2 New Messages
Digest #4706
Messages
Thu May 23, 2013 6:11 am (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://english.
Voice of Russia
May 22, 2013
NATO has never offered to cooperate with Russia - Rozoff
Audio at URL above
Western support for KLA terrorists and support for the self-declared independence of Kosovo are part of a pan-Albanian plan for the region, NATO is reaching its tentacles into space and there has never been any real offer of cooperation by NATO to Russia, all of these issues were recently discussed with regular Voice of Russia contributor Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list.
You're listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.
Robles: So they needed a base somewhere in that area, geographically, and Kosovo fit the bill, right?
Rozoff: Fairly much that. Again, I think we have to understand that there's no supervision, there's no oversight in terms of what's going on in Kosovo. Certainly there's no real government in Pristina. I mean the Thaçis and Haradinajs and these other terrorist cutthroats from the former Kosovo Liberation Army are neither able to question the US, nor would they have any desire to. I mean they are simply puppets.
Robles: Right. That was a terrorist organization and it always was. It never was anything else.
Rozoff: An American official in 1998, Robert Gelbard, actually at the time, and he reversed himself subsequently, but at the time stated that the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army was a terrorist organization in his estimate. In fact it was and is. I mean it's formally disbanded, but in effect I'm sure there are late night meetings where they get together and reminiscence over dragging people on barbed wire and murdering them to harvest their organs and dealing in narcotics and women and weapons and body parts and so forth. This is the nature of the monsters that the U.S. and its NATO allies have waged war on behalf of.
Robles: That would explain, I think, to a lot of people who might not understand why the U.S. would have supported, what I could describe as Muslim terrorists against Christian victims.
Rozoff: I would de-emphasize the religious aspect, I truly would, in this sense: Kosovo was an amazingly rich and diverse mosaic of ethnic and religious cultures prior to the U.S. and NATO intervening. That is, in addition to ethnic Albanians who comprise the majority and ethnic Serbs...
Robles: I just mentioned that because even at the time a lot of Americans themselves couldn't understand why the US was supporting Muslims against Christians.
Rozoff: We have to recall that other ethnic minorities - Roma (so-called Gypsies), Egyptians, Ashkalis, Bosnians, Gorans, Turks and others who are predominantly Muslim have also been harassed and killed and driven out of the province by Thaçi and his former KLA officials. So, it seems to be more racial, in terms of pan-Albanian than it is religious.
Robles: Do you really think there's that angle there? Or is it just whoever cut a better deal with the United States?
Rozoff: There is an Albanian American Civic League, former U.S. Congressman Joseph DioGuardi is the godfather of that. And he's been amazingly successful at lobbying, and I use that term loosely and perhaps charitably, but influencing American politicians: everyone from Robert Dole to the current Vice President Joseph Biden, who is someone who has appeared at the Albanian American Civic League functions and fundraisers, with hefty honoraria I am sure. And I'm sure Mr. Biden walked away with a lot of money.
I've heard them, I’ve seen the videos on YouTube, and some amazingly provocative statements, openly calling for the use of military force against the government of Yugoslavia and Serbia at that time but clearly on behalf of a pan-Albanian agenda. And I think that’s very important to realize. That the five stars on the Kosovo flag supposedly represent five different ethnic groups within the province, but I think the more seasoned observer realizes that that means five different nations in which ethnic Albanians reside and which are envisioned by the likes of Hashim Thaçi to be united in one greater Albania.
Those would of course be not only Kosovo and Albania itself, but parts of Montenegro, other parts of Serbia and Macedonia and Greece. So, you have an irredentist, expansionist mindset there and you have NATO go to war for 78 days on behalf of that project.
Robles: I see, Rick, we have to move on because I want to ask you a little bit about the US Strategic Command. Now it appears that NATO and the US are planning to not only take over the world, but take over the universe.
Rozoff: Very good. That's it. Do you want me to comment on that?
Robles: Sure, can you give our listeners some details about what is going on with NATO and space, if you would?
Rozoff: That's true, nott content with expanding its tentacles around the earth, now the heavens are going to be an area for NATO expansion. And I'm thinking particularly about a story that came out yesterday. It was issued by the press wire service of the U.S. Armed Forces, what’s called American Forces Press Service from the Pentagon. And a deputy commander of the US Strategic Command, and it is one of nine unified combatant commands the Pentagon has, and most of them tend to be regional in nature: Northern Command, Southern Command, Africa Command and so forth. But this one is strategic and as you are indicate covers not only the entire world, but reaches into space.
