Uzbekistan’s rapprochement with NATO marks a new commitment to cooperating with the West on security matters, but NBCentralAsia analysts say this does not run counter to Tashkent’s membership of a defence grouping of former Soviet states.

President Islam Karimov attended the NATO summit in Bucharest on April 2-4, and offered pact members the use of Uzbek territory as an overland route for supplying non-military material to Afghanistan.

The Uzbeks have attended past NATO summits - in 2002 and 2004 – but the relationship soured when Tashkent refused to accept western demands for an independent investigation into the Andijan violence of May 2005.

The Uzbek authorities ordered the closure of the United States military airbase in Khanabad and forbade the use of their airspace for military flights to Afghanistan.

As ties with NATO deteriorated, Tashkent turned towards the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, CSTO, a defence grouping of ex-Soviet states which it had hitherto viewed with some suspicion.

Karimov felt pact members did not back him up sufficiently when militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan staged armed incursions in 1999-2000. The CSTO was “of no benefit”, he said, and he declared a moratorium on his country’s participation in the bloc.

Uzbek membership of the CSTO was revived in July 2006, and the upper house of parliament formalised full membership at the end of March 2008.

The other CSTO members are Russia, three Central Asian states - Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan – plus Armenia and Belorussia.

Observers see a period of détente emerging in Tashkent’s foreign relations, and point out that this is Karimov’s first visit to Europe since Andijan

Events like the NATO meeting are important to Uzbekistan in terms of investment, technological development and security assistance, they say.

“Resuming contacts that have been frozen is to be welcomed, as it is in our national and strategic interests to cooperate with the North Atlantic alliance and with the West in general,” said Farhad Tolipov, a political analyst in Tashkent.

Uzbekistan’s proximity to Afghanistan gives it a particular interest in working towards stability for this war-torn country. Analysts say that right now, NATO is the only force in a position to cope with the tough job of combating the Taleban insurgency.

Orozbek Moldaliev, who heads the Politics, Religion and Security Centre, a regional think-tank based in Bishkek, argues that Karimov is increasingly being pushed towards the West because he needs assistance in the security and other sectors, and CSTO membership actually offers him little of any practical value.

For instance, he said, “The CSTO cannot arrange sales of weaponry at preferential prices. The former Soviet republics remain member of the grouping merely through inertia, as they can’t see any alternative to it. But there are things [other options] to consider.”

Other commentators see no contradiction between the Uzbeks remaining CSTO members while opening up to NATO. This multi-vector strategy fits well with what observers see as growing contacts between NATO and the CSTO.

Tolipov recently attended a CSTO conference in Moscow, and reports that a committee of experts is already discussing “the hypothetical possibility of future cooperation” with NATO on crisis situations and peacemaking operations.

Tashkent’s engagement with both these military and political blocs can only strengthen its position, he argues.

“The Uzbek-NATO vector of relations will serve as a kind of signal, and as a contribution to this general trend towards a rapprochement between NATO and CSTO,” said Tolipov.

(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment).

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, April 4, 2008

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