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The Great Game in Central Asia (III)

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ANI Kabul
Last Updated : Jun 26 2014 | 2:35 PM IST

India has invested hugely in developing Chabahar Port on the Iranian coast, next to Pakistan's Gawadar and it is near to Mumbai and Kandla. It has also upgraded the road from Chabahar to Zaranj in Afghanistan. From Zaranj, India has constructed a highway up to Delaram in western Afghanistan to provide access to Central Asian countries, bypassing Pakistan.

India and China are likely to cooperate in the development and stability of Afghanistan as they have common interests. India has proposed an India China oil consortium in Central Asia and India's public company GAIL has invested in Chinese gas pipeline projects in Kazakhstan.

India is also carrying out one US $ 11 billion project, the biggest in Afghanistan so far, for mining iron ore. The project to be carried out by the Afghanistan Iron and Steel Consortium led by Steel Authority of India Ltd. is likely to begin in a couple of months, immediately after the new government takes over next month.

Chinese National Petroleum Company has already launched two projects in the Amu Darya basin for oil exploration. The Metallurgical Company of China is launching another project to extract copper in the Aiyank copper fields south of capital Kabul.

For Iran, strengthening its eastward orientation constitutes a key component to escape the US pressures on its nuclear programme. Iran has developed close ties with China, Russia and India and aims to collaborate with Central Asian nations. Iran's eastern strategy is particularly driven by the convergence of its interests with those of China, including the shared concerns over the Sunni ideology that spawned the Taliban, the IMU and the Uighur separatists, energy exploration and opposition to the US military presence.

China is helping to develop pipelines traversing Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan which will strengthen its own energy security and provide Iran with an outlet for its oil exports skirting the western constraints. Central Asian routes for Iran's oil are also coveted by India, which is finding very difficult to meet its energy requirements.

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The growing Iranian links to China, India, Russia and several Central Asian republics are one of the reasons the reduction in opposition to the Iranian nuclear programme.

After ousting the Taliban in December 2001, the United States embarked upon fortifying its influence in Central and South Asia. They added and renovated their bases, numbering thirteen, in nine countries in the greater Central Asian region, including Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

It raised the hackles of both Russia and China, who have more direct and vital strategic stakes in the region. They thus moved to strengthen their hold on the region, setting up military bases and drawing Central Asian nations into the SCO, seeking to turn it into an anti-US alliance. The prolonged military presence of the US has rather endangered the stability on an even worse magnitude.

The race to establish military bases in the region in response to the US intentions of making permanent its bases, the collaboration between China and Russia inside and outside the SCO against the US and the shaping up of the contours an of anti-US Chinese-Indian-Iranian axis are some of the unintended consequences. Such a nexus could reduce American access to Central Asian energy markets.

The five Central Asian republics are deeply worried of the consequences of the US forces' withdrawal this year end. Having faced attacks from the IMU and Al-Qaeda in the past, they fear a redoubled onslaught of extremists from across the border from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Abdul Aziz Kamilov and Kazakhstan, Erlan Idrissov, in their addresses to the UN General Assembly in September 2013, warned of serious threats to regional and global security from terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking emanating out of Afghanistan after 2014.They both blamed the West for failing to secure a political solution to the Afghan conflict before pulling out their troops.

The five republics - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan - do not trust the Americans or NATO to secure the region after 2014 and they feel politically slighted by the US and the Kabul Government.

Some of these republics are turning to their old overlord - Russia. Tajikistan's Parliament ratified a treaty with Moscow to extend by three decades Russian bases and troops in Tajikistan. Russia has 6000 troops stationed in three cities to defend Tajikistan's 64 km border with Afghanistan.

Tajikistan is the weakest state in the region, with an untrained army. It is facing a severe economic crisis resulting from the opium trade from Afghanistan. The IMU and other extremist groups are trying to establish bases in Afghanistan's Northern provinces Kunduz and Badakhshan.

The IMU's main base is in Warduj district of Badakhshan, where people are being forcibly converted to Wahabbism enforcing the strict Islamic code. Badakhshan mountainous terrain, set in the Pamir and Hindukush ranges, is to the advantage of the militants who want to occupy the southern tip of Tajikistan, Pakistan's north-western border and north-eastern Afghanistan. In the north-east is the Wakhan corridor bordering China, Pakistan and Tajikistan from where the IMU recruits from the Uighur Chinese Muslim population. Much of the area is inaccessible and the nascent Afghan Army would be without any air support after the US and allies leave.

Pakistan remains a crucial source of supplies for the militants with its security and intelligence agencies and militant groups playing a key role for the IMU. The IMU pays for the services through the money earned from drug trafficking.

With the scenario so delicate and complex, all the key players are pursuing their vital interests and at the same time keeping their fingers crossed as to how the situation develops after the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan later this year.

The views expressed in the above article are that of Mr. G.S. Randhawa

By G.S.

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First Published: Jun 26 2014 | 2:23 PM IST

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