CC BY
57
GUAM AND OTHER REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
EU-GUAM: ENGAGEMENT OR ESTRANGEMENT?
Nicklas NORLING
Researcher
at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Programa Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center of Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden)
Niklas NILSSON
Researcher
at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program— a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center of Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden)
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The wider Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions have so far figured as relatively peripheral concerns for the European Union.
While the enlargement of the EU has created incentives for a stronger commitment to these regions, the motives for a more strategic European
engagement in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and around the Black Sea have always existed. These regions provide access to energy outside the control of OPEC and Russia and provide a transit corridor connecting Europe with the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. Remarkable benefits may also accrue the EU if a proactive rather than reactive approach is taken toward the region. These benefits do not only include energy diversification and transit but also relate to the security and stability of Europe’s vicinity and, by extension, Europe itself. So far, the EU has, however, showed little interest in working with regional organizations such as BSEC, GUAM, the Black Sea Forum and others but preferred to engage with the states in the region on a bilateral basis.
GUAM belongs to the organizations which Europe has given little or no attention despite the fact that both work, more or less, toward the same goals. These include energy diversification, both in production and transit routes, and a less dominant position of Russia over the energy resources and politics of the region. Conceived as such, it is tempting to conclude that the EU should push for stronger engagement with GUAM (and other similar organizations). However, this article argues that there are few areas in which these two organizations could cooperate fruitfully. This is primarily due to the inefficiency of GUAM, the geopolitics involved, and most importantly, to the fact that EU could favorably pursue its interests in other formats.
GUAM: A Background
The founding of GUAM in 1997 was intended as an organizational alternative to the Commonwealth of Independent States, aimed at countering Russian influence over its “near abroad.” Uzbekistan became a member in 1999 during a meeting of the Council of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership (CEAP) in Washington, but decided to withdraw in 2005 following the deterioration of its relations with the U.S. and Europe. In its previous form, GUAM produced very few concrete results; yet the organization was symbolically important in constituting a cooperative effort among states of the region which was not imposed by any foreign or regional power, but was based on their common interests. However the organization did enjoy significant political and financial support from the U.S.1
Moreover, GUAM provided a venue for the coordination of policies of former Soviet republics, seeking to resist Russian attempts to use the CIS as an instrument for exerting influence over the postSoviet expanse. More specifically, it served as a useful framework for coordinating these four states’ interests within the CIS itself. From the Russian perspective, the grouping was perceived to be no more than a vehicle through which the U.S. could create a rift within the CIS and reduce Russian influence over the Soviet successor states. These Russian fears have been exacerbated through claims by senior officials in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova that discontinuing membership in the CIS was indeed a realistic option for them.2 The formation of a group in which these states could coordinate such plans was therefore fiercely resisted by Russia.
Although the raison d’etre of GUAM was initially to serve as a counterweight toward the CIS and Moscow, and thus primarily had security-political concerns as its main drivers, the organization subsequently incorporated other issues onto its agenda as well. With the adoption of the GUUAM Yalta Charter in 2001 the organization put more emphasis on deepening cooperation in the energy and
1 See: V. Socor, “GUAM at Ten,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 20 June, 2007.
2 See: “Analysis: GUAM—A Regional Grouping Comes of Age,” RFE/RL, 24 May, 2006.
trade spheres and revitalization of the regional transportation corridors. The introduction of a free trade area and customs union among the members was also floated at this point in time but failed to materialize, primarily due to diverging interests among the member states.
In the past few years, GUAM also has added “European integration” as one of its aims and sees greater cooperation with the EU as a cornerstone in its future role and mission.3 What spurred this introduction of a stronger Euro-Atlanticist agenda was domestic political transformation in the member countries, along with the NATO- and EU enlargements which provided increasingly realistic perspectives for European and Transatlantic integration.
