Kyrgyzstan Update

Kyrgyzstan’s President Kurmanbek Bakiyev dissolved parliament on October 22, 2007, moving to strengthen his control after voters overwhelmingly approved constitutional changes that his critics called a grab for power.

Bakiyev’s move was part of his latest battle with lawmakers, a dispute that has persisted in the Central Asian country of 5 million since a popular uprising ousted its longtime leader in 2005.

The confrontation has hindered efforts to reduce poverty and social problems in the strategically important country, which hosts a U.S. air base as well as a growing Russian military base.

Parliament passed two sets of constitutional changes last year curtailing the president's powers. But lawmakers reversed them a month later after Bakiyev threatened to dissolve the legislature, returning to the president the authority to form the Cabinet. There were no immediate signs, however, that Bakiyev's moves would bring opposition protesters into the streets, as during previous disputes.

The last major anti-government protest in the capital, Bishkek, took place in April, and it was forcibly dispersed. The president's office called on law enforcement agencies Monday to ensure public calm. But in his address, Bakiyev said that no emergency measures would be put in place. Kyrgyzstan has been troubled by political tension since Askar Akayev was ousted from the presidency by opposition protesters in 2005 and fled to Russia.

It was claims of fraud in the election of the current parliament that sparked the protests that brought Bakiyev to power. Since then, the former opposition forces that were instrumental in Akayev's removal have battled each other for influence. Former parliament Speaker Marat Sultanov said that, under the newly approved constitution, elections should be held around mid-December.

Kyrgyzstan's "Tulip Revolution"

The Tulip Revolution refers to the overthrow of President Askar Akayev and his government in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan after the parliamentary elections of February 27 and of March 13, 2005.

The revolution sought the end of rule by Akayev and by his family and associates, who in popular opinion had become increasingly corrupt and authoritarian. Following the revolution, Akayev fled the country.

In the early stages of the revolution, the media variously referred to the unrest as the "Pink," "Lemon", "Silk", "Daffodil", or "Sandpaper" Revolution. But it was "Tulip Revolution," a term that Akayev himself used in a speech warning that no such Color Revolution should happen in Kyrgyzstan, which stuck in the end.

Such terms evoked similarities with the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, whose names are a tribute to the Czech/Slovak Velvet Revolution.

Kyrgyzstan held a presidential election on 10 July 2005. It saw a landslide victory for acting President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who had been serving as the head of an interim government after the collapse of the Akayev regime.

Russia Will Defend Its Oil

Russian President Vladimir Putin, responding to questions on a TV broadcast on October 18, 2007, continued his recent criticism of the United States.

Putin suggested that the U.S. military campaign in Iraq may have been attempt to seize its oil reserves. He said that resource rich countries such as Russia needed to have strong militaries to defend themselves against those who might try to steal their resources.

He also called for the U.S. to announce an exact date for the departure of troops from Iraq.

With respect to his own future, he said that Russia will have a different president next year. This would appear to lay to rest any notions that he would seek both a third term and constitutional crisis, but it was not clear what role he would play in Russia’s new government.

Warnings from the Caspian Summit

On October 16, 2007, Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and implicitly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran.

At a summit of the five nations that border the inland Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan), Putin said none of the nations' territory should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region. It was am obvious reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. has planned to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

Putin, whose trip to Tehran is the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II, also warned that energy pipeline projects crossing the Caspian could only be implemented if all five nations that border the Caspian support them. The legal status of the Caspian — believed to contain the world's third-largest energy reserves — has been uncertain since the 1991 Soviet collapse, leading to tension and conflicting claims to seabed oil deposits. Iran, which shared the Caspian's resources with the Soviet Union, insists that each coastal nation receive an equal portion of the seabed. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want the division based on the length of each nation's shoreline, giving Iran a smaller share.

Putin's visit took place despite warnings of a possible assassination plot and amid hopes that personal diplomacy could help offer a solution to an international standoff on Iran's nuclear program. Putin's trip was thrown into doubt when the Kremlin said Sunday that he had been informed by Russian intelligence services that suicide attackers might try to kill him in Tehran, but he ignored the warning.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini dismissed reports about the purported assassination plot as disinformation spread by adversaries hoping to damage the good relations between Russia and Iran.

Putin has warned the U.S. and other nations against trying to coerce Iran into reining in its nuclear program and insists peaceful dialogue is the only way to deal with Iranian defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment.

