In this issue:
Rumsfeld Visits Astana, Greets Kazakh Troops Home from Duty in Iraq
Kazakhstan, Kashagan Consortium Clear Way for Commercial Production
Chechens, Ingushes in Kazakhstan Mark 60th Anniversary of Stalinist Deportation, Thank Kazakhs for Their Hospitality
Say it in Kazakh:
We feel like family. --- Biz bir zhanyuiadaimiz. [Bihz bihr zhah-nyu-ih-DI-miz]
Rumsfeld Visits Astana, Greets Kazakh Troops
Home from Duty in Iraq
Had Saddam Hussein followed Kazakhstan's example, the war in Iraq never would have been fought, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Astana on February 25.
Kazakhstan renounced nuclear
weapons in 1993, and working
with the United States under
the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program, it was the
first of the former Soviet states
to eliminate nuclear weapons
on its territory.
“It’s interesting when one thinks
about the problem of Iraq and
their unwillingness to disarm,
that Kazakhstan stands as an
impressive model of how a
country can do it,” Rumsfeld
said. “Had Iraq followed the
Kazakhstan model after 17
U.N. resolutions and disarmed
the way Kazakhstan did, there
would not have been a war.”
Further strengthening of the military relationships between the United States and this former Soviet republic highlighted discussions during Rumsfeld’s second visit here in two years. He met with Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov, Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev, Defense Minister Mukhtar Altynbayev and National Security Committee Chairman Nartay Dutbayev.
“We talked about U.S. support for Kazakhstan’s sovereignty and our important military-to-military relationship,” Rumsfeld said during a joint news conference with Altynbayev. The leaders also discussed the importance of Kazakhstan’s participation in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. “Kazakhstan is an important country in the global war on terror, and has been wonderfully helpful in Iraq, and I came here to personally say ‘thank you’ and express our appreciation.”
Earlier, the secretary met with a platoon of Kazakhstan military engineers. The soldiers recently returned from duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where they worked with unexploded ordnance disposal as part of the Polish-led Central- South Division. Rumsfeld thanked them for their service in Iraq.
Their commander, Lt. Col Kayrat Smagulov, spoke for the unit. “We had full cooperation from our American compatriots,” he said.
Beefing up security on the Caspian Sea has become a high priority in the country. The waterway straddles Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran. These countries must resolve the longstanding issue of how to divide the land-locked waters. The sea is well-known for its caviar crop and has untapped oil reserves.
Altynbayev said the United States and Kazakhstan today signed on to a $12 million program for projects involving the Kazakhstan’s army as part of an ongoing five-year plan to address Caspian Sea security. Rumsfeld said the plan has involved military exercises and refurbishment of bases, and that security in that area is “important to the world.”
Drug-running operations originating in Afghanistan also are a concern in Kazakhstan. Rumsfeld said the coalition is working on the problem, and Afghanistan is nearing the point at which its government will be able to do more about it.
“The crop year in Afghanistan in every respect was a good one,” Rumsfeld said. “That’s a good thing generally for food; it’s a bad thing when it’s also a good crop year for drugs. The coalition countries, under the leadership of the United Kingdom, are working with the government of Afghanistan to deal with the drug problem and the drug flow out of Afghanistan and into Europe.”
Rumsfeld said he expects the focus on Afghanistan’s drug problem to increase, now that the country has a newly approved constitution and elections on the horizon.
Altynbayev noted recent media reports that the United States, through Ambassador Larry C. Napper, has given Kazakhstan vehicles and radio equipment to help the effort to fight drug trafficking.
Rumsfeld last visited Kazakhstan in May 2002 to convey U.S. gratitude for the country’s Operation Enduring Freedom support in Afghanistan. The country allowed use of its airspace and granted emergency landing rights at designated airfields.
(Excerpted from American Forces Press Service report, available on www.dod.gov)
(The Kazakh News Agency also reported on February 25 that Kazakhstan is willing to help Iraq rebuild its economy and to supply food and construction materials.)