Strategic Command was actually...replaced the former Strategic Air Command during the Cold War period. In 1992 it was renamed Strategic Command and then in 2002 it merged with US Space Command. So, it is a command that takes in all nuclear weapons, you know, strategic forces, the so-called missile defense, which we’ve talked about many a time before, that is encircling the planet with interceptor missile systems. But also takes in the heavens, takes in space.
And the statement was made by the deputy commander of the Strategic Command or at least the the report on it was two days ago - he is actually the Deputy Director of Global Operation - and he talked about building an alliance in space, partnerships in space comparable to what the U.S. has on earth. So, I think we’d be safe in understanding that being some approximation or a parallel to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other military alliances the US has.
And again, when you read the Pentagon’s own accounts of these things, oftentimes the statements are amazingly candid; I mean they would be cleaned up appreciably by the time they got to the mainstream media. But this fellow in question, the Deputy Commander of Global Operations, actually this is a paraphrase, but he said that space is vital to military operations providing an array of capabilities that give space-faring nations’ forces a military advantage. In other words, if you control space you could win a war on earth, I think it is essentially what he was saying.
And you know, he again drew the parallel that just as on, paraphrasing again on this of the same account, he said, recognizing the value of multinational coalitions for operations in the land, maritime and air domains, the officials of U.S. Strategic Command here hope to forge a coalition that shares assets and capabilities in space. That’s the opening sentence of the article.
Robles: Listen, one more question, I just recalled this, now, the U.S. made a statement a couple of weeks ago, I don’t know if you recall this, that they were thinking of declassifying some missile parameters to assuage Russia's concerns regarding the ABM shield. Have you heard anything about that? Can you comment on that? Do you think that’s sincere and...any ideas?
Rozoff: I’m vaguely familiar with that. Is it sincere? No it's not. I mean they’ll try to assuage Russian concerns by giving them a sense of false confidence, perhaps, but there's no indication that the United States intends to fully incorporate Russia as a partner even in regional missile defense systems, such as that in Europe, much less into a global missile system, which Russia would be kept quite clearly outside of.
So, assuaging Russian concerns, that sounds like more talk to me and we’ve had several years of that talk without any results.
Robles: I see. This was after the recent Russia-NATO Council meeting. And that was supposed to be one of the results from it, but you think that’s just hot air, right?
Rozoff: It is. It is window dressing, it’s cosmetic and it is meant to make the U.S. and NATO look like they are trying to reach some understanding with a “paranoid" or "recalcitrant” Russia that “refuses to work with them”. We know how these propaganda tricks work and this is simply another indication of it.
So that U.S. and NATO officials can go back and say: “We’ve made repeated offers to our Russian partner which, unfortunately, misinterprets what the intent of the global interceptor missile system is.”
Even though, every now and again Ronald Reagan is invoked or evoked as the inspiration for this program, which means Strategic Defense Initiative, which means Star Wars.
Robles: I’ve read a news item last week titled something like: “Russia refuses NATO offer of cooperation.” Do you know of any NATO offers of cooperation that Russia has refused?
Rozoff: None whatsoever. There are no such offers. Again, when Russia has asked to, if you will, compartmentalize the missile defense of Europe, to engage into what is called sectoral or regional components where Russia takes responsibility for a certain area, what we hear time and again is: “NATO will not outsource its security to a non-NATO member”, meaning Russia. So, that Russia will have no role whatsoever in any joint or collaborative efforts to create a genuine missile shield, but instead it will be consulted, as you were alluding to at the beginning of the discussion on this subject. Russia will be consulted or, in other words, the U.S. and NATO will tell Russia damn well what they want to tell them and nothing else.
Robles: What exactly would you say to someone who says: “NATO has offered to cooperate with Russia?”
Rozoff: John, we are next-door neighbors and I’m building a shield over my house as I’m arming myself to the teeth. And I’m telling you: “Don’t worry about it because I’m not your enemy”. And your weapons very shortly will not be able to retaliate against me if I should open fire on you first, but “Don’t worry about it because we are friends and partners.” I mean nobody falls for something like that.
Robles: Okay...
