MFA DISCUSSES CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 000839

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/02/2019
TAGS: PREL RS KZ AF ZK
SUBJECT: MFA DISCUSSES CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, AND
KAZAKHSTAN WITH U.S. AMBASSADOR TO KAZAKHSTAN

REF: A. ASTANA 560

B. MOSCOW 818

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Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Alice Wells for reasons 1.4
(B) and (D)


1. (C) Summary. In a March 24 meeting with U.S. Ambassador
to Kazakhstan Richard Hoagland, Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Karasin reaffirmed GOR readiness to cooperate with
the U.S. on Afghanistan but stressed the need for
transparency and openness, particularly with regard to U.S.
conversations with Central Asian countries on an alternative
to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. In a separate meeting,
Director of the Third CIS Department Peshkov explained his
views on the meaning of Moscow's special relations with the
CIS countries, the water resource problem in Central Asia,
the state of Russian-Kazakh relations, and the GOR proposal
for a European Security Treaty. He also clarified that the
newly appointed National Coordinator for the CIS Countries,
Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, will focus on the economic
aspects of cooperation with the former Soviet Republics,
while the recently created CIS agency under the MFA would be
more involved in humanitarian and cultural ties. End summary.


2. (U) U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Richard Hoagland, in
Moscow for consultations while on his way to Baikonur for a
space shuttle launch (ref A),met with Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Grigoriy Karasin and Director of the Third CIS
Department Maksim Peshkov on March 24 to exchange views on
Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Deputy Director of the Third
CIS Department Sergey Kopeiko also attended the meeting with
Peshkov.

Cooperation on Afghanistan
--------------


3. (C) Karasin indicated that the GOR was watching with
interest the Obama Administration's policy review on
Afghanistan and Central Asia, especially the degree of
linkage between the two. Affirming GOR interest in
cooperation with the U.S. on Afghanistan in "all available
formats," he stressed that, as FM Lavrov told the Secretary
in Geneva, Russia was ready to discuss other forms of
cooperation beyond the transit of non-lethal NATO goods. He
indicated that when Moscow made the decision to open up the
March 27 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Conference
on Afghanistan to non-members, the United States was the
first partner it thought to include.


4. (C) Speaking on Manas, Karasin indicated that the U.S.
should talk to the Central Asian countries first if it wished
to seek an alternative to the air base in Bishkek, but
transparency with Russia was key. "We want to know what you
are doing. When we discover arrangements post factum, it
creates a sense of distrust." Karasin said the GOR was not
happy with what it perceived as the U.S. tendency in the past
few years to ignore Russian concerns and circumvent Russian
interests, and expressed hope that our newly "reset"
bilateral relationship would have openness as a key
characteristic. Karasin later reiterated the loss of trust
engendered by the prolonged U.S. use of Manas, which was not
accompanied by regular U.S.-Russian consultations.


5. (C) In response to his inquiry on whether Kazakhstan was
considering troop contributions to ISAF, Ambassador Hoagland
briefed Karasin on Astana's exploration of the option to post
senior staff officers to ISAF headquarters in Kabul, which
would serve as a first step in a future decision on whether
to participate gradually in ISAF operations. The Ambassador
also described U.S.-Kazakh military cooperation, particularly
with regard to overflight and flight diversion arrangements
that have seen over 1000 overflights each year and 70
emergency landings on Kazakh territory to date. Karasin, in
an apparent reference to the ongoing overflight issue between
the U.S. and Russia, responded that in his personal view,
Russian and U.S. military personnel should meet more often to

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discuss cooperation in these areas.


6. (C) Ambassador Hoagland, in a separate meeting with MFA
Central Asia Director Maksim Peshkov, discussed with his
interlocutors concrete ways to cooperate on Afghanistan
transit issues. Peshkov raised an interest by the Republic
of Tatarstan to offer trucks for the transport of NATO
non-lethal goods as a way to relieve railway congestion from
Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. Peshkov worried that the twin
ports of Termez in Uzbekistan and Hairaton in Afghanistan are
already clogged with containers, and the situation will only
get worse (ref B). Ambassador Hoagland noted that the
Nizhniy Pyanjh Bridge in Tajikistan is another port of entry
into Afghanistan and could be utilized to reduce the
congestion at the Termez Bridge. However, this would require
an understanding between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to ease
the boarder crossing. The Ambassador wondered whether Russia
could play an honest-broker role with those two countries to
ease the border crossing for shipments to Afghanistan.
Peshkov acknowledged the need to improve Uzbek-Tajik
relations to ease transit, but demurred on the GOR's ability
to exert influence. He noted that Russia was experiencing
difficulties of its own in delivering humanitarian aid to
Afghanistan, because the shipments were being stopped at the
Russian-Kazakh border due to railway congestion in Termez.
He also offered his assessment that the bilateral
relationship between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan had shown
improvement recently, with the two sides convening a meeting
of an inter-governmental commission two weeks ago that
resulted in positive discussions on water usage and border
demarcation issues.

