central Asian republic remains to be seen.

Régis Genté

Translated by Robert Waterhouse

Régis Genté, based in Tblisi, reports on the Caucasus and central Asia

(1The final accord of the 1975 Helsinki Conference established the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) as a permanent body. With the 1990 Charter of Paris this became the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

(2See Dominique Gentils, Les relations extérieures de Kazakhstan au tournant du XX1 siècle, elements d’analyse critique, doctoral thesis, Institut Nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris 2008.

(3Nursultan Nazarbayev, The Eurasian Union: ideas, practices, perspectives, 1994-97, Moscow, Fond sodejstvia razvitu social’nhy i politi eskyh nauk, 1997, p 27.

(4Russians represent 34.7% of the population. Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse, Les Russes du Kazakhstan.Identités nationales et nouveaux Etats dans l’espace post-soviétique, Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 2004.

(5The Kazakh language came under attack from Soviet assimilation policies for a good half-century. Its use was reduced to private conversations at home or between friends, with Russian taking its place. After independence Kazakh was made the country’s official language but Russian remains the language of the workplace and of business.

Share this article×

This message is too long for Twitter.
Facebook icon  Twitter icon