The Afghanistan-Central Asia Relationship

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Afghanistan-Central Asia Relationship The Afghanistan- Central Asia relationship: What role for the EU? Marlene Laruelle, Sebastien Peyrouse and Vera Axyonova working paper 13 February 2013 Abstract As the 2014 NATO drawdown from Afghanistan ap- proaches, the EU increasingly focuses on preventing po- tential spillover effects on Central Asia. The Union wishes to further its cooperation with the wider region. But to succeed, it will have to develop a clearer strategy to avoid condoning the repressive policies and opaque interests of the Central Asian governments. The EU should focus on a few well-chosen areas and prioritise the involvement of local actors, in particular civilian stakeholders, who are the only vectors of long-term sustainable solutions. This paper addresses the Central Asia-Afghanistan rela- tionship, analyses the impact of post-2014 changes to the security context and looks at the EU’s opportunities to foster regional dynamics. EUCAM-SD This working paper is published as part of the EUCAM-Security and Development project that is implemented by FRIDE and the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland. The EUCAM-SD is a key component of the EUCAM pro- gramme and focuses on the links between security challenges in the Central Asian region and the need for development in the broadest sense, including governance, poverty reduction, ethnic tension and social equality. The project aims to offer new insights and creative thinking on Europe’s role in promoting security and development in Central Asia. EUCAM-SD is supported by the Wider Europe Initiative of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. © EUCAM 2013 ISBN (Online): 978-84-614-6870-6 The Afghanistan-Central Asia relationship: What role for the EU? EUCAM Working Paper No. 13 Marlene Laruelle, Sebastien Peyrouse and Vera Axyonova Table of Contents Introduction 5 1. The multifaceted linkages between Central Asia and Afghanistan 5 1.1. A shared history, dissociation and new interactions 5 1.2. Economic cooperation 6 1.3. The actors of the Central Asia-Afghanistan relationship 8 2. Assessing and preparing to react to the post-2014 situation 9 2.1. Security assessments of the post-2014 impact 9 2.2. Central Asia’s preparation strategies 9 2.3. Russian, Chinese and U.S. engagement post-2014 11 2.3.1. Russia 11 2.3.2. China 11 2.3.3. The United States 11 3. Niches for European engagement 12 3.1. The EU’s dissociated aid strategies 12 3.2. Security programmes: victims of distrust between Central Asians and Afghans 13 3.3. Developing joint programmes in the civilian sphere 14 3.4. Enhancing education exchanges 15 Conclusion 16 The Afghanistan-Central Asia relationship: What role for the EU? 5 Introduction Asia and Afghanistan, at least at the narrative level. The June 2012 review of the EU Strategy for Central Asia evidences a more structured security orientation and emphasises As the 2014 NATO drawdown from Afghanistan approaches, potential threats to Central Asia stemming from post-2014 the international community increasingly considers the Afghanistan. It notes Central Asian fears of a new wave of potential role for ‘regional solutions’. These do not imply insecurity from the south and it seems to support, or at least the naïve notion of neighbourly harmony, but new civilian it does not criticise, the way local governments formulate the patterns for improving peace and stability in the region as risk of ‘spillover’. Although security seems to be the keyword, a whole. Pakistan is quite rightly considered Afghanistan’s the review also states that the EU will help strengthen ‘actions most strategic neighbour and the main challenge to the around borders with Afghanistan, in close coordination with country’s long-term security. But other neighbours also play Central Asian states and international actors’. By doing so, an increasingly significant role for the country’s future. Their the EU hopes to foster regional dynamics, deepen bilateral level of economic engagement, their potential leverage on political dialogue and transform the Afghan neighbourhood domestic Afghan issues and their own perceptions of the into ‘an opportunity for developing economic cooperation in strategic balance among regional actors will be important to the wider region’.1 reaching a stable solution. This paper addresses the Central Asia-Afghanistan The position of the Central Asian states towards Afghanistan relationship after NATO’s 2014 withdrawal and Europe’s is less well-known in comparison to those of India, Iran, role in the region. The first part discusses the multifaceted China and Russia. Central Asian countries are most often links that exist between Central Asia and Afghanistan. It seen as the victims of the Afghan situation, rather than as gives a brief historical overview and assesses their growing actors at the same level as other neighbours. It is important economic relationship, as well as the diversity of the actors to understand not only the risks, but also the opportunities involved. The second part analyses the impact of post-2014 presented by Central Asia’s proximity to