Eurasia Security Watch: No. 151

LOSING GROUND IN KYRGYZSTAN
Already fading, America's strategic footprint in Central Asia could soon be dealt another body blow. The latest trouble spot is Kyrgyzstan, where the last major U.S. military presence in the region - at the air base in Manas, outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek – has become a bone of contention between opposition politicians and the government of president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. In recent days, dozens of opposition activists have protested before the U.S. embassy in Bishkek, calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the former Soviet republic, and a disengagement of Kyrgyzstan from Coalition operations in favor of a modus vivendi on defense and security issues with Moscow.

As a result, Kyrgyz officials are already adopting a stricter tone toward the United States and its Coalition allies. "We gave permission only for the use of the base for conducting antiterror operations in Afghanistan,” Kyrgyz parliament speaker Marat Sultanov has told reporters. “If it is used for other purposes, we will immediately raise the issue of discontinuing its activity." (Associated Press, June 2, 2007; Moscow Itar-TASS, May 21 and June 2, 2007)

KAZAKHSTAN'S KING
Even as it draws closer to Europe, the regime of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazerbayev has launched a major consolidation of internal power. In late May, Nazerbayev took the unprecedented step of signing a series of constitutional amendments making it possible for him to remain president for life. The measures, which have already been ratified by the country's parliament, are being touted by officials as progress toward democracy in the Central Asian state, but signs suggest otherwise. The adopted amendments reduce the presidential term from seven years to five years, but also eliminate term restrictions on the office of the presidency – effectively cementing Nazerbayav's hold on political power indefinitely. (Istanbul Zaman, May 23, 2007)

CAIRO’S CURIOUS COUNTERTERRORISM TACTICS
The government of Hosni Mubarak is taking a softer line toward one of its most serious Islamist opponents. The Egyptian government has reportedly released some 130 members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group from prison in recent days. The prisoners, many of whom had languished behind bars for years, were forced to sign pledges to refrain from violence as a condition of their release. The move constitutes part of a revamped anti-terror strategy in Cairo, as part of which hundreds of militants from the Islamic Jihad, as well as from the Gama’a Islamiyya organization once headed by al-Qaeda ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, have been released from incarceration over past year-and-a-half. (Doha al-Jazeera, June 4, 2007)

SECURITY PROGRESS FOR IRAN IN CENTRAL ASIA
So far, Iran's aspirations to become a full-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the premier alliance in the "post-Soviet space," have gone unrequited. But officials in Tehran are seeing progress on another front. According to Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Iran could become a member of the seven-nation security bloc, a less robust variant of the SCO. "The CSTO is an open organization," Bordyuzha has told reporters in Moscow. "If Iran applies in accordance with our charter, we will consider the application." Further upping Tehran's chances of membership, according to the CSTO chief, is the fact that the partnership's contacts with Iran "are particularly intensive in the fight against the illicit drug trade in Central Asia." The CSTO currently encompasses Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. (Moscow Interfax-AVN, May 14, 2007)