Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 12 / Trend, V.Zhavoronkova/
Uzbekistan seems to be leaning toward better cooperation with the West, U.S. expert on Central Asia Bruce Pannier believes.
"Uzbek President Islam Karimov has some good reasons for wanting better ties with the West at this moment," Pannier wrote in an e-mail to Trend.
The Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan hosted a meeting with the Director of the Central AsianOffice at the U.S. National Security Council Lynn Tracy and the U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Susan Elliott on Monday.
The talks focused on exchange of views on the Uzbek-US relations and actual problems of international and regional character.
According to observers, the relations between the two countries are deepening.
According to Pannier, now Uzbek President Islam Karimov knows the U.S. and NATO will be starting their "draw down" from Afghanistan, where they are operating in the framework of counterterrorist mission, ant they hope to complete the withdrawal by 2014.
"Some foreign troops there will stay, but securing Afghanistan is supposed to become almost exclusively the responsibility of Afghan forces by that time," he said." It means the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan will have to strengthen their frontiers with Afghanistan also."
Pannier mentioned Uzbek problems with security in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were connected with the activity of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Taliban and al-Qaeda in the neighboring Afghanistan.
"Their attacks during that time showed that while it was possible to seal Uzbekistan's border with Afghanistan, only some 60 kilometers long, there was no way to keep militants from crossing into neighboring Tajikistan and make their way west, toward Uzbekistan," he added.
Pannier thinks that Karimov would like to see the U.S.-NATO degrade and diminish, in so far as is possible, the abilities of militant groups in Afghanistan to operate, especially north of Afghanistan. "More simply put, get rid of as many militants, their supply lines and financial sources as possible before Afghan troops take over," he added.
At the same time, Uzbekistan now has strained relations with Russia, Pannier noted.
"Tashkent was hoping for Russian support in Uzbekistan's water dispute with Tajikistan," he said.
Uzbekistan opposes to Tajikistan building large hydropower plants along Central Asia's major rivers. Officially, the Uzbek government complains about possible damage to agriculture downstream (in Uzbekistan).
Pannier said some feel there are financial reasons since both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan want to export electricity to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia has tended to side more with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and recently at the CIS summit in Dushanbe, Russia expressed a possible interest in joining the CASA-1000 project to export electricity to Afghanistan from these countries.
"So, Uzbekistan looks good for the West, for now, but as President Karimov has changed foreign partners for several times, I don't think anyone in the West or in Russia, would count on Uzbekistan as a reliable partner anymore," expert added.
Expert thinks that for the United States Uzbekistan is the main route into northern Afghanistan because the area around and north of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif is fairly level, no mountains to speak of.
He said for the U.S. Uzbekistan also can act as a reliable buffer to contain any future problems coming out of Afghanistan.
The expert said if and when Russia wishes the U.S. to withdraw from Central Asia all Moscow has to do is to say no more shipments to Afghanistan by Russian roads, no more flights through Russian air space. He was commenting on the last week's Russian statement that Russia expects U.S. to cut down military presence in Central Asia after NATO finishes its anti-terrorism mission in Afghanistan.
"It won't matter if all the Central Asian states want to cooperate with the U.S and NATO," Pannier said. "Routes across the Caspian Sea with Russia to the north and Iran to the south could be an option but not a very efficient "plan B. For the U.S. and NATO the road to Afghanistan is increasingly through Central Asia, but the road to Central Asia goes through Russia."