Afghanistan. changes on Central Asia’s security environment. It does so More than 2,000 km of joint borders unite Afghanistan with from three vantage points: the likelihood of ‘spillovers’ from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In Afghanistan, the Afghanistan; the Central Asian governments’ perceptions Tajiks, Turkmens and Uzbeks have served as mediators with of the challenges ahead and their preparedness to address their northern neighbours, especially since the intensification them; and the roles of Russia, China and the United States in of Soviet influence in the 1950s. Today, despite a revival the region. The third part examines the EU’s role in building of insurgency in recent years, the northern provinces are cooperation mechanisms between Central Asian states and remote from the unstable dynamics of the Afghan-Pakistani Afghanistan, and examines Europe’s opportunities in light of border and are still the most secure areas for the delivery of the changing regional context. international aid. The U.S. and the European Union (EU) are looking for new partners to share short-term agendas (such as transit-in- 1. The multifaceted linkages reverse of ISAF material from Afghanistan through Central Asia) and long-term plans (including integrating Afghanistan between Central Asia and Afghanistan into the wider economic region and developing new regional 1.1. A shared history, dissociation and new interactions security platforms). Central Asian republics are among the main candidates. Afghanistan and Central Asia share a long common history. The north of present-day Afghanistan is linked to arlene Laruelle is a EUCAM researcher, FRIDE Transoxiana or Turkestan, the region to the north of the Massociate and Director of the Central Asia Program at George Washington University. Amu Darya River, which more or less corresponds to the territories of contemporary Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, ebastien Peyrouse is a EUCAM researcher, FRIDE Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Amu Darya has not historically Sassociate and Research Professor at George Washington separated two different spaces. The broader region began University. to disintegrate in the eighteenth century and was divided altogether in the nineteenth century with the advance of the era Axyonova is a EUCAM associate researcher, PhD Tsarist and British colonial empires. The Emirate of Bukhara Vfellow at the University of Bremen and researcher was the last direct historical link between Central Asia and at the Centre for Intercultural and European Studies Afghanistan; the last emir, Alim Khan, fleeing the advancing (CINTEUS), Fulda University. Bolsheviks, took refuge in Afghanistan in 1920. The deep political, social, economic and cultural The U.S. construes its Central Asia policy through an Afghan transformations introduced by the Soviets in Central Asia lens and in connection with a broader agenda that also between 1917 and 1991 put an end to the region’s similitude includes South Asia. Europe, on the other hand, has long with Afghanistan. But relations between the two zones dissociated Central Asia from Afghanistan, and maintains continued. In the 1920s and 1930s, tens of thousands of different degrees of involvement with separate agendas Central Asians, mainly Turkmens and Uzbeks, fled the civil for each region. However, preparations for the post-2014 context are pushing the EU to reconsider its approach and 1 Progress Report on the implementation of the EU Strategy for Central look for ways better to coordinate its engagement in Central Asia, 25 June 2012, p. 2 and 16, available at: http://www.eeas.europa. eu/central_asia/docs/20120628_progress_report_en.pdf 6 EUCAM Working Paper No. 13 war and Stalinist collectivisation and settled in Afghanistan. In Only Saparmurat Niyazov’s Turkmenistan, in the name of 1953, when Mohammad Daoud Khan became Afghanistan’s ‘perpetual neutrality’, continued state-to-state commercial prime minister, the country started developing closer ties relations with the Taliban, trading gas, electricity and food. with the Soviet Union. For over two decades, Moscow Meanwhile, the trafficking of opiates grew in scale across was Kabul’s main commercial partner and political ally, the entire region. Official trade resumed after the arrival of providing Afghanistan with substantial military and political the international coalition in Kabul and the establishment of aid, fostering economic development in infrastructure and Hamid Karzai’s regime at the end of 2001. From 2007-2008 industry and promoting social transformation through its on, it underwent a significant boom. support for literacy programmes, women’s emancipation and agrarian reform. After the 1973 coup, President Daoud Afghanistan’s position in imports, exports and the total trade of Khan tried to loosen the Soviet grip on the government in Central Asian states in 2010 in millions of Euros3 an attempt to diminish the power of Afghan communists. This gave rise to another coup in 1978, carried out by local Imports Rank Exports Rank Total trade Rank communists who formed a pro-Soviet regime and asked Kazakhstan 0.5 (0.0%) <50 145 (0.4%) 16 145.5 (0.2%) 18 Moscow for help.