Kazakh Government, Kashagan Consortium Clear Way for Commercial Production of Oil
Kazakhstan Government officials, executives of Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, and Agip KCO, the operator of the Kashagan consortium of foreign companies, signed an agreement on February 25 in Astana, which resolved outstanding issues and cleared the way for commercial exploitation of Kashagan’s reserves in 2008.
Until recently, a major issue between Kazakhstan and the consortium was compensation for the expected three-year delay in the production, originally scheduled to start in 2005.
After a ceremony in Astana, officials and business executives said all issues had been resolved. The amount compensation the consortium will pay Kazakhstan was not revealed.
Development of the gigantic Kashagan oil field, the largest oil discovery in the world for the last three decades, is expected to cost as much as US$ 29 billion, officials said.
Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov, witnessing the signing of the agreement, hailed it, saying: “Kazakhstan will shortly become an oil power. Today’s agreement heralds a new era in oil development in our country.”
He noted the Kashagan oil field is expected to produce 21 million tons of oil by 2010 and double that amount by 2013. The production at the field is expected to peak at 56 million tons by 2015 and stay there for 15 years. Earlier, officials said Kazakhstan’s overall oil production would more than triple from today’s 52 million tons to 170 million tons (or 3.5 million barrels per day) by 2015.
In addition to Italy’s Eni, the parent company of Agip, the consortium developing the field includes ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell, TotalFinaElf, Inpex of Japan, and BG Group. In July 2002, the consortium announced the commercial discovery at Kashagan of 7 to 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Experts have always said this number is a very conservative estimate.
Chechens and Ingushes in Kazakhstan Mark 60th Anniversary of Stalinist Deportation, and
Thank Kazakhs for Their Hospitality
The Chechens and the Ingushes, people closely related to the Chechens, marked the 60th anniversary of their deportation from their homelands in the North Caucasus to Kazakhstan during the Stalinist era on February 23. The Day of Memory was marked with prayers for those who perished during the inhumane deportation, and also for peace in Kazakhstan, which has become home to deportees from many corners of the former Soviet empire, their children and grandchildren.
In 1944, during the war against the Nazis, the Soviet government led by Joseph Stalin resolved to deport all the inhabitants of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic to places in the interior of their domain “for treason and cooperation with the enemy”. The move ended the existence of the autonomous republic.
On February 23, 1944, the Chechens and the Ingushes were given a few hours to gather their belongings, harshly limited to no more than 20 kilos per person, and herded into cargo rail cars and dispersed to Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Those who objected were executed on the spot.
Because of harsh conditions, almost half of those who embarked on the forced journey did not survive. Ninety thousand families, about 400,000 people, found a refuge in Kazakhstan. Several thousand Chechens and Ingushes still live in Kazakhstan, although they were allowed to go back to Chechnya after the death of Stalin in 1953, according to Khabar news agency.
At the commemorations in the Almaty region on February 23, Atsalim Idigov, chairman of the regional Chechen-Ingush Center, said: “Our enormous gratitude goes to the Kazakh people. Though they were still reeling from the tragedy of the 1930s themselves, they did not turn their back on the Chechen people who found themselves here in the barren steppes. Because of their help, many Chechens survived.”
Kazhan Shirbaev, another Chechen, said: “We all lived as friends, and even as family.”
Mr. Idigov concluded: “The elderly say Kazakhstan became their second motherland. For us, who were born here, this is not the second motherland, but the only one.”
Today, Kazakhstan is home to more than 100 ethnic groups, including Germans, Koreans, and Poles who were also deported in the mid-20th Century by the Stalinist regime for their alleged disloyalty to Moscow.
Things to Watch:
- Kazakhstan is to celebrate March 8 as International Women’s Day.
- Kazakhstan’s Parliament to take up election reform again on March 15.
____________________________________________________________
News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and agency reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
1401 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20036
Tel.: (202) 232- 5488 ext. 104, Fax: (202) 232- 5845
