Embassy Row

RUSSIA OVERREACTS

Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the United States on Thursday dismissed Russian claims that his government is planning for permanent U.S. military bases in the Central Asian nation, saying it was an overreaction to a recent decision by the Kazakh parliament to ratify an agreement permitting U.S. overflights to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Erlan A. Idrissov told editors and reporters at The Washington Times that his government has no plans to host U.S. bases but that the agreement permits U.S. planes to make emergency landings at Kazakh airports.

He added that those flights over Kazakh territory are likely to increase because violence and instability have disrupted U.S. supply routes through Pakistan.

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Idrissov also defended his government’s record on human rights and democracy, discussed the impact of the global financial crisis and the fall in oil prices on his energy-rich nation. He revealed that President-elect Barack Obama talked by telephone recently with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Russian news agencies earlier this week quoted Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of staff of the Russian military, as complaining that Washington is “planning to establish military bases in Kazakhstan and [neighboring] Uzbekistan.”

“The U.S. has encircled all the world’s regions with military bases,” Gen. Makarov said in a speech at the Academy of Military Sciences.

The ambassador, however, insisted that no one in Washington has contacted him concerning military bases.

“I was surprised to read the comments in the Russian media,” Mr. Idrissov said. “I never heard of anything of this kind. … It is a groundless allegation from some [Russian] analysts.”

The ambassador suggested that Moscow may have “misinterpreted” the actions of the Kazakh parliament.

The conversation between Mr. Obama and Mr. Nazarbayev on Nov. 14, only 10 days after the U.S. presidential election, showed “the growing importance of Kazakhstan in Washington,” Mr. Idrissov said.

He said Mr. Obama initiated the call and that “the president-elect said he is thinking about visiting Kazakhstan.”

Mr. Idrissov defended his country’s record on human rights, although the State Department has repeatedly criticized Kazakhstan’s respect for civil liberties as “poor” and noted the “severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government.”

“We have built a society with full support for human rights … and tolerance,” the ambassador said.

Mr. Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989, two years before the nation declared independence from the Soviet Union. He was re-elected in 1999 and received 95 percent of the vote as the only candidate in the race. He won another term in 2005 with 91 percent of the vote. Although the Kazakh constitution permits a president only two terms, Mr. Idrissov said an exception has been made for Mr. Nazarbayev in 2012 “depending on the political situation in the country.”

Last year, Mr. Nazarbayev achieved his goal of winning the chairmanship in 2010 of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, although the 56-nation OSCE has never certified a Kazakh election as meeting its democratic standards. The OSCE noted some progress in the 2007 parliamentary elections in which the president’s party, Nur-Otan, won all 107 seats.

“On balance, there were more good things than bad,” Mr. Idrissov said of the parliamentary elections.

“Yes,” he admitted, “we are not ideal, but [chairing the OSCE] is a big encouragement for a country like ours.”

Mr. Idrissov insisted that Kazakhstan is “patiently building” a true democracy out of the “chaos” from which it emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He called the murder of two prominent critics of the Nazarbayev government “political killings.” He noted that the courts convicted several high-ranking members of the country’s intelligence service but insisted that their actions were not sanctioned by the government.

“They were very ugly killings,” Mr. Idrissov said.

On the economy, he said Kazakh’s banking and construction industries were affected by the global financial crisis and growth could fall to as low as 3 percent this year from a seven-year average of 10 percent. Despite less revenue, the government intends to keep its promise to avoid cuts in education and health care spending and to increase salaries for public employees, he said.

“We continue to grow,” Mr. Idrissov added. “We are not sliding back.”

• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison @washingtontimes.com