Recommended publications
  • The Devils' Dance
    THE DEVILS’ DANCE TRANSLATED BY THE DEVILS’ DANCE HAMID ISMAILOV DONALD RAYFIELD TILTED AXIS PRESS POEMS TRANSLATED BY JOHN FARNDON The Devils’ Dance جينلر بازمي The jinn (often spelled djinn) are demonic creatures (the word means ‘hidden from the senses’), imagined by the Arabs to exist long before the emergence of Islam, as a supernatural pre-human race which still interferes with, and sometimes destroys human lives, although magicians and fortunate adventurers, such as Aladdin, may be able to control them. Together with angels and humans, the jinn are the sapient creatures of the world. The jinn entered Iranian mythology (they may even stem from Old Iranian jaini, wicked female demons, or Aramaic ginaye, who were degraded pagan gods). In any case, the jinn enthralled Uzbek imagination. In the 1930s, Stalin’s secret police, inveigling, torturing and then executing Uzbekistan’s writers and scholars, seemed to their victims to be the latest incarnation of the jinn. The word bazm, however, has different origins: an old Iranian word, found in pre-Islamic Manichaean texts, and even in what little we know of the language of the Parthians, it originally meant ‘a meal’. Then it expanded to ‘festivities’, and now, in Iran, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, it implies a riotous party with food, drink, song, poetry and, above all, dance, as unfettered and enjoyable as Islam permits. I buried inside me the spark of love, Deep in the canyons of my brain. Yet the spark burned fiercely on And inflicted endless pain. When I heard ‘Be happy’ in calls to prayer It struck me as an evil lure.
    [Show full text]
  • Afghanistan: Compilation of Country of Origin Information (COI)
    Afghanistan: Compilation of Country of Origin Information (COI) Relevant for Assessing the Availability of an Internal Flight, Relocation or Protection Alternative (IFA/IRA/IPA) to Kabul December 2019 This document provides decision-makers with relevant country of origin information (COI) for assessing the availability of an internal flight, relocation or protection alternative (IFA/IRA/IPA) in Kabul for Afghans who originate from elsewhere in Afghanistan and who have been found to have a well-founded fear of persecution in relation to their home area, or who would face a real risk of serious harm in their home area. UNHCR recalls its position that given the current security, human rights and humanitarian situation in Kabul, an IFA/IRA is generally not available in the city. See: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Afghanistan, 30 August 2018, https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b8900109.html, p. 114. Table of Contents 1. The relevance of Kabul as an IFA/IRA: the security situation for civilians in Kabul ............. 2 1.1 Security Trends and Impact on Civilian Population in 2019 ................................................. 2 1.2 Presence and Activity of the Taliban in Kabul....................................................................... 6 1.3 Presence and Activity of ISIL in Kabul .................................................................................. 6 1.4 Other Security Threats in Kabul ...........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A Regional View of Wheat Markets and Food Security In
    A REGIONAL VIEW OF WHEAT MARKETS AND FOOD SECURITY IN CENTRAL ASIA WITH A FOCUS ON AFGHANISTAN AND TAJIKISTAN JULY 2011 This publication was authored by Philippe Chabot and Fabien Tondel under the United States Agency for International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), indefinite quantity contract no. AFP -I-00-05-00027-00, managed by Chemonics International Inc. A REGIONAL VIEW OF WHEAT MARKETS AND FOOD SECURITY IN CENTRAL ASIA WITH A FOCUS ON AFGHANISTAN AND TAJIKISTAN The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development, the United States government, or the World Food Programme. CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................... vii Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................... ix I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 II. Socioeconomic and Food-Security Contexts ............................................................................................ 3 III. Trends in Wheat Production and Trade ................................................................................................... 7 IV. Geography of Wheat Production and Trade ........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Bush Revolution: the Remaking of America's Foreign Policy
