 |
KYRGYZSTAN: BETWEEN RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN
DENIS KIM,
Expert of the Eurasia Heritage Foundation, Moscow
On June 2 at the Second Meeting of the Kyrgyz Citizens the Kyrgyz opposition leader Felix Kulov advanced an initiative to create the confederation of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Former prime-minister Felix Kulov believes that the new confederation should unite the Kyrgyz and Russian peoples, strengthen their integration and unite political and economic spaces of the two countries. The plan envisages common budget and customs policy, single currency and even common parliament. “Kyrgyz citizens living and working in Russia strengthen its economy and help their fellow-countrymen. The people have “voted” with their actions for the union with Russia. Now we should formalize it”, reported Kulov.
Kulov’s confederation project does not sound realistic and at present it cannot be implemented for the following reasons:
-
the lack of the completed and elaborated in detail confederation project;
-
the territorial distance, the lack of the common frontier between Kyrgyzstan and Russia;
-
in the Kyrgyz government prevail the “southern” clans that are more nationalist and back up “their protégé”, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev who sticks to another integration project (see the text below).
Hence, the new opposition’s initiative should be regarded as a populist measure aimed at consolidating its new political platform after the April events and intended for the pro-Russian voters. Suggesting this project Kulov might remind Moscow of himself and hoped to enlist its support. Recently he has visited Moscow and has met First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.
The crucial thing is that former Premier Kulov is paving the way for the autumn opposition’s actions. This is being done in a safe way and meets the main opposition’s demands. They are going to submit three issues to the referendum, namely, creation of the union with Russia, early presidential elections, dissolution and re-election of the parliament. Evidently, the latter two issues are of paramount importance to the opposition. If the referendum does not take place, the opposition will have new grievances. Such a scenario is the most likely to happen since all the previous similar actions ended in signatures collection. For instance, at the end of 2005 human rights activist Topchubek Turgunaliyev, who came out against the parliament’s dissolution, collected the required 300 thousand signatures, but the half of them was declared invalid. Apart from that, Felix Kulov stated that “if the parliament does not support the people’s initiative about Kyrgyzstan’s uniting with Russia, in autumn we start collecting signatures for its dissolution”.
No wonder that the other integration project “Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan” is more feasible - the successful economic development of Kazakhstan because of the high hydrocarbon prices allowed the Kazakh elite to pursue the economic expansion policy towards its neighbors. The Kazakh business is acquiring property in Kyrgyzstan. The share of the Kazakh investments in the Kyrgyz economy already totals 60%. Moreover, Kazakhstan said that it was going to invest in the construction of the Kambaratinsk hydropower plants-1 and hydropower plant-2, in spite of the fact that in this February Bishkek and Moscow discussed the joint construction and financing of this energy facility. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev promised that his country was ready to allocate $100 million to Kyrgyzstan. A month ago, when meeting with Kurmanbek Bakiyev Nursultan Nazarbayev brought forward the initiative to create the Central Asian States Union and suggested following the principles of EU organization. The Kyrgyz President welcomed that idea. “As the Kyrgyz President I support this initiative. I believe that if Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan create such a union in Central Asia, which would strengthen the economic and political relations and security, the Kyrgyz and Kazakh peoples will only gain from it”, said Bakiyev. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz Presidents have adopted the declarations on intentions as well as established the two supreme supranational governmental bodies – the Supreme Intergovernmental Council of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and the Council of Foreign Ministers of the two countries.
By the way, the scholars of the Russian Institute for Economic Strategies – Central Asia, and the Kyrgyz experts, who have developed the “Strategic Matrix of Kyrgyzstan”, believe that in the future Kazakhstan may influence Kyrgyzstan. They think that it is one of the main ways of Kyrgyzstan’s strategic development. This is in many respects due to the fact that those republics are close to each other geographically, ethnically and mentally. At the same time the experts agree that the project is not viable left as it is. Of course, Kazakhstan has better opportunities that Kyrgyzstan does, but even its potential is small, if to take it globally.
The developers of Kyrgyzstan’s “matrix” have concluded 5 major scenarios.
-
Kyrgyzstan is influenced by Kazakhstan;
-
Kyrgyzstan is influenced by China;
-
“flexible course” implying that the official Bishkek will follow the multi-vector foreign policy;
-
“Euroatlantic choice”, Kyrgyzstan is influenced by the more economically developed states;
-
“Euroasian integration”, Kyrgyzstan with the other Central Asian countries forms a large geopolitical alliance, like the European states become more influential on the international scene owing to their membership in the EU.
The Russian political elites have to pay attention to the fact that there is no scenario of Kyrgyzstan entering Russia’s sphere of influence.
June 9, 2007
|
|
|
