Indian Army Chief General VK Singh visits Central Asia; Turkmenistan and Pakistan hold talks on energy and bilateral trade cooperation; United States backs Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to lay gas pipeline on Caspian seabed; Turkmen government considers to
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    • In order to bolster defence relations with Central Asian nations, India’s Army Chief General VK Singh began a six-day tour of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan from November 16-21, 2011 to step up military engagement1 wherein his first stop was Tashkent. He met the Uzbek Deputy Defence Minister and its Defence Forces Joint Staff chief Lt. Gen. B. Tashmatov. The two sides discussed specifics of their bilateral programmes such as training of personnel and visits by military officers to each other's academies. The Indian Army chief will visit Kazakhstan from 20-22 November to hold talks with the Kazakh defence leadership. 2

    In the meanwhile, Indian oil consortium, composed of Oil Corp (IOC) and Oil India (OIL), earlier expressing interest in ExxonMobil Corp’s 16.81 percent share of the project, has decided not to pursue the Kashagan project due to huge financial exposure. OIL chairman NM Borah told a news conference in New Delhi that India will only benefit, “small share of the pie with very little value addition.” 3

    On another development, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov was on an official visit to Islamabad for wide-ranging talks with his Pakistani counterpart President Asif Ali Zardari. The two heads of state vowed to push to completion the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project, to boost bilateral trade and tackle common problems stemming from drugs and weapons trafficking, illegal migration, terrorism, etc. 4 President Zardari signed the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) on November 14 for putting the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline on an operational target date of 2016. 5

    In a related development, the U.S. State Department last week voiced its full backing of a potential decision by regional neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to lay a gas pipeline on the Caspian seabed. The two countries are planning the construction of a Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline wherein the undersea pipeline would form part of the Southern Corridor network of east-to-west pipelines from gas-rich but isolated supplier countries to Europe via Turkey. 6

    Reports noted that China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC)’s third west-to-east 3,230-mile natural gas pipeline is likely to go on-stream by the end of 2013. Around 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year will be pumped from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to China’s northwest Xinjiang region, before ending at southeast province of Fujian on the coast of East China Sea. 7 Chevron Nebitgaz President Douglas Uchikura expressed widespread frustration felt by global energy firms that the reclusive Turkmen government has only signed a production sharing agreement (PSA) with Chinese state-run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) while denying the same to experienced international oil companies. 8

    In the meanwhile, the Turkmen government officials in the recent two-day roundtable talks with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) experts agreed that Turkmenistan’s repressive media laws need to be reformed, considered by Freedom House as one of the “worst of the worst”. 9

    According to reports, the U.S. government made payments more than $150 million to use the Manas Air Transit Center, located near Bishkek international airport, to use it as a transportation hub for troops and supplies to and from nearby Afghanistan. 10 In the meanwhile, Kyrgyz-Russian joint venture began jet fuel supplies to Kyrgyzstan’s Manas air base on 17th November. 11

    However, the government of Kyrgyzstan plans to split off the Manas Transit Center (MTC) from Manas International Airport (MIA) after the decision was taken by the country’s antimonopoly control agency during discussions on the prospects of breaking up the state-owned joint company MIA monopoly into two business entities to increase its effectiveness. 12

    In other developments, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus—members of the customs union— signed an agreement in Moscow on 18 November to create an EU-style Eurasian economic union by 2015 aiming at setting up a common economic space to further integrate the three partners wherein a Eurasian Economic Commission will be set up in 2012 as a preliminary step alongside the custom union’s single economic space. 13

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