Voice of Russia
May 1, 2013
NATO transits: Hidden reefs of Caspian waterway
Nikita Sorokin
The recent proposal by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to lease the Aktau port on the Caspian coast to the United States for NATO transit shipments to and from Afghanistan has received wide media coverage. Analysts have reason to suspect that the future “transit point” may in fact become a naval base catering for U.S. and NATO needs.
WikiLeaks was the first to report about the possible Aktau deal. Later, the news was indirectly confirmed by Mangistau region governor Birzhan Kaneshev in an interview with local media. Nazarbayev’s proposal followed his meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake.
Director of the Moscow-based Foundation for Strategic Culture Andrei Areshev fears that the move might have a negative impact on the situation in the Caspian region, Central Asia and the Caucasus, above all because “as we know from similar cases in the past, the deployment of American military personnel at key transit and communications routes has thorny consequences for regional security.”
Any new military bases in the Caspian region may complicate the situation in Central Asia, echoes Dmitry Abzalov, Vice President of the Center for Strategic Communications in Moscow. “The situation may deteriorte, particularly since this is a promising oil and gas region. In addition, the base may serve as a springboard for economic projects such as, for example, a trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which may strain relations with Moscow.
Despite cooperation between the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) and NATO, such decisions should take into account the positions of all CSTO member states,” he told the Voice of Russia.
A NATO transit center in Aktau may prompt a sharp response from Tehran. Iran always reacted nervously to any U.S. or NATO presence near its borders.
There have already been signs of a rift between Iran and Azerbaijan as the latter continues to “flirt” with Western blocs. Now it looks like the Iranian-Kazakh relations may also cool down for the same reason, ruining the prospects for a multilateral agreement on the status of the Caspian Sea.
This may play into Russia’s hands as chances of a trans-Caspian oil and gas pipeline from Central Asia to Europe ever being built will get slimmer. And without that pipeline, the Nabucco project, designed to oust Russia from the European energy market, makes no sense.
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