It is not the first time that Kazakhstan pledges economic assistance to war-torn Afghanistan. From a geopolitical point of view, active cooperation with Kabul would be welcome for Astana as an important bridge to partnership with NATO and U.S.-sponsored international organizations. In December 2005, Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev, addressing the Brussels summit on security issues, said that Kazakhstan would like to see Afghanistan involved in regional security cooperation. In London, the Kazakh Foreign minister went further and tabled a proposal that Kabul should conclude an intergovernmental agreement on fighting drug trafficking. He underlined that Kazakhstan calls on other states to create an anti-drug security belt around Afghanistan.

The Foreign Minister’s speech apparently went down well with the foreign audience, but was jeered by observers at home as a mere propaganda gesture. Very few in Astana believe that the Afghan government, unable even to bring to order its own corrupt police forces and provincial governors, would play any significant role in inter-governmental cooperation to stem drug trafficking. On the other hand, Kazakhstan will hardly ensure security in its southern backyard until similar agreements with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are reached.

So far, effective anti-narcotics cooperation between Kazakhstan and its next-door neighbors remains in the domain of wishful thinking. The director of Tajikistan’s Drug Control Agency Rustam Nazarov, who visited Almaty on January 30, admitted that 25 percent of Afghan heroin is trafficked through Central Asia annually, practically unhindered. He blamed the lack of interaction between Kazakh and Tajik anti-narcotics units. However, the state of cooperation with Uzbekistan is no better. Rustam Nazarov lamented the lack of significant progress in fighting drug trafficking in 2005, and the situation would remain so in 2006.

Astana’s security concerns on the Afghan issue are not limited to drug trafficking. Experts are frequently debating the reliability of Kazakh military units in the Caspian region. According to Lt. General Aitkozha Isengulov, the leader of the Association of retired army officers, military personnel in the Caspian region, understaffed and lacking sophisticated equipment, is very vulnerable to terrorist or other military attacks. He believes that Kazakhstan could incur the attacks of Islamic militants due to its involvement in anti-terrorist operations in Iraq or Afghanistan on the side of the U.S., Israel and other states. The attempt of Western states to widen the fight against terrorists globally to make others share their headaches does not bode well for Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region.

Such a neutral attitude, however, does not reflect the official line of Astana, which on many occasions demonstrated its commitment to fighting terrorism within its partnership with NATO. Just before Tokayev’s trip to London, the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan (KNB) announced its intention to include the notorious Jamaat of Mujahedins of Central Asia militant organization as well as the Aum Shinrikyo sect into the list of terrorist organizations banned in Kazakhstan. Such a step may have purely symbolic meaning rather than a serious crackdown on extremist groups, since both of the above named organizations are almost unknown in Kazakhstan. Incidentally, at a press conference on February 6, a foreign ministry spokesman reiterated that Kazakhstan had terrorist training camps on its territory. There is no apparent reason to fear that remnants of Taliban militants will infiltrate into the country. Kazakhstan’s anti-terrorist frenzy in this situation looks more like a politically motivated activity rather than a response to a real imminent threat.

Russia actively uses the Chechen card to internationalize its never-ending war against separatists in the North Caucasus and never abandoned its plans to entangle Central Asian states into anti-terror operations. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran supported Moscow’s initiative to create a joint Casfor navy force allegedly to protect Caspian oil reserves from potential terrorist attacks. Russian Admiral Vladimir Masorin assured that Casfor is not directed against any foreign power and ‘will be used to suppress terrorist attacks and prevent the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction’.

Obviously, any great power rivaling for Caspian oil will capitalize on ‘terrorist threat’ to concentrate huge military muscle in the region. These developments run counter to the intention of Astana to demilitarize the Caspian. At the same time, Kazakhstan seeks closer cooperation with all Caspian states to ensure security of the planned south-western gas shipment route to Afghanistan and Iran via Turkmenistan as an alternative to the Russian pipeline network increasingly used by Moscow as a leverage of political pressure. In this context, the Kazakh foreign minister had good reasons to thank in London international forces for maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan.