Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 6, 2008
Pg. 10
By David L. Stern
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that America was not playing a “zero-sum game” with the Kremlin to pry resource-rich former Communist states from Russia’s influence.
Stopping in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan after a one-day trip to India, Ms. Rice also rejected the idea that any country exercised “a special sphere of influence” in the region.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, who said in August that Moscow had “privileged interests” in areas formerly in its domain, visited Kazakhstan just two weeks before Ms. Rice. Vice President Dick Cheney visited the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine in early September.
“Kazakhstan is an independent country. It can have friendships with whomever it wishes,” Ms. Rice said in answer to a question about whether the United States was trying to steal Russia’s allies. Her comments, at a news conference in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, were posted on the State Department Web site.
Later, after meeting with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, Marat Tazhin, Ms. Rice said, “This is not some kind of contest for the affection of Kazakhstan between the countries of the region.”
Mr. Tazhin, whose boss, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has performed a delicate balancing act among the world’s major powers and whose country holds enormous oil and gas reserves, said Kazakhstan enjoyed good relationships with both Russia and the United States. Relations with Moscow are “very politically correct,” he said.
Ms. Rice’s statements came against a backdrop of heightened tension between the United States and Russia, along with growing indications that the balance of power among the former Soviet republics may be tilting toward the Kremlin.
Besides Russia’s emphatic show of military strength in its short war with Georgia nearly two months ago, the Kremlin has broadened its assertiveness and made further significant inroads in strategic control of energy.
During an official visit to Uzbekistan last month, Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister and former president, completed an agreement to buy Uzbekistan’s natural gas output at market prices — assuring that the Kremlin would preserve its access to the country’s extensive reserves.
At the same time, Kazakh and Uzbek officials agreed to build a gas pipeline to feed into the Russian pipeline system, a setback for Western hopes to transport Central Asian gas to Europe by way of a route bypassing Russia. Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has abandoned plans to build an oil terminal in Georgia, which would have helped that country’s economy revive from the war with Russia.
In addition, Russia has offered to buy all natural gas from Azerbaijan, another former Soviet republic with large hydrocarbon reserves coveted by Europe and the United States. If President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan agrees to the Kremlin’s terms, it could further diminish Western influence in the region and possibly doom the proposed Nabucco pipeline, which the Europeans had hoped would help wean them from dependence on gas from Russia.
October 6, 2008
Pg. 10
By David L. Stern
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that America was not playing a “zero-sum game” with the Kremlin to pry resource-rich former Communist states from Russia’s influence.
Stopping in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan after a one-day trip to India, Ms. Rice also rejected the idea that any country exercised “a special sphere of influence” in the region.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, who said in August that Moscow had “privileged interests” in areas formerly in its domain, visited Kazakhstan just two weeks before Ms. Rice. Vice President Dick Cheney visited the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine in early September.
“Kazakhstan is an independent country. It can have friendships with whomever it wishes,” Ms. Rice said in answer to a question about whether the United States was trying to steal Russia’s allies. Her comments, at a news conference in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, were posted on the State Department Web site.
Later, after meeting with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, Marat Tazhin, Ms. Rice said, “This is not some kind of contest for the affection of Kazakhstan between the countries of the region.”
Mr. Tazhin, whose boss, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has performed a delicate balancing act among the world’s major powers and whose country holds enormous oil and gas reserves, said Kazakhstan enjoyed good relationships with both Russia and the United States. Relations with Moscow are “very politically correct,” he said.
Ms. Rice’s statements came against a backdrop of heightened tension between the United States and Russia, along with growing indications that the balance of power among the former Soviet republics may be tilting toward the Kremlin.
Besides Russia’s emphatic show of military strength in its short war with Georgia nearly two months ago, the Kremlin has broadened its assertiveness and made further significant inroads in strategic control of energy.
During an official visit to Uzbekistan last month, Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister and former president, completed an agreement to buy Uzbekistan’s natural gas output at market prices — assuring that the Kremlin would preserve its access to the country’s extensive reserves.
At the same time, Kazakh and Uzbek officials agreed to build a gas pipeline to feed into the Russian pipeline system, a setback for Western hopes to transport Central Asian gas to Europe by way of a route bypassing Russia. Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has abandoned plans to build an oil terminal in Georgia, which would have helped that country’s economy revive from the war with Russia.
In addition, Russia has offered to buy all natural gas from Azerbaijan, another former Soviet republic with large hydrocarbon reserves coveted by Europe and the United States. If President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan agrees to the Kremlin’s terms, it could further diminish Western influence in the region and possibly doom the proposed Nabucco pipeline, which the Europeans had hoped would help wean them from dependence on gas from Russia.