Iran's rejection of the council's demand and its previous clandestine atomic work has fed suspicions in the U.S. and other countries that Tehran is working to enrich uranium to a purity usable in nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is only wants less enriched uranium to fuel nuclear reactors that would generate electricity. Putin's visit to Tehran is being closely watched for any possible shifts in Russia's carefully hedged stance in the nuclear standoff.

Even though Russia has shielded Tehran from a U.S. push for a third round of U.N. sanctions, Iran has voiced annoyance about Moscow's delays in building a nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr under a $1 billion contract.

Moscow also has ignored Iranian demands to ship fuel for the plant, saying it would be delivered only six months before the Bushehr plant goes on line. The launch date has been delayed indefinitely amid the payment dispute. Any sign by Putin that Russia could quickly complete the power plant would embolden Iran and further cloud Russia's relations with the West.

What Happened In Tajikistan?

Tajikistan held presidential elections on November 6, 2006. Emomali Sharifovich Rahmonov, the incumbent, and a member of the dominant People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan, was re-elected. Not without controversy, the constitutional provisions that would prevent him from seeking further terms in office have been removed.

In early 2007 various Russian news sources reported that Rahmonov announced that he had changed his last name to Rahmon, dropping the Russian ending -ov, and that he urges other Tajiks to follow his example and return to their cultural and national roots.

Starting on March 20, 2007, official web sites of Tajikistan started using the surname Rahmon.

Rahmon is a Sunni Muslim and has performed the hajj when he went to Mecca on March 1997. He has called for closer ties with other Muslim nations in the region, notably the Persian speaking nations of Iran and Afghanistan.

Missiles on the Moon?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned U.S. officials to reconsider their plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe. Failure to do so will cause further damage to deteriorating US-Russian relations.

After keeping Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates waiting for nearly thirty minutes, Putin delivered a lengthy monologue in which he also said that Russia may feel compelled to abandon its obligations under a 1987 missile treaty with the United States.

He also seemed to mock the plan, stating that it should be built on the moon.

The Russian government sees the American missile defense plan, which is supposedly a designed to protect against missile attack from Iran, as the first step in an overall plan to weake Russian security.

Rice and Gates appeared taken aback at the firm tone and forcefulness of Putin's remarks, which were made from notes in the presence of American and Russian news media before they began a closed-door meeting around an oval table in an ornate conference room at his country house outside the capital.

On missile defense, Putin was particularly pointed in his remarks, in which he sought to lay out his view of what Rice and Gates should be discussing later Friday with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoli Serdyukov.

"We hope that in the process of such complex and multi-faceted talks you will not be forcing forward your relations with the eastern European countries," the president said. He then made his remark about the possibility of one day putting a missile defense system on the moon.

Shortly before the talks with Putin began, Lavrov strolled into the house's billiards room, where American reporters had gathered, for a cigarette break. He was asked whether he expected any breakthroughs in the talks.

"Breaks, definitely. Through or down, I don't know," he said.

The American plan calls for the construction of 10 missile interceptors in Poland, linked to a missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic. The system will provide some protection in Europe and beyond for long-range missiles launched from Iran, but Russia believes the system is a step toward undermining the deterrent value of its nuclear arsenal. The Russian counterproposal calls for building a system in Azerbaijan, which is much closer to Iran.

Rice told reporters on Thursday on her flight to Moscow that the U.S. would go ahead with the program as planned.

Russia and President Hillary Clinton

Many Russians are predicting a win by Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and they’re worried.

A concern is that her victory will result in stepped-up criticism of Russia's failures in human rights and democratization, thereby increasing friction. The result will be an increased deterioration in US-Russian relations.

They are bad under Bush, but could be much worse under Hillary Clinton. She may revive the doctrine of her husband, and assume that Russia is to be punished for having lost the Cold War. Another source of trouble will be the increasingly favored status of China. This is due almost entirely to the fact that China serves as a source of cheap labor for low grade consumer goods, with the expectation that the same labor force can eventually be upgraded for the production of more expensive items such as consumer electronics.

Russia could argue that China has human rights issues of its own, and democratization is an utterly foreign concept there. Russia could assert that US policy is being driven by corporate interests, strengthening the position of pro‑Communist factions within Russia.

Another consideration is oil. Russia controls a significant portion of the world's petroleum resources, and the disastrous situation in the Middle East may necessitate a certain level of dependency on Russian oil and gas.

If elected, Senator Hillary Clinton will have two problems with respect to Russia. The first is the foreign policy disaster created by her predecessor, and the second could be biases inherited from her husband. Russia will be undergoing changes, and Clinton must work with things as they are to prevent the development of a significant and dangerous rift between America and Russia.