The peaceful revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, along with the Moldovan government’s increasingly pro-European stance and the emergence of Azerbaijan as an energy player, also provided new opportunities for revitalizing the grouping. Preparatory discussions were conducted at the GUUAM summit in Chisinau in April 2005, and subsequently the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development—GUAM was formally established at the Kiev summit in May 2006. These measures were aimed at institutionalizing GUAM and providing it with credibility as an international organization, rather than an informal group of former Soviet republics. Measures included adopting a GUAM charter, introducing a secretary general and scheduling regular high-level meetings. The organization also defined its objectives and prioritized the area of energy security along the Caspian-Caucasus-Black Sea axis, as well as the promotion of a free trade area and democratic values among ODED—GUAM member states.4
Black Sea Regional Cooperation Frameworks and an Increasing EU Interest
GUAM has thus lately sought to sustain its function in the Wider Black Sea region. The attempt to revitalize the organization should be viewed within an increasingly decisive commitment to regional cooperation among the smaller regional states. Other cooperation frameworks that have emerged in the region in recent years include the Community of Democratic Choice, the Rumanian initiative Black Sea Forum, and overall increasing linkages between new EU members and the EU’s near abroad. These initiatives signal an increasingly cooperation-oriented environment around the Black Sea. However, enthusiasm for regional cooperation within these frameworks is mainly present among the region’s smaller actors, whereas Turkey and Russia are far less enthusiastic toward frameworks of which they are not part. In this regard, Russia has naturally been skeptical toward GUAM due to the organization’s intended function, and tends to attribute similar functions to other cooperative initiatives not initiated by Russia itself.
The Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) remains the only institutionalized and all-encompassing cooperation framework in the region, and has since its establishment in 1992 been the region’s primary cooperation body. BSEC’s broad membership indeed provides it with legitimacy and credibility as a coordinating body for cooperation in the region. It is also considered less geopolitically sensitive than other regional initiatives which exclude Russia.5 Simultaneously, the organi-
3 See: “GUAM: Test for Ability to Act,” Policy Paper #5, Ukrainian Monitor, Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine, June 2005.
4 See: F. Tazzariani, “A Synergy for Black Sea Cooperation: Guidelines for an EU Initiative,” Center for European Policy Studies, Brussels, CEPS Policy Brief, No. 105, June 2006, p. 2.
5 The members of BSEC include Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.
zation has in the past been criticized for a lack of concrete progress on its objectives and a failure to attract significant funding from its members.6 BSEC’s perceived inefficiency for long provided for a reluctant attitude on the part of the EU for engaging in deeper relations with the organization.7 However, recent efforts of reforming BSEC have apparently yielded results in this regard, and the European Commission applied for and was granted observer status on 25 June, 2007.
This signals an increasing interest on the part of the EU in the regional dimension of its relations with Black Sea states. A significant factor in this regard has been its enlargement with Rumania and Bulgaria, bringing the Union to the shore of the Black Sea. This has produced a gradual realization within the EU of the Wider Black Sea Region’s strategic significance for European security, and of the rationale for regional approaches to several of the challenges the regional states and the EU are facing in the region. Previous EU policies toward the regional states have included three strategies: enlargement with Rumania and Bulgaria and prospects for the eventual inclusion of Turkey; the EU’s strategic partnership with Russia; and the ENP including Ukraine, Moldova and the three South Caucasian states. These strategies have all been largely bilateral in nature; however the EU’s post-enlargement abilities to function as a geopolitical actor in the region have provided the rationale for a set of regional cooperation initiatives on the EU’s part, envisioned as “Black Sea Synergy,” released on 11 April, 2007. The document outlines the key sectors which will benefit coordinated action on a regional level as energy, transport, environment and security.8 The document does recognize the significance of BSEC due to its broad membership, and envisions a role for EU-BSEC links in serving “primarily for dialog on a regional level.”9 It also mentions the Black Sea Forum as an important facilitator of “regional partnerships and networks.”10 Other regional cooperation frameworks are not mentioned explicitly; however a role for “Black Sea regional organizations” is envisioned in “developing effective democratic institutions, promoting good governance and the rule of law.”11
Regional EU initiatives are nevertheless intended as being complementary to existing bilateral cooperation between EU and the regional states. The importance attributed to regional organizations within the EU’s regional strategy, partly with the exception of BSEC, are thus envisioned to be quite limited.
