Eurasia Week in Review - June 27, 2014

06/27/14
Sammie Ibrahim
Central Eurasia
Military, Human Rights, Counternarcotics

This week NATO announced stronger ties with Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan received more support for its counternarcotics program. Several events this week highlighted the dismal human rights situation in Central Asia, while several Central Eurasian states continued to announce new security cooperation efforts with various partners. Read these top news stories and other highlights from Central Eurasia below.

  • NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced NATO will offer Georgia a “substantive package” of measures to strengthen cooperation. Although it is unclear what the “package” will include, Rasmussen stated: “We will work on that package in close collaboration with Georgia from now until the summit. So I regret to say that I’m not able to outline the specific elements of that package at this stage. It will be elaborated on…from now until the summit.” Reuters reported the package could comprise closer political cooperation, training for the Georgian military, and strengthening NATO’s liaison office in Georgia. 

In addition, Rasmussen stated that NATO’s September summit in Wales would not address the question of granting Georgia a Membership Action Plan (MAP) much to the disappointment of Georgian officials. Josh Kucera in a blog post for The Bug Pit highlights some of the reasons why Georgia will not receive a MAP this September.

The strengthening of ties with Georgia came in light of Rasmussen’s calls for NATO to better deal with Russia’s “new, different type of warfare.” The Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security addressed these new security concerns in a new report released this week. As the report recommends, “In this new strategic context, in order to remain a credible Alliance and a relevant platform for transatlantic security cooperation, NATO must seize the moment to realign its priorities toward a renewed focus on collective defense and deterrence.”

Georgia also signed a membership agreement with the European Union and approved a new, more robust, national military strategy in response to Russian military aggression in Ukraine.

  • Kyrgyzstan launched a comprehensive counternarcotic action plan with the help of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the U.S. State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL). Russia, in conjunction with the UNODC, also announced it would provide $18 million to address illicit drug trafficking. Meanwhile, law enforcement authorities in Uzbekistan seized some 1.3 tons of drugs earlier this week, underscoring the challenges Central Asia continues to face with the illicit drug trade.
  • The leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both marked their 25th year in power. Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan ascended to power before the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are the only Soviet-era leaders still in power among the former Soviet states. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan continue to have some of the worst human rights records in the world, according to Freedom House and Human Rights Watch.

Uzbekistan once again received the lowest possible rating from the U.S. State Department in its annual report on human trafficking, released earlier this week. This ranking allows the U.S. to introduce certain sanctions against Uzbekistan, although  it continues to receive millions of dollars in military aid from theUnited States.

Joshua Kucera in a New York Times op-ed , writes that the arbitrary arrest and detention of a PhD student in Tajikistan on June 16 has raised concerns over the use of U.S. military assistance and training for Tajik security forces.

  • Kyrgyzstan ratified a Memorandum of Understanding with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to implement the program on small arms and light weapons and stockpiles of conventional ammunition.
  • The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) announced it would conduct further work combatting terrorism, separatism, extremism,  drug trafficking and weapons proliferation. The SCO is a political, economic, and military organization made up of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
  • The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) announced it will set up a cyber incident response center to address cybersecurity threats. CSTO is a military alliance between Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
  • The Kazakh Senate ratified an agreement on a security cooperation deal with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan that was signed in 2010.
  • A U.S.-funded maritime operations center opened in Georgia on June 24. The U.S. Ambassador to Georgia stated that the center will “enable the Georgian government and us, working in partnership, to have a full picture of what is going on in the immediate Black Sea region, as a way of enhancing security and maritime awareness in this region.”