IN THIS ISSUE

* Iran and nuclear weapons reduction dominates U.S.-Russian relations
* Bombings target Kabardino-Balkaria’s infrastructure
* NGO’s provide evidence of Kazakhstan’s departure from OSCE values
** New in the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Azerbaijan Considers Georgia-Black Sea-Bulgaria Route for Compressed Natural Gas to Europe

Time Running Out to Achieve New Arms Control Treaty

Pavel Felgenhauer

The Barack Obama administration began nuclear arms control negotiations with Moscow this year, eager for swift progress to help “reset” bilateral relations and achieve progress on more sensitive issues such as Iran and Afghanistan. The expiry date of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START 1 is December 5, but in the spring it seemed a replacement could be speedily assembled in time. Today, the major Cold War issue of nuclear arms control has lost most of its genuine urgency. The nuclear arms race is essentially dead with or without a treaty. The crippled Russian defense industry is physically unable to recommence a Cold War style nuclear arms race, while the U.S. does not see any need to deploy additional strategic nuclear weapons. Recently, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin demanded that the Russian defense industry begin producing modern weapons instead of squandering money (EDM, October 29; www.premier.gov.ru, November 18).

A follow-on START arms control treaty could codify this basic strategic status quo, while granting the Kremlin a satisfying feeling of equality with the mighty U.S. The December 5 deadline is nearing, but the small print related to a new treaty has still not been agreed. The Russian press quoted Kremlin sources as saying that it is the Americans that are more interested in securing a new treaty in time for Obama to boast as he receives the Nobel Peace prize next month, and thus, they must give more in concessions (Kommersant, November 12; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November16).

Medvedev and Obama had a short meeting in Singapore on November 15 on the sidelines of the APEC summit. Both leaders told journalists about the good progress in their relations, but acknowledged that there are some unresolved “complicated technical issues” (www.kremlin.ru, November 15). Both sides promised to “work hard” to prepare the text of a treaty for signing before December 5 and pledged to find easier and cheaper compliance and verification procedures than in the original START 1. However, it remains unclear if this can be achieved as well as ratification possibly dragging on for a long time.

After the summit, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs Michael McFaul told journalists in Singapore that an interim “bridging agreement” has been proposed to keep in place verification procedures and other essential parts of the old START 1, while the new treaty is being prepared and ratified. McFaul acknowledged that there is no such “bridging agreement” yet (Interfax, November 15). The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in turn, did not express any appetite to have a “bridging agreement.” Lavrov insisted that the new treaty would function tentatively after its signing and then go fully into force after ratification (www.mid.ru, November 17).

Moscow does not want to continue START 1 under any pretext after December 5. The Russian military in fact, wants to remove some of the verification procedures of START, making McFaul’s “bridging agreement” seemingly a nonstarter. Moscow also wants the U.S. military control mission to be removed from the Votkinsk missile factory in Udmurtia in the Urals. The Votkinsk mission allows the U.S. to inspect all newly made Russian solid fuel ballistic missiles, both strategic and shorter range. Together with the Votkinsk mission, the Russian military seeks to terminate the exchange of telemetric data on intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launches which are obligatory under START 1 (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 16).

The Russian military plans to begin deployment next month of multi-warhead modernized Topol-M ICBM’s also known as RS-24 (RIA Novosti, November 16). Under START 1, Topol-M may have only one warhead and a prolongation of the treaty under any guise could render the deployment of the RS-24 illegal. Negotiating a “bridging agreement” that would satisfy both sides, could itself take months or possibly years. Both sides basically agree that each will be allocated some 1,500 deployed strategic warheads under the new treaty, but there are disagreements as to how many long-range delivery systems might be allowed. Moscow, which is struggling to keep operational its Cold War arsenal, wants the number of delivery systems reduced to 500, while the U.S. military would like to maintain up to 1,100 (Kommersant, November 16).

The new treaty that was designed to be a “reset” driver, may instead become a detractor and sour relations. Of course, since nuclear arms issues do not appear as important today as during the Cold War, the Obama administration may make greater concessions than first envisaged, to clinch a quick deal. But this may open Obama to domestic accusations of being too soft on national security issues. A treaty that seems to be tilted in Moscow’s favor may become stuck during its ratification process in the Senate.

