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| US-Kazakh Accord to Use Caspian Ports as Afghan Support Hubs Irks Moscow |
| 2018-05-02 |
| [The Jamestown Foundation] Since 1991, two key questions have dominated discussions of the fate of the Caspian Sea: First, how will it be divided now that there are five littoral states rather than two, as was the case in Soviet times? And second, will this landlocked body of water be an east-west transit bridge between China and Central Asia in the east and Europe in the West, or a north-south route for the projection of Russian power toward Iran and the Middle East? Both of those issues are now heating up as a result of three important moves on this complex chessboard that, as of yet, are still incalculable in their consequences. First of all, the United States and Kazakhstan have agreed that Washington can use the Caspian ports of Aktau and Kuryk as transit points to supply US forces in Afghanistan. Several Moscow-based experts have criticized this arrangement, asserting that it will de facto transform those ports “automatically into bases of the Pentagon and its allies.” To the extent that happens, this agreement by Astana has “destroyed the architecture of Caspian security,” Viktoriya Panfilova of Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote on April 24. According to her, the US-Kazakhstani accord sets the stage for heightened great power competition in the Caspian, its littoral, as well as in the countries of Central Asia through which US materiel will pass (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 24). |
| Posted by:3dc |