Eight countries from the Middle East and Central Asia met in Prague on Friday to push along plans for the Nabucco pipeline. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Egypt signed the agreement while Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan insisted there were more issues to be addressed. Turkmenistan is sending a delegation to Brussels in June for another meeting on the infamous Southern Corridor. At this point, it might as well be the fountain of youth as the Central Asian states play hard to get, waiting for the best deal possible as their economies stagnate.

After the recent unexplained explosion of a gas pipeline between Russia and Turkmenistan, each side has been accusing the other of blowing it up. After all the words exchanged, Turkmenistan has taken action by signing a major agreement with the German energy giant Rheinisch-Westfaelische Elektrizitaetswerk (RWE).

RWE now has the right to explore and develop gas resources on Turkmenistan’s continental shelf in the Caspian Sea. They have been given one ‘Bloc’ so far, with more to be assigned in the future. Obviously, this is reviving hopes that a Trans-Caspian pipeline will be built. No Western company has on-shore gas rights in Turkmenistan, but RWE will likely have first dibs. The company is Germany’s largest energy producer and supplier overall (nuclear, natural gas, electricity) and second-largest natural gas supplier in the country. RWE is also a part of the Nabucco project and to that end, they opened an office in Azerbaijan recently. Azerbaijan is still angry at Russia for backing Armenia in their war and providing arms to their enemy. Hopefully the recent fall-out between Azerbaijan and Turkey over fully normalizing those relations will be settled and the whole region can benefit from more diversified transit routes and sources. Because everyone knows that happiness is multiple pipelines.

As I reported on March 29 and March 30, Russia and Turkmenistan seemed to be headed for a new level of mutually-beneficial relations. They had signed a series of treaties and left only one to be signed, on gas, for a date in the near future, after they had worked out some kinks. Then on April 9, the pipeline connecting the two countries exploded, with each side blaming the other. The explosion has ceased all imports of Turkmen gas into Russia.

As with any event in Central Eurasian politics, it is very hard to know what actually happened. Anything said or written within or without the country is mostly supposition. Which isn’t to say my job here is pointless, but I can only do so much. So far, the most plausible explanation of the explosion comes via Radio Liberty, which argues that Russia did it. Ever since they agreed to pay European prices to their Central Asian suppliers at the height of the resource price boom, they have been losing a lot of money. Now that Ukraine, the primary recipient of Turkmen gas, has sharply decreased its imports, as the demand for energy there drops due to the crisis, Russia no longer wants, or is no longer able to, pay high prices for gas it does not need right now. In the coming days, I hope the picture becomes clearer as to who did this and why.

In advance of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea meeting in Almaty on April 28, Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, has been busy convincing Turkmenistan’s President, Gurbangly Berdymukhamedov, to ally with the downstream Central Asian states against the upstream ones.

The Syr Darya and Amu Darya are the only sources for water in the Aral Sea. The upstream countries would like to harness some of that energy while the downstream countries worry about not having enough water for their irrigation-intensive cotton fields. This is a situation that constantly causes misery to all involved, but a solution is not easy. The five states need to figure out how to share their water but for the foreseeable future, their populations will continue to suffer from a lack of clean water, ecological security, adequate energy supplies, and various other instabilities.

source: http://www.envis.maharashtra.gov

Eurasian Daily Moniter reports that the recent meeting between the leaders of Russia and Turkmenistan is part of Russia’s broader policy of exploiting disagreements over energy within the EU states. There are large discrepancies in the amount of gas recieved from Russia within the EU and a consummate lack of agreement as to how to deal with Russia. In Turkmenistan, Russia is buying up nearly all available gas contracts while neglecting to build the East-West pipeline until the Caspian line is built, so as to torpedo any Western hopes of a Trans-Caspian line. However, no explanation is offered as to why the Caspian line has not been built when it involves three willing states and an easy route.