In Singapore Obama announced: “The reset button has worked,” but did not offer much concrete evidence. Concerning international efforts to press Iran to stop its clandestine nuclear program, Medvedev announced: “If the results are not forthcoming we still have at our disposal the various instruments mentioned earlier, in order to move the process forward by other means” (www.kremlin.ru, November 15). This might be interpreted as a promise to agree to punitive sanctions, or not. In any case, Tehran does not appear to be impressed or moved to make serious compromises. Even the agreement reached last July, during Obama’s visit to Moscow, to allow U.S. military air transit over Russian territory into Afghanistan is still not working.

It is impossible to remove the underlying basic disagreements between Moscow and Washington by merely pressing a toy “reset” button. It is even worse to pretend that fundamental disagreements do not exist.

Insurgents Carry Out a Series of Attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria

The Jamestown Foundation

The Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria this week has been the target of a series of attacks apparently carried out by insurgents. On the evening of November 17, an electric power substation in the Adyl-Su Gorge in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrusk district was blown up. Later that same evening, an explosion in the Azau Glade cut the line between the fourth and fifth abutments of the Azau-Krugozor cable line. No one was hurt in the blasts. Law enforcement sources were quoted as saying that members of “illegal armed formations” –the standard official Russian terminology for insurgents in the North Caucasus– might have been behind the blasts. Also on November 17, unidentified attackers fired automatic weapons and grenade launchers at an Elbrus district police post. The post was manned by five policemen at the time of the incident, but none were hurt in the attack (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 18).

There were another series of incidents yesterday (November 18). An unidentified law enforcement source in Kabardino-Balkaria told ITAR-TASS that police in the republic’s Cherek district had averted a terrorist act aimed at blowing up the Aushiger hydropower plant. The source added that an arms cache containing four kilograms of plastic explosives, seven grenades, four detonators and a bomb had been found in a forest 200 meters from the hydropower plant. According to ITAR-TASS, the Aushiger hydropower plant, one of two hydropower plants on the Nizhny Cherek River, provides Kabardino-Balkaria with about 20 percent of its electric power (ITAR-TASS, November 18).

Kavkazsky Uzel today (November 19) reported that two electric power line pylons were blown up on the outskirts of the village of Malka in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Zolsky district, one of which was destroyed completely. Traces of a bomb containing aluminum and plastic explosives were found at the scene. A Malka resident, Anyusa Khazhnagoeva, told the website: “We were all awakened by the explosion. The glass in the windows rattled and the lights went out immediately.” Kavkazsky Uzel also cited specialists as saying that had the Aushiger hydropower plant been successfully blown up, the villages of Aushiger and Urvan would likely have been submerged in hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water and that the flood would have threatened other villages located on the banks of the Cherek River, including Nizhny Cherek and Psygansu (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 19).

The government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on November 18 quoted inhabitants of the village of Terskol at the foot of Mount Elbrus as saying that the previous evening, the lights had gone out and many had heard shooting and explosions. The paper added: “The population of the resort zone, whose attendance by tourists and mountain climbers is growing year by year, cannot recall acts of sabotage or daring armed sorties of this kind. The goal of the bandits, according to local residents, is to intimate people and undermine the economy of the republic, given that guests from other parts of Russia and foreigners will not want to a visit a turbulent region” (www.rg.ru, November 18).

While there has been no official statement on the attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria, Kavkazsky Uzel quoted a local human rights activist, Valery Khatazhukov, as saying they were probably carried out by “those who carried out terrorist attacks earlier.” He noted that a gas pipeline was blown up in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrus district in September 2007. The website quoted an anonymous source as saying that the latest bombings were carried out by “destructive forces who by means of destabilizing the situation” in Kabardino-Balkaria are seeking to remove the republic’s president, Arsen Kanokov.

Kavakzsky Uzel also noted that prior to this week’s attacks there had been seven large bomb blasts in Kabardino-Balkaria. Among these were the attacks in the republic’s Chegemsky district in October 2008, which large improvised explosive devices were used to blow up two electric power lines, forcing local authorities to switch to emergency electric power supplies. Supplies of electricity cut off by this week’s bombings are expected to be restored by this evening (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 19).

The chief of staff of the Combined Group of Forces in the North Caucasus, Colonel Oleg Panarin, said on November 8 that the North Caucasus remains a troubled region and that the situation there is getting worse. “The main destabilizing factor, as before, is the presence and activities in Chechnya, and also in the regions of the Russian Federation neighboring it, of bandit formations seeking to further step up their armed struggles against the federal forces and local government bodies,” he said. Panarin added that “the bandit underground” is gradually increasing its numbers and this being achieved through “active agitation-propaganda work” on the part of the “leaders of the bandit groups” and their “representatives among the population” (www.yuga.ru, November 8).