Challenges Facing GUAM
Similar to other regional organizations in the post-Soviet expanse, GUAM has encountered difficulties in consolidating its activities and achieving concrete results. These difficulties are both a consequence of disharmony within the organization and external geopolitical factors affecting the prospects for efficient cooperation negatively. From the EU’s perspective, these impediments have also reduced GUAM’s appeal as a potential partner at the same time as establishment of contacts between the two organizations have been conceived as problematic. Though many hopes have been
6 See: M. Emerson, M. Vahl, “Europe and the Black Sea—Model European Regionalism Pret-a-Porter,” in: Europe’s Black Sea Dimension, Center for European Studies/International Center for Black Sea Studies, Brussels/Athens,
2002, p. 31.
7 Interview, Official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bucharest, July 2006.
8 See: Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, “Black Sea Synergy—A New Regional Cooperation Initiative,” Brussels, 11 April, 2007, p. 2.
9 Ibid., p 9.
10 Ibidem.
11 Ibid., pp. 3-4.
raised that GUAM may finally get its act together with the formalization of the organization in
2006, there is little evidence today suggesting that any major change has taken place within the organization.
GUAM Members: Differing Priorities and Diverging Interests
The institutionalization process that was initiated in 2006 has so far displayed little progress and neither the Ukrainian nor the Moldovan parliament has ratified the GUAM charter. Also, the decision taken in Kiev in 2006 to set up a secretariat and appoint a secretary general has not been put into effect as envisaged. The turbulent domestic political situation in Ukraine is a clear factor in the organization’s paralysis, with Victor Yanukovich’s Party of Regions representing a strongly GUAM-skeptical faction in parliament. Moldova, for its part, seeks to balance its foreign policy orientation between Russia and the West and thus perceives a need to weigh its relationship with Russia against decisive engagement with GUAM. It thus remains unclear whether ODED—GUAM will prove able to implement its ambitious new agenda.
There are also other internal factors and diverging interests among the GUAM members impeding further institutionalization. These are partly ideologically manifested in the pro-Western alignment of Georgia, Ukraine’s internal divisions on its foreign policy orientation; Moldova’s balancing act and a pro-western, yet cautious position of Azerbaijan. More important, however, is that all members of the group continue to promote national interests which are not fully compatible within the organization’s framework, let alone that the members of this group of states are in differing transition-phases from their communist legacy.
The strict pursuit of national interests is also a thread which runs through the history of the organization. At the early stages of GUAM’s formation, Azerbaijan focused one-sidedly on settling the conflict with Armenia while Georgia primarily raised the Russian presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia; Moldova advocated greater emphasis by GUAM on the Transnistrian issue but had few interests going beyond this single issue; Ukraine, for its part, seemed to have European integration as its primary concern although it has also engaged in the Transnistrian conflict; Uzbekistan had few concerns in line with the others and remained passive and skeptical toward further integration.12 Cooperation within specific sectors has also been hampered as a result of these discrepancies. A “free trade area” is unlikely to be of benefit to Georgia and Moldova who are WTO members while the issue of a GUAM peacekeeping force is met with skepticism among both these countries. At the Baku summit in June 2007, Georgia sought to delay the formation of this battalion to “the final phase of GUAM’s institutionalization” and opposed its use on GUAM territory, while Moldova declined to participate in any such activities alluding to its “neutrality.”13 Neither was it popular when Ukraine at the GUAM summit in 2005 unilaterally proposed a solution to Moldova’s Transnistrian conflict without consulting the other members beforehand—an action which almost derailed the entire GUAM project. In short, GUAM has faced many of the same problems that other regional groupings have encountered including inefficiency, disparate interests among members, and changing domestic political environments.
