IN CENTRAL ASIA, BLINKEN TO URGE DISTANCE FROM RUSSIA
He will meet with foreign ministers of 5 nations about war
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is flying today into the heart of what Moscow considers its sphere of inf luence to urge senior Central Asian officials convening in Kazakhstan to maintain independence from Russia and China.
The meetings come at a critical juncture in U.S. efforts to head off Moscow’s efforts to seek aid as the U.S. and its allies rush new weapons into Ukraine to try to give Ukrainians an advantage over Russian troops.
Blinken’s trip is the first by any Biden Cabinet official to Central Asia, while President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China — who are competing to expand their nations’ influence across the region — made visits in September.
Foreign ministers from five Central Asian republics that broke away from the Soviet Union — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — are scheduled to meet one on one with Blinken and to hold formal group discussions with him and other senior U.S. officials. The United States knows these nations, which still have strong ties to Moscow, are unlikely to strain those relations.
But U.S. officials have noted the skeptical remarks that some top Central Asian officials, including in Kazakhstan, have made about Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, another former Soviet republic. The Biden administration aims to exploit that as it seeks to isolate Moscow and keep up sanctions meant to impede its efforts to continue the war.
Blinken’s trip is part of a concerted effort by the U.S. to bolster Ukraine, which included President Joe Biden’s unannounced trip to Kyiv last week and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit on Monday to the Ukrainian capital to announce the transfer of $1.25 billion in economic and budget assistance
to Ukraine to keep its government operating.
Blinken is scheduled to have meetings in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Wednesday and travel to India for a conference of foreign ministers of the Group of 20 nations.
What is at stake for U.S.?
The main context is the war in Ukraine.
“Our main goal is to show
that the United States is a reliable partner,” Donald Lu, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asia and Central Asia, said in a news briefing on Friday. “And we see the difficulties that these economies are facing — high food prices, high fuel prices, high unemployment, difficulty in exporting their goods, slow post-COVID recovery and a large influx of migrants from Russia.”
But U.S. officials say they are clear-eyed about their goals. They do not believe that many of the Central Asian nations that have tried to remain neutral in the war will announce bold statements soon against Russia since they have decadeslong ties to Moscow, including military relations.
None of the Central Asian nations voted yes on the United Nations resolution last week calling for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and to agree to a lasting peace recognizing Ukraine’s full sovereignty.
What is the state of Russia’s relations with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan?
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are walking a treacherous path between the biggest players in their neighborhood: Russia and China. Russia remains their most important partner when it comes to security, although China has been asserting itself and building economic ties, especially since Moscow seems distracted by the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia’s answer to NATO, and when violent street protests in Kazakhstan threatened to bring down President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in January 2022, Russia led a contingent of 2,500 troops to quell the unrest.
But neither Kazakhstan nor Uzbekistan has voiced support for the war in Ukraine or recognized Putin’s attempted annexation of four Ukrainian regions. The countries have taken in tens of thousands of Russians seeking to avoid Moscow’s draft.
And last summer, in a move that surprised many, Tokayev pushed back openly against Putin while sharing a stage with him at an economic conference in St. Petersburg, declaring that Kazakhstan would not recognize the “quasi-state territories” that Russia was propping up in eastern Ukraine. On Feb. 16, Tokayev spoke by phone with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to discuss “humanitarian ties” between their countries.