In his annual state of the nation address last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the level of corruption and violence in the North Caucasus republics is “unprecedented.” He said that a cabinet post dedicated to tackling problems in the North Caucasus would soon be created (RIA Novosti, November 12).

NGO’s Allege Kazakhstan Not Ready for OSCE Chairmanship

Erica Marat

Less than two months before Kazakhstan takes over the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kazakh NGO’s are warning the international community about the rapidly worsening human rights situation in the country. Kazakhstan’s ambition to become OSCE chairman was a project oriented at enhancing the country’s international image and not its democratic achievements, most leaders conclude.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev often underscores the OSCE chairmanship as an important and distinct accomplishment for the country (Kazakhstan Today, November 13). However, although Kazakhstan has achieved certain results in developing democratic legislation, starting this year, the Kazakh government endorsed or considers endorsing a number of non-democratic legislative acts. These include the draft law on religious practices, regulation of internet-based mass media outlets, and legislation restricting freedoms of assembly. During a discussion organized by the Freedom House and Open Society Institute in Washington on November 18, five Kazakh NGO activists spoke about Kazakhstan’s low readiness to take over the OSCE chairmanship.

Iva Dobichina, Freedom House Chief of Party in Kazakhstan, argued that the Kazakh government was unable to abide by the promise given by the then Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin at the OSCE Madrid summit two years ago. The summit was held shortly before Kazakhstan was granted the chairmanship at the OSCE (www.zakon.kz, December 1, 2007). “All changes that were made since that meeting preserved the existing political structure and failed to open space for new policy alternatives,” Dobichina commented. Moreover, the activist also claimed that the government began sending targeted messages to local NGO’s to warn them of their need to comply with government policy.

According to Ninel Fokina from the Almaty Helsinki Committee, Kazakhstan’s legislation is often tolerant towards religious and ethnic minorities (www.neonomad.kz, June 19, 2008). Yet in practical terms, the Kazakh government uses methods to control religious groups similar to those employed by Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. They include numerous raids of religious institutions, fines for failing to acquire registration, extradition of foreign missionaries, seizure of assets, and the prevention of the dissemination of religious literature. Government officials openly warn that religious pluralism in the country is part of the reason for religious extremism.

According to Fokina, the government pressures religious groups not belonging to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims or the Russian Orthodox Church (www.fergana.ru, June 8, 2007). “The government has tasked a number of institutions such as National Security Committee (KNB), General-Prosecutor, interior ministry and justice ministry with controlling these religious groups”, explained the activist. The law on religion that was adopted by the Kazakh government earlier this year, but then rejected by the Constitutional Court under strong international pressure, is likely to resurface in 2011, according to Fokina.

Furthermore, Kazakhstan’s laws on the mass media are among the strictest in the former Soviet Union, argues Tamara Kaleyeva from Adil Soz NGO. Six chapters in the Criminal Code allow the persecution of journalists, while the Administrative Code includes over ten chapters that permit closing any mass media outlet. Additionally, existing legislation does not regulate the size of compensation for journalistic libel, thus making any publishing house vulnerable to abrupt bankruptcy. In spite of pledges made by the Kazakh government to introduce greater media liberalization before being granted the OSCE chairmanship, yet another restrictive law on the mass media was passed recently. Since August, internet publications are defined as media outlets, thus subject to the existing media laws (www.internews.kz, June 29).

Zhemis Turmagambetova from Charter for Human Rights commented that Kazakhstan’s civil society groups have been effectively collaborating with the government on legislation dealing with human rights and civic freedoms. However, she noted that the Kazakh government is yet to show whether it is willing to implement most legislative acts developed together with civil society.

Finally, Kazakh citizens must notify the government ten days in advance before holding demonstrations, according to Vera Tkachenko from the Legal Policy Center. NGO leaders, who protested against the unlawful treatment of human rights activist Evgeny Zhotis, arrested for killing a pedestrian in a car accident, were fined up to $120 for failing to acquire government permits for demonstrations (www.azattyq.org, September 29).

Meanwhile, the Kazakh government is busy planning initiatives to facilitate closer links with Europe and promised support for the E.U.’s policy in Central Asia as part of its OSCE leadership next year (www.gazeta.kz, November 16). However, the number of political and business prisoners is continuing to increase weeks before the country acquires this responsibility (www.vesti.kz, October 21). “Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the OSCE undermines the values of the organization, concludes Tkachenko, while Fokina agrees: “The Kazakh government thinks that it has deserved the OSCE position and has allowed negative tendencies to get out of control.”

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