Translated material
Kazakhstan is ready to become a guarantor
Energy security of the CIS
At the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi on November 18-19, Vladimir Putin will propose new ideas that confirm Russia’s claims to be a guarantor of energy security not only for Western Europe, but also for the powerful and developing economies of the East. Recently, Kazakhstan has also been vying for this role. It is no coincidence that Putin eventually invited his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev as a guest to the G8 summit held this summer in St. Petersburg.But how do the elites in Moscow and Astana, playing their roles on these “energy stages,” perceive themselves as rivals or partners? Is it profitable or unreasonable for them to push each other off the stage?
In recent weeks, several conferences dedicated to these sensitive issues have been held one after another in Moscow, Almaty and Aktau. The word “cooperation” sounded key to them, whether it concerned the interaction of the two countries in the Caspian Sea or other, broader aspects. Judging by the fact that the initiator of these “brain attacks” with the participation of experts, political scientists, top managers and government officials was the Kazakh side, it is obvious that Astana is much more concerned about the current situation than Moscow.
At the conference in Almaty, the Russian position was outlined in the most cautious terms by the Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergei Karaganov. “We understand” Kazakhstan’s desire to use various routes to export its energy resources, including routes that bypass Russia, the political scientist noted, “but we must keep in mind that the disunity of producers strengthens the position of consumers.” We did not enter into controversy with this indisputable thesis.
Director for Special Projects of the Russian Institute of National Strategy, Yuri Solozobov, suggested abandoning the use of the term “donor of global energy security”, and thinking about the internal energy security of Russia and Kazakhstan. Considering that Russia has pretty much ruined its relations with a number of CIS countries, it would be beneficial for it not to interfere with Kazakhstan becoming their priority supplier of energy resources and to refuse to block their transit through Russian territory. Yuri Solozobov seems to be one of the few Russian experts who dares to speak out loud about what many of his colleagues prefer to talk about in smoking rooms. “Russia's current energy policy, built on monopoly access to cheap Central Asian gas, is undergoing a clear crisis with the advent of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipelines and the development of plans for the construction of the Trans-Caspian Pipeline, supported by the US and the EU,” he says. We must learn from the mistakes Moscow made when it opposed the implementation of the BTC, the expert believes, and instead strive not to block such projects, but to seek conditions for participation in them. It is beneficial for Russia to build, together with Kazakhstan, a monopoly in the field of transcontinental railway communications and pipelines, which will make their energy connection in the space between Europe and Asia indispensable. Mr. Solozobov sees a direct political reason for this: in this case, the question of the further direction of development of Russia and Kazakhstan after the change of leaders in these countries will be removed.
It turned out that in Kazakhstan they are not worried about their future, but are more worried about Russia. The well-known Kazakh political scientist Sabit Zhusupov is confident that the period when his country was perceived as a peripheral geopolitical “underbelly” is over, and now “the contours of the political modernization of Kazakhstan are clearly visible, unlike Russia.” We are concerned, says Zhusupov, that “during the Putin period in Russia there was a compression of the political system, a narrowing of the superstructure of social structures, which makes us fear the revival of neo-imperial tendencies.”
An interesting detail: at the conference in Almaty, one of the main speakers unexpectedly turned out to be the former Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, and now one of the leaders of the opposition democratic party “Real Ak Zhol” Oraz Zhandosov. It is alleged that Western sponsors of the conference, including the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation, insisted on his invitation. This helped the official authorities of Kazakhstan to convince guests from Russia that the “social setting” of their country showed a tendency towards “expansion”.