Sanat K. Kushkumbayev, the First Deputy Director of the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, said in the Tehran Times that Kazakhstan will definitely need to consider the opinions of ‘outsiders’ like the US and the EU before beefing up its connection with Iran.
However, Nazarbayev is paying lip service to the planned oil/gas partnership and closer economic ties [also from Tehran Times], making it sound like something already on the books. The cool thing about Tehran’s coverage is that they don’t bother to make Admadinejad’s prose more PC.
“We should block the enemies’ penetration into the region by expanding regional cooperation,” he stated in a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
If nothing else, should Nazarbayev agree to the plan, he’ll definitely state it in words more digestible to “the enemies” in the West. Even as the sole SCO member to strongly support Moscow’s position, there is still a lot of foreign investment in Kazakhstan that relies on good relations with the West. Kazakhstan closing ranks with Russia, though, is more certainly a result of the large border it shares. It’s certainly not out of a desire to agree with the likes of Belarus and toady up to Putin or his pet bear Medvedev.
For those keeping score, this diversification is probably in Kazakhstan’s best interest. While its mineral wealth has brought a lot of money to the table, diversification of markets and industry will be what keeps Kazakhstan going after the oil runs out. Kazakhstan’s per capita income passed $7000, and its rainy day Oil Fund has surpassed 30 billion dollars. All of that being said, the investing and local bank crises continue to play out, [good place to start is this story from May 2008]with the government funding certain large banks to keep them afloat while smaller banks shut their doors as they try to collect on loans given to a populace not quite sure what banks are for to begin with. While the cosmopolitan populations of Almaty and Astana certainly understand their bank cards and bankomats [ATMs], it’s a certainty that those people living in villages are unaware of how criminally high the interest rates are, or why they are that way. Checks and credit cards, something second nature to most people in the west, are still a long way off in Kazakhstan and other former Soviet states. It seems like a trite observation, but it goes a long way to show how, even 15 and more years following the “adoption” of capitalism, how far away the former Super Power is from economic stability and a credit-capable economy.
Disclaimer: I’m no economist – I’d love to hear comments from those with different opinions and conclusions.
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I think Kazakhstan would be strongly interested in good Iran-US relationships. If you take a look at a map you can see that through Caspian Sea borders Iran is only country that separates Kazakhstan from the World Ocean. Totally free business ties with Iran for Kazakhstan would mean that the shortest route to the ocean is established, that there would be no need to use Baku-Ceihan or any of Russian pipelines to transport oil to foreign markets. It would mean that Kazakh ports on Caspian Sea would thrive on free trade with the rest of the World through Iran. There are potentials for beneficial cooperations between these two counries in many areas. However, Nazarbaev is not free to do so because of the US sanctions against Iran and Kazakhstan is still largerly dependent on US as a large investor and a security guarantor.
I agree totally. I hope that, with a change in both regimes [US and Iran] possible in the future, warmer relations will make for a more stable region.
Fingers AND toes crossed!
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