    The Bush Revolution: The Remaking of America’s Foreign Policy Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay The Brookings Institution April 2003 George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency on the promise of a “humble” foreign policy that would avoid his predecessor’s mistake in “overcommitting our military around the world.”1 During his first seven months as president he focused his attention primarily on domestic affairs. That all changed over the succeeding twenty months. The United States waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. troops went to Georgia, the Philippines, and Yemen to help those governments defeat terrorist groups operating on their soil. Rather than cheering American humility, people and governments around the world denounced American arrogance. Critics complained that the motto of the United States had become oderint dum metuant—Let them hate as long as they fear. September 11 explains why foreign policy became the consuming passion of Bush’s presidency. Once commercial jetliners plowed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it is unimaginable that foreign policy wouldn’t have become the overriding priority of any American president. Still, the terrorist attacks by themselves don’t explain why Bush chose to respond as he did. Few Americans and even fewer foreigners thought in the fall of 2001 that attacks organized by Islamic extremists seeking to restore the caliphate would culminate in a war to overthrow the secular tyrant Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Yet the path from the smoking ruins in New York City and Northern Virginia to the battle of Baghdad was not the case of a White House cynically manipulating a historic catastrophe to carry out a pre-planned agenda.
    [Show full text]
  • Philology UDC 811.512.133 Mamashaeva Mastura Mamasolievna Senior Teacher Namangan State University Mamashaev Muzaffar Abdumalik
    Іntеrnаtіоnаl Scіеntіfіc Jоurnаl “Іntеrnаukа” http://www.іntеr-nаukа.cоm/ Philology UDC 811.512.133 Mamashaeva Mastura Mamasolievna Senior Teacher Namangan State University Mamashaev Muzaffar Abdumalikovich Teacher Namangan Institute of Civil Engineering Soliyeva Makhfuza Mamasolievna Teacher of the School No. 11 in Uychi District MASHRAB THROUGH THE EYES OF GERMAN ORIENTALIST MARTIN HARTMAN Summary. In this article we will study the heritage of the poet Boborahim Mashrab in Germany, in particular by the German orientalist Martin Hartmann. Key words: Shah Mashrab, a world-renowned scientist, "Wonderful dervish or saintly atheist", "King Mashrab", "Devoni Mashrab". After gaining independence, our people have a growing interest in learning about their country, their language, culture, values and history. This is natural. There are people who want to know their ancestors, their ancestry, the history of their native village, city, and finally their homeland. Today the world recognizes that our homeland is one of the cradles of not only the East but also of the world civilization. From this ancient and blessed soil, great scientists, scholars, scholars, commanders were born. The foundations of religious and secular sciences have been created and adorned on this earth.Thousands of manuscripts, including the history, literature, art, politics, Іntеrnаtіоnаl Scіеntіfіc Jоurnаl “Іntеrnаukа” http://www.іntеr-nаukа.cоm/ Іntеrnаtіоnаl Scіеntіfіc Jоurnаl “Іntеrnаukа” http://www.іntеr-nаukа.cоm/ ethics, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, architecture, and agriculture, from the earliest surviving manuscripts, to records, are stored in our libraries. the works are our enormous spiritual wealth and pride. Such a legacy is rare in the world. The time has come for the careful study of these rare manuscripts, which combine the centuries-old experience of our ancestors, with their religious, moral and scientific views.
