Kazakhstan, Astana, October 4 / Trend D.Mukhtarov /
The geopolitics plays an important role in Kazakh-Russian relations, the Kazakh political analyst Andrei Chebotarev said.
"Why does Russia need Kazakhstan and why does Kazakhstan need Russia? It is obvious that the first issue is geopolitics - we cannot be guarded from each other and we do not and will not have a buffer zone, therefore geopolitically we are doomed to exist with Russia," the political analyst said speaking at the meeting of the expert club "World of Eurasia" on the topic "Kazakhstan-Russian relations: realities and prospects."
He recalled that Russia is the gateway to Europe for Kazakhstan because Kazakhstan does not have access to sea routes. Given the Silkway factor, Kazakhstan is a gateway to the Central Asia and further to the East for Russia.
At the same time, Chebotarev listed a number of problems that occur in the relationship between the two countries. According to him, the main problem in the relations between the two countries is uneven possibilities and potential of Kazakhstan compared to Russia.
"We are not under the conditions to dictate any provisions. Nevertheless, we try to do this somehow," the political analyst said.
He cited the example of Kazakhstan's gas supplies to Russia.
"Kazakhstan delivers its gas to Russia to the Orenburg gas processing plant. When Sauat Mynbayev was still a minister, he said that we do not agree with the prices and ready to supply gas to China instead of Russia. Such a demarche is also understandable.
Basically, Kazakhstan also must defend its interests. But everything was settled quickly - it was sufficient for Mynbayev go to Moscow and talk to the head of "Gazprom", " Chebotarev said.
According to him, there is also a quite noteworthy situation in the oil sector.
"Russia is actually reducing its presence in the sphere of oil production, because "Lukoil" left three projects," Rosneft " winds up projects in Kurmangazy field. Russians still present in Kazakhstan in two areas on which Yeltsin and Nazarbayev agreed. But they found nothing in Kurmangazy, at the same time "Lukoil" did not find anything in Atash offshore field. It turns out that Russia decreases its presence in the oil field and China strengthens its own presence there," he added.
"It is clear that Russia dominates, but it is not the case; the main issue is that the quality of our information counterbalance is low, especially if you take TV and radio," he said.
At the same time the political analyst pointed out many positive factors for the residents of Kazakhstan who can go to their neighbors without any problems and send their children to Russian universities for education.
Another point that was mentioned by the political analyst is the mismatch of positions on the extremism.
"Russia has established a tough legislation against extremism, nationalists are persecuted and a lot of literature is prohibited. The most interesting is that this literature is sold in our country. For example, Mussolini's Doctrine of Fascism, Levashov's book "Russia in distorted mirrors"- all this is freely sold in Almaty, although Russia prohibits this by law on extremism. A question arises: to what extend then we are allies of Russia, when even if there is a need to work together against extremism and terrorism, we assume such a mismatch of positions?" the analyst said.