Privileged vs. Special Relations
--------------


7. (C) Ambassador Hoagland, noting that President
Nazarbayev characterized Russia as Kazakhstan's most
important strategic partner in its multi-vectored foreign
policy, pressed Peshkov to provide a more precise definition
of the GOR's "privileged relations" with the former Soviet
republics. Peshkov responded that the MFA preferred
"special" over "privileged" in describing bilateral relations
with the CIS countries. Such special relations emanated not
only from economic ties, but also security interests due to
the potential spill-over effects of events in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. He made clear, however, that Russia did not
consider the Central Asian countries as buffers against
Pakistan, but rather as partners in guaranteeing mutual
security. He suggested that perhaps Western concern over the
term "privileged" was a matter of semantics -- Russia
provides more aid to the Central Asian countries than to many
other parts of the world; some might see this as a "special"
relationship while others would call it "privileged."
Ambassador Hoagland welcomed the fact that Russia did not
view itself as having an exclusive right to pursue meaningful
relationships with the CIS countries.

Financial Crisis
--------------


8. (C) DFM Karasin agreed with Ambassador Hoagland's
analysis that Astana, while feeling the effects of the
current financial crisis, was reacting in a responsible,
flexible manner. He reiterated the GOR's commitment to help
the CIS countries weather the storm, including through the
Eurasian Economic Community's (EurAsEc) $10 billion
assistance fund, of which Russia has pledged $7.5 billion.
Speaking on the financial crisis writ large, Karasin said
that the GOR was looking for concrete ways out and in that
regard was looking forward to directions resulting from the
April 2 G20 summit in London, though understanding that there
would be no magical solutions.

Water a Problem
--------------


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9. (C) In response to Ambassador Hoagland's inquiry about
Russian strategy for dealing with water resource issues in
the region, Peshkov joked that "the only way (was) to restore
the Soviet Union." Without Moscow driving the policy as was
the case in the old days, the current situation lacked
balance, a problem that the GOR has been trying to address
through EurAsEc for years. While the presidents of the five
Central Asian countries issued a statement on water at the
Bishkek Summit last year, followed by the signing of
agreement on water usage by the foreign ministers in Almaty,
problems on sharing water resources persists. Peshkov agreed
with the Ambassador that the current arrangement of
negotiating yearly agreements, which was subject to the short
term political ups and downs between the five countries, was
not a stable method of achieving long term solution to the
problem. Recent disagreements between China and Kazakhstan
over the sue of the Black Irtysh River and Afghanistan's
claim to water intake from the Amu-Darya River have
compounded the issue. DFM Karasin likewise bemoaned the
water-energy conflict as the core issue bedeviling relations
in Central Asia, while noting that many other grievances had
been centuries in the making.


10. (C) Ambassador Hoagland, noting that he was only
thinking out loud, suggested to Peshkov that this might be an
area where Russian and American experts could cooperate at
the technical level both to help resolve the problem and to
act as an example of leadership to the countries in the
region. Peshkov undertook to consider this suggestion.

Russian-Kazakh Bilateral Relations
--------------


11. (C) Peshkov characterized the Russian-Kazakh bilateral
relationship as special and strong, strengthened by the
personal friendship between the two foreign ministers, as
well as a developing friendship between Presidents Medvedev
and Nazarbayev, similar to the one Nazarbayev enjoyed with
then-President Putin. While "nothing new or revolutionary"
resulted from the March 14 visit of Kazakh Foreign Minister
Marat Tazhin to Moscow, he discussed at length with Lavrov
the financial crisis, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan's 2010 OSCE
presidency. Peshkov said that the foreign ministers gave
instructions to their deputies -- DFM Aleksandr Grushko on
the Russian side and First DFM Nurtay Abykayev on the Kazakh
side -- to meet and discuss the specifics of Russian-Kazakh
cooperation in the OSCE. When pressed, Peshkov stated that
the GOR did not know yet what Kazakhstan's OSCE priorities
would be.


12. (C) According to Peshkov, another issue discussed
between Lavrov and Tazhin was the legal status of the Caspian
Sea. He indicated that while Iran was still holding to its
20% ownership claim to the Caspian Sea surface area and
seabed, it privately was prepared to give up that position.
However, Iran still had disputes with Turkemenistan and
Azerbaijan, as well as differences of opinion with Russia on
fishing rights in the Caspian Sea.

European Security Treaty
--------------


13. (C) In response to Ambassador Hoagland's inquiry about
the European Security Treaty, Peshkov recycled familiar
talking points that Russia was seeking a legal framework in
Europe to guarantee mutual security. While disclaiming
familiarity with the issue since his department was not in
charge of it, he nevertheless opined that Moscow envisioned a
place for the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
in this security structure, and that the word "security"
would encompass counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism,
counter-extremism, economic and financial aspects. Deputy
Director of the Third CIS Department Kopeiko added that
Russia envisioned this treaty to build on previous agreements
such as the Helsinki Accords and the OSCE Charter, but would
spell out exact, legal obligations instead of non-binding

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declarations. Peshkov indicated that the MFA was actively
preparing for the April 1 meeting between Presidents Obama
and Medvedev and that this topic would certainly be among the
issues discussed.

Who is in Charge of CIS Policy?
--------------


14. (C) Commenting on the March 19 appointment of Deputy
Prime Minister Shuvalov as National Coordinator for CIS
Countries, Peshkov indicated that Shuvalov would focus mainly
on economic issues associated with the former Soviet
republics. He also clarified that the newly created Federal
Agency on CIS Countries, Compatriots Living Abroad and
International Humanitarian Cooperation, which was nominally
under the MFA but whose head, Farit Mukhametshin, has the
title of a Special Representative of the President, was still
undergoing a period of organization and "self-definition."
The Agency, he noted, would focus on humanitarian and
cultural issues associated with the CIS states.


15. (U) Ambassador Hoagland has cleared this cable.
BEYRLE