Rozoff: I mean, if you make yourself impregnable, if you make yourself invulnerable as you are moving - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again, just three or four days ago, said NATO military hardware is moving up to the Russian border, as indeed it is. And this includes the fact that just a couple of days ago the U.S. moved the first squadron of F-16 strategic fighter jets into Poland for permanent deployment, in a country that borders Russian territory, the Kaliningrad district. And already, as of three years ago, the U.S. moved interceptor missiles into Poland, maybe 35-40 miles from the Russian border.
Robles: I wanted to underline that fact for some people who may not really follow NATO and maybe don’t really know what they are really doing. And people might actually believe that for some reason Russia refused to cooperate. That’s why I just wanted to get that point very well across.
Rozoff: Russia has been begging for genuine cooperation and has been rebuffed at every turn, as, again, the U.S. and NATO are saying “This is our operation and we’ll tell you what we want to about it, but you are not going to influence it in any way or form.”
Robles: Okay. I know that. You know that. I just want to make sure our listeners know that as well.
Rozoff: Good.
Robles: Rick, thank you very much. Unfortunately, we are out of time.
Rozoff: I understand. But thanks again John, I appreciate it.
You were listening to an interview with You're listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.
Read more: http://english.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Voice of Russia
May 22, 2013
NATO has never offered to cooperate with Russia - Rozoff
Audio at URL above
Western support for KLA terrorists and support for the self-declared independence of Kosovo are part of a pan-Albanian plan for the region, NATO is reaching its tentacles into space and there has never been any real offer of cooperation by NATO to Russia, all of these issues were recently discussed with regular Voice of Russia contributor Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list.
You're listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.
Robles: So they needed a base somewhere in that area, geographically, and Kosovo fit the bill, right?
Rozoff: Fairly much that. Again, I think we have to understand that there's no supervision, there's no oversight in terms of what's going on in Kosovo. Certainly there's no real government in Pristina. I mean the Thaçis and Haradinajs and these other terrorist cutthroats from the former Kosovo Liberation Army are neither able to question the US, nor would they have any desire to. I mean they are simply puppets.
Robles: Right. That was a terrorist organization and it always was. It never was anything else.
Rozoff: An American official in 1998, Robert Gelbard, actually at the time, and he reversed himself subsequently, but at the time stated that the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army was a terrorist organization in his estimate. In fact it was and is. I mean it's formally disbanded, but in effect I'm sure there are late night meetings where they get together and reminiscence over dragging people on barbed wire and murdering them to harvest their organs and dealing in narcotics and women and weapons and body parts and so forth. This is the nature of the monsters that the U.S. and its NATO allies have waged war on behalf of.
Robles: That would explain, I think, to a lot of people who might not understand why the U.S. would have supported, what I could describe as Muslim terrorists against Christian victims.
Rozoff: I would de-emphasize the religious aspect, I truly would, in this sense: Kosovo was an amazingly rich and diverse mosaic of ethnic and religious cultures prior to the U.S. and NATO intervening. That is, in addition to ethnic Albanians who comprise the majority and ethnic Serbs...
Robles: I just mentioned that because even at the time a lot of Americans themselves couldn't understand why the US was supporting Muslims against Christians.
Rozoff: We have to recall that other ethnic minorities - Roma (so-called Gypsies), Egyptians, Ashkalis, Bosnians, Gorans, Turks and others who are predominantly Muslim have also been harassed and killed and driven out of the province by Thaçi and his former KLA officials. So, it seems to be more racial, in terms of pan-Albanian than it is religious.
Robles: Do you really think there's that angle there? Or is it just whoever cut a better deal with the United States?
Rozoff: There is an Albanian American Civic League, former U.S. Congressman Joseph DioGuardi is the godfather of that. And he's been amazingly successful at lobbying, and I use that term loosely and perhaps charitably, but influencing American politicians: everyone from Robert Dole to the current Vice President Joseph Biden, who is someone who has appeared at the Albanian American Civic League functions and fundraisers, with hefty honoraria I am sure. And I'm sure Mr. Biden walked away with a lot of money.
I've heard them, I’ve seen the videos on YouTube, and some amazingly provocative statements, openly calling for the use of military force against the government of Yugoslavia and Serbia at that time but clearly on behalf of a pan-Albanian agenda. And I think that’s very important to realize. That the five stars on the Kosovo flag supposedly represent five different ethnic groups within the province, but I think the more seasoned observer realizes that that means five different nations in which ethnic Albanians reside and which are envisioned by the likes of Hashim Thaçi to be united in one greater Albania.
Those would of course be not only Kosovo and Albania itself, but parts of Montenegro, other parts of Serbia and Macedonia and Greece. So, you have an irredentist, expansionist mindset there and you have NATO go to war for 78 days on behalf of that project.
