Chechen-Kyrgyz-Tajik
Fighters in Syria, Imam Gulen’s Madrasas in South Caucasus,
Azerbaijan-NATO’s base at Russian-Iranian border & More!
Sibel
Edmonds
26
May, 2013
The
Great Game Round Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments
regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. The proxy
war in
Syria is still in full swing and affects not only the Middle East but
also Central Asia and the Caucasus. There are even a few Central
Asian fighters among the ‘Syrian rebels’:
The threat
of joining terrorist and extremist groups by young Tajik citizens has
become the reason of the decision to bring students studying at
religious education institutions abroad back to the home country.
Otherwise, the circumstances would be irreversible, Melikov believes.
…
Preventive
and precautionary measures aimed at preventing involvement of
citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic in extremist and terrorist
activities, and participation in armed clashes in Syria and other
countries in the Middle East continue. At the same time GKNB is
working on identification of traffickers and recruiters.
…
We
probably shouldn’t wait for an investigation to expose
the culprits as
long as this could damage certain business
relations.
Rising
radicalism in Syria and the unstable situation in Afghanistan
prompted Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, to warn of
an increasing terror threat. Many foreign militants fighting in Syria
are from the Russian republic of Chechnya [emphasis mine]:
The Syrian
government has long been charging that foreign fighters are joining
the battles alongside the opposition rebels, accusing
regional countries, such as Turkey, of facilitating the flow of those
jihadists into Syria.
…
So there is
reasonable concern in Russia that the Syrian crisis could reach the
Caucasus [emphasis mine]:
Pushkov does
not exclude that “terrorism can come to those states where it never
existed previously. So I would not want the states of the southern
Caucasus to become involved in this terrorist activity, but it could
happen. Because total destabilization leads to a situation where some
people, especially with the funding of certain fundamentalist groups
that are growing by leaps and bounds, on oil and gas in a number of
Arab states, may have an idea, but why not try to support extremist
tendencies in a particular country in the region, say, in
Azerbaijan. I think that’s what is dangerous about the
Syrian crisis – it can, like cancer, metastasise into other
countries.
…
Azerbaijan:
NATO’s base at Russian, Iranian border
Using
Azerbaijan as a hub for operations aimed at destabilizing Russia is
not exactly a new phenomena.
But Russia is of course not the only target in the region:
South
Azerbaijan is
a region in northwestern Iran and groups like the Southern
Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement fight
for its “liberation”. SANAM recently celebrated the
95th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s independence in the country’s
embassy in Washington with John
Kerry and
Dana Rohrabacher, who has been campaigning extensively for oppressed
minorities in Iran andPakistan.
Coincidentally,
Washington now also hosts the
new office of the MKO, which is thefavorite
terror cult of
the U.S. government and was therefore removed from
the listof
foreign terrorist organizations.
The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization stressed this
week that Azerbaijan is an “extremely important part of NATO”
with the cooperation focusing not only on areas like security and
military reform but especially on the energy sector:
According to
the US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan will play an even more
important role in ensuring the European Union’s security after the
consortium developing the giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field
located in Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea makes a final
decision on the gas transportation route to Europe.
“Beyond
opening a new pipeline, Azerbaijani gas will become even more
important for European energy supplies,” Morningstar told
journalists. The
Shah Deniz consortium is considering the Trans Adriatic Pipeline
(TAP) and Nabucco West pipeline route for gas export. The consortium
will make its final decision in June and a final investment decision
by October 2013.
…
The
Trans-Caspian pipeline
Building
a Trans-Caspian pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, which would
bypass Russia and Iran, is the biggest dream of the United States:
Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan have the right to lay the Trans-Caspian pipeline and
the U.S. in general agrees with it.
The
Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline running around 300 kilometers will be laid
from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, where it
will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor. The pipeline’s
capacity is 30-40 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
Iran and
Russia expressed their negative attitude towards the project. Tehran
and Moscow think the pipeline construction may damage the Caspian
Sea’s ecology.
…
Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh
gas field is
the second largest in the world after the South Pars field and will
be launched on
June 30th. China is expected to become one of the biggest customers:
The
Galkynysh field, the world’s second largest by gas reserves, will
be used to build up Turkmen gas exports to China. The field is
expected to produce 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year
for China, with Turkmenistan’s total gas exports to China planned
to reach 65 billion cubic meters annually after the field’s launch,
Abdullayev said at the fourth international gas congress held by
Turkmenistan.
