Translated material
Square format
Russia is building a new system of relations with Central Asia
Tomorrow the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan are coming to Sochi for a quadripartite summit. Dmitry Medvedev is already waiting for Hamid Karzai, Asif Ali Zardari and Emomali Rahmon at his southern residence. The main negotiations, according to Vremya Novostei, will take place on August 18-19. The decision to hold them was made almost immediately after the previous and first such summit, held in July 2009 in Dushanbe. However, the current situation dictates a special agenda: it is influenced by both the natural disasters that have befallen Pakistan and the general situation in the region associated with a growing barrage of information about the inability of the United States to cope with the situation in Afghanistan.The quadrilateral format of such meetings is a relatively new phenomenon for relations in the region. Moreover, throughout the second half of the 20th century, India was our country’s main strategic ally in the region, and relations with Pakistan were always viewed through the prism of Indian perception. It is difficult to talk about relations with Afghanistan in general - the “temporary stay of a limited contingent of Soviet troops” is still fresh in the memory of both Afghans and citizens of the entire former USSR, which cut off the possibility of Russia’s active involvement in resolving issues of the Afghan settlement. Relations with Tajikistan were constantly subjected to tests caused by Tajik President Rahmon’s evasions from Russia to the West and back to suit the political situation. Thus, some five to ten years ago such a summit would have been simply unthinkable. But today the balance of geostrategic forces in the region has changed.
Firstly, perhaps the main foreign policy achievement of the George W. Bush administration was the involvement of India in the orbit of American foreign policy as the main US partner in the region, which, among other things, meant a weakening of Russian positions in relations with this country. Accordingly, this caused increased interest among Pakistani foreign policy circles in “resetting” relations with Russia. And although under Obama the “Indian tilt” in US foreign policy became less obvious, Pakistan’s desire to improve relations with Russia did not go unnoticed in Moscow.
Secondly, the deeper the United States and its NATO allies get bogged down in the Afghan campaign, the stronger the anti-American feelings of the majority of the Afghan population become. And the latest leaks and official UN reports on the growing number of civilian casualties indicate that the US-led coalition in Afghanistan has reached a dead end. Thus, restoring relations with Russia without regard to the recent past becomes a top priority for the Afghan leadership. Finally, Emomali Rahmon has no alternatives to developing relations with Russia - potential Western partners, with all their interest in the region’s energy resources and with all their desire to remove Russia from resolving regional issues, are still not ready to perceive Rahmon and other authoritarian leaders of the Central Asian countries as "their" people.
Thus, the quadrilateral format can become a prototype of the configuration of a new unification of states - not on political-ideological, but on purely practical principles of interaction. In a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, Natalya Zamaraeva, a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of the Near and Middle East at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, named the provision of financial assistance to Pakistan, which suffered from floods, as “number one” among the problems submitted for consideration by the heads of four states. At the end of the summit, Russia is expected to announce the allocation of a significant amount to help Pakistan.
However, the goals of the summit are not limited to solving immediate problems. The very fact of holding the second such summit, in the opinion of our interlocutor, means that Russia’s relations with the countries of the region have reached a new qualitative level. The countries whose leaders arrive in Sochi share a number of common features: a lack of energy resources, drinking water and the need to combine infrastructure to create new transport corridors - in fact, the revival of the ancient Silk Road in the new conditions of the 21st century. Russia does not want to remain on the sidelines of these processes. For example, ideas have long been expressed about involving Afghanistan in a new system of transport communications in the region. Russia's interest is related to the project of building a railway and highway that would connect Islamabad through Kabul with Fergana and Dushanbe.
Ahmed Kureishi, a researcher at the Pakistan-21 research project, believes that the summit in Sochi is related to the problems of building a new system of relations in the region. In a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent, this Pakistani expert noted that Pakistani politicians and the media community pinned considerable hopes on the summit. In his opinion, Pakistani representatives will do everything in their power to convince Russia not to view problems in the region solely through the prism of Indian policy, and there are also positive signals from Moscow indicating that Russia understands Pakistan's concerns.