Robles: I see, Rick, we have to move on because I want to ask you a little bit about the US Strategic Command. Now it appears that NATO and the US are planning to not only take over the world, but take over the universe.
Rozoff: Very good. That's it. Do you want me to comment on that?
Robles: Sure, can you give our listeners some details about what is going on with NATO and space, if you would?
Rozoff: That's true, nott content with expanding its tentacles around the earth, now the heavens are going to be an area for NATO expansion. And I'm thinking particularly about a story that came out yesterday. It was issued by the press wire service of the U.S. Armed Forces, what’s called American Forces Press Service from the Pentagon. And a deputy commander of the US Strategic Command, and it is one of nine unified combatant commands the Pentagon has, and most of them tend to be regional in nature: Northern Command, Southern Command, Africa Command and so forth. But this one is strategic and as you are indicate covers not only the entire world, but reaches into space.
Strategic Command was actually...replaced the former Strategic Air Command during the Cold War period. In 1992 it was renamed Strategic Command and then in 2002 it merged with US Space Command. So, it is a command that takes in all nuclear weapons, you know, strategic forces, the so-called missile defense, which we’ve talked about many a time before, that is encircling the planet with interceptor missile systems. But also takes in the heavens, takes in space.
And the statement was made by the deputy commander of the Strategic Command or at least the the report on it was two days ago - he is actually the Deputy Director of Global Operation - and he talked about building an alliance in space, partnerships in space comparable to what the U.S. has on earth. So, I think we’d be safe in understanding that being some approximation or a parallel to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other military alliances the US has.
And again, when you read the Pentagon’s own accounts of these things, oftentimes the statements are amazingly candid; I mean they would be cleaned up appreciably by the time they got to the mainstream media. But this fellow in question, the Deputy Commander of Global Operations, actually this is a paraphrase, but he said that space is vital to military operations providing an array of capabilities that give space-faring nations’ forces a military advantage. In other words, if you control space you could win a war on earth, I think it is essentially what he was saying.
And you know, he again drew the parallel that just as on, paraphrasing again on this of the same account, he said, recognizing the value of multinational coalitions for operations in the land, maritime and air domains, the officials of U.S. Strategic Command here hope to forge a coalition that shares assets and capabilities in space. That’s the opening sentence of the article.
Robles: Listen, one more question, I just recalled this, now, the U.S. made a statement a couple of weeks ago, I don’t know if you recall this, that they were thinking of declassifying some missile parameters to assuage Russia's concerns regarding the ABM shield. Have you heard anything about that? Can you comment on that? Do you think that’s sincere and...any ideas?
Rozoff: I’m vaguely familiar with that. Is it sincere? No it's not. I mean they’ll try to assuage Russian concerns by giving them a sense of false confidence, perhaps, but there's no indication that the United States intends to fully incorporate Russia as a partner even in regional missile defense systems, such as that in Europe, much less into a global missile system, which Russia would be kept quite clearly outside of.
So, assuaging Russian concerns, that sounds like more talk to me and we’ve had several years of that talk without any results.
Robles: I see. This was after the recent Russia-NATO Council meeting. And that was supposed to be one of the results from it, but you think that’s just hot air, right?
Rozoff: It is. It is window dressing, it’s cosmetic and it is meant to make the U.S. and NATO look like they are trying to reach some understanding with a “paranoid" or "recalcitrant” Russia that “refuses to work with them”. We know how these propaganda tricks work and this is simply another indication of it.
So that U.S. and NATO officials can go back and say: “We’ve made repeated offers to our Russian partner which, unfortunately, misinterprets what the intent of the global interceptor missile system is.”
Even though, every now and again Ronald Reagan is invoked or evoked as the inspiration for this program, which means Strategic Defense Initiative, which means Star Wars.
Robles: I’ve read a news item last week titled something like: “Russia refuses NATO offer of cooperation.” Do you know of any NATO offers of cooperation that Russia has refused?
Rozoff: None whatsoever. There are no such offers. Again, when Russia has asked to, if you will, compartmentalize the missile defense of Europe, to engage into what is called sectoral or regional components where Russia takes responsibility for a certain area, what we hear time and again is: “NATO will not outsource its security to a non-NATO member”, meaning Russia. So, that Russia will have no role whatsoever in any joint or collaborative efforts to create a genuine missile shield, but instead it will be consulted, as you were alluding to at the beginning of the discussion on this subject. Russia will be consulted or, in other words, the U.S. and NATO will tell Russia damn well what they want to tell them and nothing else.