…
It
is, however, highly doubtful if the Trans-Caspian pipeline will be
built and Turkmen gas will reach the EU via Azerbaijan. Turkmenistan
is definitely
interested in
the project but there is one major problem [emphasis mine]:
Our
respected colleague Mikhail Korchemkin of East
European Gas Analysisbrought
to our attention an intriguing comment contained within the The
April issue of Blue Fuel newsletter of
Gazprom-Export Global Newsletter.
In the
article on Page 12, Russian Foundation for Energy Security Director
Kostantin Simonov, is quoted as saying:
“The
construction of this pipeline would mean to spit in the face
of Russiaand
the real risk may be that of a military conflict, in front of which
Russia will not pull back.”
As
Mikhail commented: “It does look like the state-controlled Russian
giant threatens war with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over
the pipeline project; doesn’t it”?
…
NATO pivot
to the Caspian Sea
But Russia’s
concern regarding the Caspian Sea is not limited to pipelines:
Russia fears
the establishment of NATO military bases in the Caspian Region after
the withdrawal of the coalition from Afghanistan in 2014 under the
pretence of providing regional security. This view was voiced by the
head of the Caspian Cooperation Institute Sergey Mikheyev.
Mikheyev goes
on to explain why NATO is interested in the region [emphasis mine]:
“We
believe that the Caspian region is more and more becoming a node
where tension lines of the European continent meet. Apparently,
geopolitical interests of many players are crossed here: serious oil
and gas resources are concentrated here.“
…
Since
Kyrgyzstan wants
to cancel the
current agreement with the U.S. on the Manas air base and is moving
closer to
Moscow, the United States and its allies are turning their attention
to other Central Asian countries. The prospect of a U.S.
military base in Uzbekistan was
already mentioned in the last Round
Up.
Furthermore,
American and British companies are looking to cooperate
withUzbekistan as
well as Kazakhstan in
the energy sector and while the CIA’s Jamestown Foundation was
still celebrating the Kazakh proposal:
Kazakhstan
already signed an agreement with Britain:
The
primary suspect to host an American military base in the Caspian
region, Azerbaijan, rejectedthis
immediately and is even having second thoughts about its NATO
membership:
Azerbaijan
will join neither NATO nor the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), but is prepared to cooperate with both, a
presidential aide said on Friday.
That does
not mean Azerbaijan will not alter its position in the future, he
added.
“If
Azerbaijan’s national interests require membership of those
organizations the country could become a member of NATO or even the
CSTO – or remain neutral,” Gasanov said.
…
But we
shouldn’t overestimate this statement. The NATO-Azerbaijan
relationship is as close as ever and eventually Azerbaijan will take
the same path as neighboring Georgia:
According to
the document, accession into NATO is the main priority of Georgia’s
foreign and security policy.
…
Georgia just
recently hosted the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Security
Symposium of Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins [emphasis mine]:
The
attendees of the Symposium are discussing a number of issues like
regional stability…and the possible shift of Middle East
crises to the Caucasus region.
Representatives
of the United States European Command Intelligence, high-ranking
intelligence officials of Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins countries
–Georgia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – military
attaches and experts take part in the Conference held by the
organization of Military Intelligence Department of Ministry of
Defence. The Head of Military Intelligence Department of JS of GAF
[Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces] Col. Roman Jokhadze
unveiled the Conference.
…
Gülen
schools in the South Caucasus
Two attendees
of the Security Symposium also want to strengthen their cooperation
in the field of education:
The
question is if this cooperation includes more Gülen schools, which
are already flourishing in
Georgia. Russia and other countries have banned all schools connected
to the Gülen movement and there is a good reason for this. Fethullah
Gülen and his CIA-funded movement
play a central role in the Pentagon’s Gladio B operations:
The
Russian government has banned all
Gülen schools and the activities of the Nur sect in Russia. Over 20
Turkish followers of Gulen were deported from
Russia in 2002-2004.
In
1999 Uzbekistan closed all
Gulen’s Madrasas and shortly afterward arrested eight journalists
who were graduates of Gulen schools, and found them guilty of setting
up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist
organization.
…
One of the
attending Gulen school owners owned and operated 18
schools for Gulen in Uzbekistan. The CIA
operation disguised under ‘Teaching English’ at these 18 schools
in Uzbekistan consisted of 70 CIA operatives, operating
under a project named ‘Friendship Bridge’ (Operation Code
Name). The operatives also submitted reports to a certain arm of the
Pentagon.
The same
operation (name not mentioned) had 60 American-CIA operatives as
English teachers in Kyrgyzstan; again carrying US
Diplomatic Passports.
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