    [Show full text]
  • Afghanistan National Railway Plan and Way Forward
    Afghanistan National Railway Plan and Way Forward MOHAMMAD YAMMA SHAMS Director General & Chief Executive Officer Afghanistan Railway Authority Nov 2015 WHY RAILWAY IN AFGHANISTAN ? → The Potential → The Benefits • Affinity for Rail Transportation Pioneer Development of Modern – Primary solution for landlocked, Afghanistan developing countries/regions – At the heart of the CAREC and Become Part of the International ECO Program Rail Community – 75km of railroad vs 40,000 km of – Become long-term strategic partner road network to various countries – Rich in minerals and natural – Build international rail know-how resources – rail a more suitable (transfer of expertise) long term transportation solutions Raise Afghanistan's Profile as a than trucking. Transit Route • Country Shifting from Warzone – Penetrate neighbouring countries to Developing State Rail Market including China, Iran, Turkey and countries in Eastern – Improved connection to the Europe. community and the region (access – Standard Gauge has been assessed to neighbouring countries) as the preferred system gauge. – Building modern infrastructure – Dual gauge (Standard and Russian) in – Facilitate economic stability of North to connect with CIS countries modern Afghanistan STRATEGIC LOCATION OF AFGHANISTAN Kazakhstan China MISSING LINKS- and ASIAN RAILWAY TRANS-ASIAN RAILWAY NETWORK Buslovskaya St. Petersburg RUSSIAN FEDERATION Yekaterinburg Moscow Kotelnich Omsk Tayshet Petropavlovsk Novosibirsk R. F. Krasnoe Syzemka Tobol Ozinki Chita Irkutsk Lokot Astana Ulan-Ude Uralsk
    [Show full text]
  • Air India Kabul to Delhi Flight Schedule
    Air India Kabul To Delhi Flight Schedule Sometimes arenaceous Turner frolicked her Frome germanely, but germinal Damon snickers measurably or Benjamenlambasted alwayscleanly. bird's-nest Acerb Clement his squattocracy resentencing if Enriquebrutally, ishe spikiest amerces or hiscarrying Lambeth unreservedly. very boringly. Stateliest While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Thanks for making the effort to provide variety in your trip reports this year. Food was to taste despite the cabin pressure! Pl take note of this. There are four states that share a border with Pakistan, namely, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. YOUR folk post in the comments section. What to singapore, and take control measures and regions eastward of health screening shall be symptomatic during my flight kabul air india to delhi kabul flight deals? Delhi attracts thousands of visitors every year for both business and pleasure. Is the india kabul? The outward leg of flight schedule is operated by informa markets, and by helping them is restricted to new delhi and cancellation status, and real life. Book a new delhi to travel industry if they will not provided to flight kabul air to india delhi to carry goods must then remain in the. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines. Please check your inbox and verify your email address to continue. Nepali embassy or consulate abroad. Each such passenger shall also be liable to pay penalty of Rs. While aboard any travel to india to.