Robles: What exactly would you say to someone who says: “NATO has offered to cooperate with Russia?”
Rozoff: John, we are next-door neighbors and I’m building a shield over my house as I’m arming myself to the teeth. And I’m telling you: “Don’t worry about it because I’m not your enemy”. And your weapons very shortly will not be able to retaliate against me if I should open fire on you first, but “Don’t worry about it because we are friends and partners.” I mean nobody falls for something like that.
Robles: Okay...
Rozoff: I mean, if you make yourself impregnable, if you make yourself invulnerable as you are moving - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again, just three or four days ago, said NATO military hardware is moving up to the Russian border, as indeed it is. And this includes the fact that just a couple of days ago the U.S. moved the first squadron of F-16 strategic fighter jets into Poland for permanent deployment, in a country that borders Russian territory, the Kaliningrad district. And already, as of three years ago, the U.S. moved interceptor missiles into Poland, maybe 35-40 miles from the Russian border.
Robles: I wanted to underline that fact for some people who may not really follow NATO and maybe don’t really know what they are really doing. And people might actually believe that for some reason Russia refused to cooperate. That’s why I just wanted to get that point very well across.
Rozoff: Russia has been begging for genuine cooperation and has been rebuffed at every turn, as, again, the U.S. and NATO are saying “This is our operation and we’ll tell you what we want to about it, but you are not going to influence it in any way or form.”
Robles: Okay. I know that. You know that. I just want to make sure our listeners know that as well.
Rozoff: Good.
Robles: Rick, thank you very much. Unfortunately, we are out of time.
Rozoff: I understand. But thanks again John, I appreciate it.
You were listening to an interview with You're listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.
Read more: http://english.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu May 23, 2013 12:04 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://www.dailytim
Daily Times
May 22, 2013
Uzbek quest for US weapons could dent Central Asia
Farooq Yousaf
Uzbekistan currently faces an international arms embargo because of prisoner deaths, and its operation in 2005 in Andijan
2014 is approaching, and so is the deadline for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Afghanistan. Leon Panetta, the then-US Defense Secretary, in 2012 announced that by the end of 2014 coalition forces would cease any combat operations and would be limited to normal military duties in the country. Moreover, [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai, in a recent interview, gave approval to allowing nine US military bases even after the pullout.
With the United States wary of transporting heavy weaponry out of Afghanistan, offers have been made by the Central Asian states, such as Uzbekistan, in return for some of the latest arms and equipment that they lack. According to a report by The New York Times, policy makers in Washington took Uzbekistan’s offer so seriously that the United States has partially lifted a set of arms sales restrictions that has been in place for about a decade.
Last year, in June, reports started to surface that Uzbekistan that faces international arms embargoes due to widespread human rights violations, started negotiations for a possible arms-transit and military base deal with the USA, that would help the coalition forces take its equipment out of Afghanistan, whereas Tashkent would benefit by acquiring the state-of-the-
Uzbekistan, for long has been indicating shifting its alliances and partners. One of such indications was its withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military cooperation initiative between Russia and Central Asian states [as well as Armenia and Belarus]. It would have been difficult for Tashkent to enter into military negotiations with the United States if it were a member of the CSTO, but abandoning the CSTO freed it from coming under any pressure.
In terms of geostrategic importance, the most feasible gateway for cargo withdrawal is Pakistan, yet it seems that the coalition forces want as many alternatives as possible, such as Uzbekistan, in case Islamabad decides to go against its deals with NATO and close the NATO supply line, or even ask for more money.
...
Such a move by Uzbekistan would mean it wants to turn its back on Russia, a neighbour that supports much of the Uzbek workforce. Russia, even after the Soviet disintegration, has maintained a substantial influence over some of the Central Asian states, but this influence has mostly been in the form of mutual cooperation and better relations.
In another move, NATO’s representative for Central Asia James Appathurai held meetings with Uzbek ministers in March this year, in what seemed to be a move to gain Uzbek support against Russia.
If the United States is successful in establishing a military base in Uzbekistan, it would entail bad political consequences, and hence play a role in destabilising not only Central Asia, but also South Asia, as the anti-US sentiment and motivation for radical Islamists could fuel a wave of militancy that could also spill over into Russia, one of the most important states in the region. Such concerns were raised by a Russian military expert, Lt Gen Leonid Sazhin¸ saying, “Although Americans claims that they are fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan today, it will be them who, by deploying their facility in Uzbekistan, will lead Taliban members there.”
