On February 28, the lower house of the Kazakh parliament ratified the treaty on alliance relations with Uzbekistan. After it is approved in the Senate, it will be signed by President Kasim-Jomart Tokayev and will enter into force. As they say, the new contract also has a security component. in case of escalation of the situation on the borders of one of the parties, consultations will be started immediately on how to protect and restore peace.
According to Aygul Kustan, Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, Defense and Security of the Lower House of the Parliament of Kazakhstan, thanks to the new treaty, his country “hopes to avoid various problematic situations”. He did not elaborate on the possibility of creating a “problematic situation” on the borders of Kazakhstan by which specific country. He only emphasized that the agreement on Kazakh-Uzbek alliance relations does not contradict the agreement on strategic cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia.
It is noteworthy that neither politicians nor experts spoke about the CSTO. And the fact is that Kazakhstan is a member of that organization, Uzbekistan is not, and recently held joint military exercises with Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan’s politicians and experts, of course, assure in their public assessments that the new Kazakh-Uzbek agreement does not imply “the creation of a joint military unit” and emphasize the priority of “the fight against terrorism, separatism”, but apparently, this is not the real process, at least in the propaganda domain. gives the impression of insuring against potential opposition.
Convened in Astana in the first days of November last year, the summit of the Organization of Turkic States adopted the “Vision” of the so-called “Turkish world” until 2040. What deep programs it covers is not known. In the declaration part, the aim is to achieve “synchronization of inter-parliamentary discussions” in defense and security issues. The parties evaluate the main significance of the new Kazakh-Uzbek contract as follows. “Abandon competition, switch to complementarity.” The leading countries of Central Asia are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan chose neutrality, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are CSTO members.
In fact, a new geopolitical format of Central Asia is being outlined, at the core of which the Kazakh-Uzbek confederation is planned. The other three countries, depending on their geographical position and military, economic, communication and demographic resources, essentially cannot play an independent role or achieve such an integration that would be attractive to any foreign center.
Thus, the CSTO practically loses its importance as a “security cushion” for Central Asia. Especially since the countries of the region cooperate quite effectively with Afghanistan, which, by the way, Azerbaijan also joined at the beginning of the year, officially establishing diplomatic relations with the “Taliban” government. It is an extremely important circumstance that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan brought the treaty on alliance relations to the parliamentary ratification mode after the visit of the French president to Astana and Tashkent last November. The rapprochement of the Central Asian countries with the European Union is, according to everything, a resource for Armenia as well.
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