Manas base to pass into civilian control; Central Asia along with CIS aims to curtail terror financing; Uzbekistan opts out of SCO annual war games; Turkmenistan not part of revised Nabucco plan; European Parliament condemns Kazakhstan for Zhanaozen;
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    • According to reports, Kyrgyz Defense Minister Taalaybek Omuraliyev told visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during talks in Bishkek on 13th March that U.S. military forces must leave the Manas Air Transit Center after 2014. 1 Kyrgyzstan is willing only to transport non-military cargo to Afghanistan and not military supplies and soldiers. Panetta was in Kyrgyzstan to keep the issue of a possible lease extension open for discussion. 2

    In the meanwhile, Central Asia’s anti-terrorism chiefs, except from Uzbekistan, along with other member nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) agreed last week to focus on cutting off the sources of funding to terrorist and extremist groups in Kyrgyzstan’s southern city of Osh. 3

    According to reports, Uzbekistan opted out of 2012 summer’s annual war games of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) for reasons unknown. However, Uzbekistan has routinely abstained from SCO exercises, as Uzbek President Islam Karimov has been wary of Russia re-asserting its power in its former republics. 4

    Reports noted that according to the proposal outlined to BP and other members of the consortium last week, Turkmenistan’s gas fields are not part of the newly revised Nabucco plan, known as ‘Nabucco West’ significantly shorter than the original pipeline. Gas will come from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II field, and not from fields in either Turkmenistan or Iraq, as the original Nabucco plan originally stipulated. 5

    In the meanwhile, according to reports, New Delhi will host a conference on March 29 to discuss the implementation of the ‘International North-South Corridor’ that comes after Indian officials reached an agreement with Iranian representatives to take over the project in January. 6 In a related development, a Turkish firm signed a deal to supply the Turkmen government with railway equipment for an interregional North-South railway corridor. 7

    Reports noted that the European Parliament in Brussels in a strongly worded resolution last week condemned Kazakhstan for the bloody crackdown against demonstrators in Zhanaozen last December and sought that closer economic relation with Central Asia’s leading economy must depend on progress of political reform. 8

    In the meanwhile, according to reports, the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and other leaders of post-Soviet countries held talks in Moscow on March 19, 2012 on further integrating member states of their regional economic grouping wherein participants of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec) were expected to take decisions on the basic principles of the draft treaty reached in December 2011 to further solidify the group as a new integration association. 9

    In other developments, according to reports, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov visited Ukraine on a three-day (March 12-14, 2012) visit to hold energy talks and signed legal documentation in support of an interstate program of trade and economic cooperation for 2012-2015, etc. 10 The two regions envisage cooperation in the supply of tractors, aircraft, and power machine building companies. 11

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