    [Show full text]
  • Ghani Calls for Kabul- Tehran Water Treaty to Be Enforced
    Home Afghanistan World Business Video Sport Arts & Culture Election Opinion WATCH LIVE LATEST NEWS tS AFGHANISTAN By Anisa Shaheed 11 JANUARY 2017 - Edited: 10 JANUARY 2017 Ghani Calls For Kabul- Tehran Water Treaty To Be LATEST AFGHANISTAN NEWS Dozens Killed In Daesh Enforced and Taliban Clash in Nangarhar ∠∠ FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL REDDIT + MORE Structure Of The NUG Will Not Change: CEO’s Office ∠∠ ACKUSOCIALS At the same Sayyaf Warns event, acting Insurgents Against Foreign Affairs Being Deceived ∠∠ Minister Salahuddin NAI Reacts To Hekmatyar’s Criticism Rabbani called Of The Media ∠∠ Shafiq an effective figure Family Of Hizb-e-Islami of the Victims Call For democracy Justice ∠∠ decade in President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday called Afghanistan. forfor thethe implementationimplementation ofof thethe waterwater treatytreaty signed by former Afghan Prime Minister Musa Shafiq and former Iranian premier Amir Abbas Huwaida inin 1972.1972. Speaking at an event to mark the death anniversary of former prime minister Shafiq, Ghani said: “Despite the fact that Musa Shafiq was under pressure while signing the treaty, he believed that regional and neighboring countries should realize their common interests [with Afghanistan] and this treaty was for friendship.” “He [Shafiq] believed that the treaty would bring stability to Afghanistan. Now is the time to enforce the treaty which is in favor of Afghans as well as in favor of peace and stability in the country.” Ghani said Shafiq was a national figure who had influence in Afghanistan’s foreign policy. Maryland Police Departments Urge Residents To Carry New Flashlights With Them At All Times He said the former prime minister had also played an important role in drafting the 1964 constitution.
    [Show full text]
  • Mpub10110094.Pdf
    An Introduction to Chaghatay: A Graded Textbook for Reading Central Asian Sources Eric Schluessel Copyright © 2018 by Eric Schluessel Some rights reserved This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, California, 94042, USA. Published in the United States of America by Michigan Publishing Manufactured in the United States of America DOI: 10.3998/mpub.10110094 ISBN 978-1-60785-495-1 (paper) ISBN 978-1-60785-496-8 (e-book) An imprint of Michigan Publishing, Maize Books serves the publishing needs of the University of Michigan community by making high-quality scholarship widely available in print and online. It represents a new model for authors seeking to share their work within and beyond the academy, offering streamlined selection, production, and distribution processes. Maize Books is intended as a complement to more formal modes of publication in a wide range of disciplinary areas. http://www.maizebooks.org Cover Illustration: "Islamic Calligraphy in the Nasta`liq style." (Credit: Wellcome Collection, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/chengwfg/, licensed under CC BY 4.0) Contents Acknowledgments v Introduction vi How to Read the Alphabet xi 1 Basic Word Order and Copular Sentences 1 2 Existence 6 3 Plural, Palatal Harmony, and Case Endings 12 4 People and Questions 20 5 The Present-Future Tense 27 6 Possessive
    [Show full text]
  • New Afghan Wind in Uzbekistan
    New Afghan Wind in Uzbekistan “Today the old stereotype is gradually falling away, and the countries of Central Asia are already trying to include Afghanistan in their international agendas” – notes political scientist Rafael Sattarov in an article written specifically for cabar.asia. Follow us on LinkedIn! In Tashkent, after a long silence, the subject of Afghanistan returned to the foreign policy agenda. For the first time since 1999, Uzbekistan convened a major international conference with high-level guests from Russia, the EU, India, Iran, and its fellow Central Asian neighbors. The relevance of this conference, according to high-ranking officials from Uzbekistan, was to address a lack of diplomacy and political approaches to solving the Afghan problem.[1] Distrustful Cooperation Relations between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, after the death of Islam Karimov, are beginning to change and enter a new reality. Since Soviet times, Tashkent has been in the forefront of the Afghan vector. In Uzbekistan, Islamic religious figures were trained not only in the Soviet republics but in wholly socialist camps. Even after Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Afghan religious figures improved their qualifications via the educational institutions of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Before Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, the Soviet special services secretly led the leaders of the Parcham faction of the pro-Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Babrak Karmal and Anakhita Ratebzad, to the Uzbek SSR. For a while they even lived in the New Afghan Wind in Uzbekistan residence of the long-standing leader of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, Sharaf Rashidov.