A base in Uzbekistan, that neighbours Afghanistan, could also be used for surgical strikes, and even drone attacks, into neighbouring Afghanistan, that could also raise major human rights concerns and sour relations with Kabul.
If the United States is successful in establishing a fully operational base in Uzbekistan, this would also worry China, another regional power, as it has already shown concerns over the bases surrounding it, known as the ‘ring of fire’. In any case, Uzbekistan needs to decide whether such a venture would be beneficial for the country and the region or will bring chaos in the long run.
The writer is a Programme consultant and Content Editor at the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, belonging to Frontier Region of Pakistan. He is currently pursuing his higher Studies in Public Policy and Conflict Management in Germany. He tweets as @faruqyusaf and can be reached at farooq@crss.
Daily Times
May 22, 2013
Uzbek quest for US weapons could dent Central Asia
Farooq Yousaf
Uzbekistan currently faces an international arms embargo because of prisoner deaths, and its operation in 2005 in Andijan
2014 is approaching, and so is the deadline for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Afghanistan. Leon Panetta, the then-US Defense Secretary, in 2012 announced that by the end of 2014 coalition forces would cease any combat operations and would be limited to normal military duties in the country. Moreover, [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai, in a recent interview, gave approval to allowing nine US military bases even after the pullout.
With the United States wary of transporting heavy weaponry out of Afghanistan, offers have been made by the Central Asian states, such as Uzbekistan, in return for some of the latest arms and equipment that they lack. According to a report by The New York Times, policy makers in Washington took Uzbekistan’s offer so seriously that the United States has partially lifted a set of arms sales restrictions that has been in place for about a decade.
Last year, in June, reports started to surface that Uzbekistan that faces international arms embargoes due to widespread human rights violations, started negotiations for a possible arms-transit and military base deal with the USA, that would help the coalition forces take its equipment out of Afghanistan, whereas Tashkent would benefit by acquiring the state-of-the-
Uzbekistan, for long has been indicating shifting its alliances and partners. One of such indications was its withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military cooperation initiative between Russia and Central Asian states [as well as Armenia and Belarus]. It would have been difficult for Tashkent to enter into military negotiations with the United States if it were a member of the CSTO, but abandoning the CSTO freed it from coming under any pressure.
In terms of geostrategic importance, the most feasible gateway for cargo withdrawal is Pakistan, yet it seems that the coalition forces want as many alternatives as possible, such as Uzbekistan, in case Islamabad decides to go against its deals with NATO and close the NATO supply line, or even ask for more money.
...
Such a move by Uzbekistan would mean it wants to turn its back on Russia, a neighbour that supports much of the Uzbek workforce. Russia, even after the Soviet disintegration, has maintained a substantial influence over some of the Central Asian states, but this influence has mostly been in the form of mutual cooperation and better relations.
In another move, NATO’s representative for Central Asia James Appathurai held meetings with Uzbek ministers in March this year, in what seemed to be a move to gain Uzbek support against Russia.
If the United States is successful in establishing a military base in Uzbekistan, it would entail bad political consequences, and hence play a role in destabilising not only Central Asia, but also South Asia, as the anti-US sentiment and motivation for radical Islamists could fuel a wave of militancy that could also spill over into Russia, one of the most important states in the region. Such concerns were raised by a Russian military expert, Lt Gen Leonid Sazhin¸ saying, “Although Americans claims that they are fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan today, it will be them who, by deploying their facility in Uzbekistan, will lead Taliban members there.”
A base in Uzbekistan, that neighbours Afghanistan, could also be used for surgical strikes, and even drone attacks, into neighbouring Afghanistan, that could also raise major human rights concerns and sour relations with Kabul.
If the United States is successful in establishing a fully operational base in Uzbekistan, this would also worry China, another regional power, as it has already shown concerns over the bases surrounding it, known as the ‘ring of fire’. In any case, Uzbekistan needs to decide whether such a venture would be beneficial for the country and the region or will bring chaos in the long run.
The writer is a Programme consultant and Content Editor at the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, belonging to Frontier Region of Pakistan. He is currently pursuing his higher Studies in Public Policy and Conflict Management in Germany. He tweets as @faruqyusaf and can be reached at farooq@crss.