On March 25, Turkmen President Gurbankuly Berdymuhammedov traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian President  Dmitry Medvedev and discuss a series of issues. The two countries have generally good relations as Russia is Turkmenistan’s biggest trading partner. They discussed electricity, transportation, natural gas, agriculture, and communication systems. 

The most important deal to come out of the meetings was an agreement to begin building the Caspian Gas Pipeline and also to build a pipeline connecting it to the gas fields in northeastern Turkmenistan. The Caspian line is a rival to the EU/US sponspered Trans Caspian Gas line, which would cross from Turkmenbashi to Baku and connect to Nabucco. That line has not been built and no one is sure if Turkmenistan has enough gas for both. 

So, according to RIA-Novosti via Ferghana.ru, Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will visit Ashkhabad soon in order to complete the various agreements. While anything is possible, this article from May 2007 also reported that agreements to build the lines were signed and the lines would be running by 2009-10. That hasn’t happened, clearly. 

The US may be allowed to return to the Uzbek base of Karshi-Khanabad (K2) soon. They were evicted in 2005 after the massacre in Andijon in May and consequent international criticism. In recent weeks, Washington has spoken with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan about the possibility of a base, even after arguing that a base was not necessary to supply Afghanistan.

Washington is also looking to work more closely with Azerbaijan. Azeri private companies have agreed to transport an increasing amount of cargo. The military is not involved but may be at some point. After Azerbaijan learned that Russia provided arms to Armenia, Russia has a weaker hand to play.

More than securing a return to the base, the US is looking for much more participation from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in supplying Afghanistan.

What human rights? Activists say that the ruling regimes in Central Asia deny their citizens basic freedoms, like freedom of the press or assembly. I have always thought that that is beyond the point. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are considered part of the top 8 most repressive in the world. I believe them. Religious freedom is routinely denied in the other countries as well. But don’t these discussions seem kinda lofty compared to Kazakhs losing a huge percentage of their life savings or a Kyrgyz town being denied drinking water for two days? Clearly, the rights to food and livelihood are closely intertwined with political freedoms, but shouldn’t they start with the former?

Also, in response to the devaluation of the tenge, Kazakh president Nazarbaev proposed a world currency, the acmetal, and a new regional currency, the eura, for regional transactions. This has got to be one of the dumber things I have ever heard. Get the man an economics textbook.

As this blog has been insisting, regional ties are the answer to many of Central Asia’s problems, rather than the West or even Russia. This Radio Liberty article describes how the State Department groups the post-Soviet Central Asian states together with the South Asian states in a long-term effort to promote ties between US-friendly states like India and Kazakhstan in opposition to a Russia orientated space. This is interesting and ambitious, though I am not sure Russia’s importance can ever be truly superseded for its neighboring states. 

Still, plans for Kazakhstan providing uranium for India’s nuclear power plants and progress on a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline are exciting. Any de-leveraging of Russian power in the region is a good sign for the countries. As the article concludes, Kazakhstan will chair the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in 2010 and India continues to search for energy sources, so the State Department’s vision may indeed be anticipating the links between Central and South Asia. However, the article fails to see that it is precisely the political vacuum in Pakistan and Afghanistan that makes Russia the stronger geopolitical partner for a long time to come.

Turkmenistan has agreed to allow non-lethal NATO supplies to be transported through its air space. This is a big deal because Turkmenistan is officially neutral and has been very cautious about getting mixed up into any other state’s affairs. The Turkmen president, Berdymukhamedov, announced the new agreements on his visit to Tashkent February 24-25th.

According to the Jamestown foundation, Turkmenistan seems to be looking for guidance from Uzbekistan on relations with the West. Uzbekistan gave pragmatic advice to a newly open Turkmenistan to work together with NATO in such a way as to not anger domestic interests. Uzbekistan has also expressed interest in restarting the construction of the Termez-Mazar-e Sharif railway, which would link Termez to Afghanistan. Economic and infrastructure connections in the region can only help all parties involved. As Jamestown noted, low-key access should be promoted over high profile bases in order to promote US interests and regional interests as well.