    [Show full text]
  • Key Officers List (UNCLASSIFIED)
    United States Department of State Telephone Directory This customized report includes the following section(s): Key Officers List (UNCLASSIFIED) 9/13/2021 Provided by Global Information Services, A/GIS Cover UNCLASSIFIED Key Officers of Foreign Service Posts Afghanistan FMO Inna Rotenberg ICASS Chair CDR David Millner IMO Cem Asci KABUL (E) Great Massoud Road, (VoIP, US-based) 301-490-1042, Fax No working Fax, INMARSAT Tel 011-873-761-837-725, ISO Aaron Smith Workweek: Saturday - Thursday 0800-1630, Website: https://af.usembassy.gov/ Algeria Officer Name DCM OMS Melisa Woolfolk ALGIERS (E) 5, Chemin Cheikh Bachir Ibrahimi, +213 (770) 08- ALT DIR Tina Dooley-Jones 2000, Fax +213 (23) 47-1781, Workweek: Sun - Thurs 08:00-17:00, CM OMS Bonnie Anglov Website: https://dz.usembassy.gov/ Co-CLO Lilliana Gonzalez Officer Name FM Michael Itinger DCM OMS Allie Hutton HRO Geoff Nyhart FCS Michele Smith INL Patrick Tanimura FM David Treleaven LEGAT James Bolden HRO TDY Ellen Langston MGT Ben Dille MGT Kristin Rockwood POL/ECON Richard Reiter MLO/ODC Andrew Bergman SDO/DATT COL Erik Bauer POL/ECON Roselyn Ramos TREAS Julie Malec SDO/DATT Christopher D'Amico AMB Chargé Ross L Wilson AMB Chargé Gautam Rana CG Ben Ousley Naseman CON Jeffrey Gringer DCM Ian McCary DCM Acting DCM Eric Barbee PAO Daniel Mattern PAO Eric Barbee GSO GSO William Hunt GSO TDY Neil Richter RSO Fernando Matus RSO Gregg Geerdes CLO Christine Peterson AGR Justina Torry DEA Edward (Joe) Kipp CLO Ikram McRiffey FMO Maureen Danzot FMO Aamer Khan IMO Jaime Scarpatti ICASS Chair Jeffrey Gringer IMO Daniel Sweet Albania Angola TIRANA (E) Rruga Stavro Vinjau 14, +355-4-224-7285, Fax +355-4- 223-2222, Workweek: Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:30 pm.
    [Show full text]
  • Stabilization and Connectivity Uzbekistan's Dual-Track Strategy Towards Afghanistan
    POLICY BRIEF Stabilization and Connectivity Uzbekistan’s dual-track strategy towards Afghanistan Timor Sharan, Andrew Watkins This policy brief explores Uzbekistan’s engagement with Afghanistan in 2021 and beyond, in light of the ongoing U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. The brief discusses how increasing uncertainty surrounding the nature and timing of the U.S. withdrawal could affect Uzbekistan’s regional and domestic security. It examines Uzbekistan’s future engagement with Afghanistan, highlighting key convergence areas around which Europe and Central Asia could cooperate in Afghanistan and find opportunities for broader engagement beyond the current peace process. Before the nineteenth century’s Russian colonisation of Central has led to a more dynamic relationship with Kabul, rooted in Asia and the ‘Great Game,’ Afghanistan and Central Asia had infrastructure and connectivity schemes and projects. Tashkent long been seen by outsiders and residents as a single cultural, is playing a constructive role in the Afghan peace process, civilisational and political space. Geopolitical tensions between working alongside a handful of leading global and regional the Russian and British Empires interrupted these historical ties players attempting to stabilise Afghanistan. for a century until the rise of Afghanistan’s communist regime in the 1970s and the Soviet invasion of the 1980s. The collapse Uzbekistan has begun reaching out to both sides of the conflict, of the Soviet Union in 1989, the subsequent independence of maintaining warm relations with Kabul and gradually developing Central Asian countries, and the civil war in Afghanistan divided closer ties with the Taliban. At times this has been somewhat the region once again: Afghanistan became perceived as a of a tightrope act and not without complication.
    [Show full text]