12 See: “GUAM: Test for Ability to Act,” p. 1.
13 V. Socor, V. Socor, “Summit Takes Stock of GUAM’s Projects, Institutional Development,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 4, Issue 120, 20 June, 2007.
The Geopolitical Context
From the very beginning, the driving force of GUAM was not energy or trade but security, politics, and integration with the West. But even if GUAM’s geopolitical role to a great extent is determined by the member countries prospective integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions, energy and transit have lately emerged as the key components employed by the U.S. to promote this. By giving these countries economic development through options that are outside of Russian control, the U.S. can increase the GUAM countries’ independence and subsequently also their freedom to engage with other multilateral structures than CIS. GUAM’s Baku Declaration adopted on 19 June, 2007 titled “GUAM: Bringing Continents Together” is indicative to GUAM’s newfound role to prioritize these issues and provide this transit corridor. This geostrategic aspect is also something which prevents the EU from any closer relationship with GUAM. Although the EU has an equal interest in developing alternative energy and transit corridors to those controlled by Russia, it is safe to assume that the EU perceive it far too controversial, vis-à-vis Russia, to pursue such issues within U.S.-supported GUAM. However, even if the EU has been reluctant in engaging GUAM, the latter has frequently referred to the value it ascribes to a formal dialog with the EU. Indeed, GUAM’s sustainability and institutionalization is largely dependent on the development of its relations with Euro-Atlantic institutions and its integration into their larger strategies for the Wider Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions. Until present, EU support in this regard has failed to materialize and substantial changes do not seem to be forthcoming. The EU was not represented at the Baku summit, or any previous summits for that matter, despite the fact that GUAM’s pro-European orientation is closely aligned with the goals set by the EU’s regional approach. Similarly, the stated intent of GUAM to act as a transit corridor in energy and goods between Asia and Europe, and specifically between Central Asia and Europe, is dependent on engagement from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. These states have however devoted little interest to the organization and have sent neither their heads of state, nor any senior officials to GUAM’s annual summits, most recently rejecting invitations to participate at the Baku summit. Austria—whose company OMV is the leader of the Nabucco project—also turned down the invitation.14 This is not to suggest that Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or Austria for that matter, do not have an interest in engaging with the GUAM countries bilaterally. For example, both Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have initiated discussions with the GUAM members on utilizing their territory as transit states for Kazakh oil delivered via Baku and Supsa or Novorossiisk through the Odessa-Brody pipeline.15 But with regards to engagement with GUAM as an organization, the reaction has so far been one of disinterest.
The explanation for this disinterest and cautious approach from other actors is partly due to the geopolitics of the organization. The fact that GUAM has been a geopolitical project from its inception has both made the organization sensitive to changing political conditions in the member states and susceptible to pressure from external actors. It also appears evident today that the bilateral relations between the respective GUAM members and Russia will affect the organization’s future shape. This pertains particularly to the role of Ukraine and whether the pro-Russian forces in the country will gain popularity. If this happens, it is difficult to see any other development than continued disruption of the organization. Moreover, since GUAM is primarily engaged in sectors of major strategic and geopolitical importance e.g. energy transit and conflict resolution in the Caucasus, this is also bound to affect the way the organization is perceived and received among external powers. This may either act as a trigger for greater engagement with GUAM, as has occurred in the case of the U.S., or function as a repellant, which seems to be the case with the EU. In
14 See: V. Socor, “Summit Takes Stock of GUAM’s Projects, Institutional Development.”
15 See: V. Socor, “GUAM Summit: A New Lease on Life (part 2),” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 21 April, 2005.
its designs for regional cooperation, the EU is indeed reluctant to engage in any formats which exclude the region’s main players, Turkey and Russia. The EU may have an interest in supporting GUAM’s ambitions in less controversial areas, such as democratization, but as long as GUAM pursues geopolitically controversial issues within the framework of the organization, this is bound to have implications for Europe’s engagement.
Prospects and Problems for EU-GUAM Relations
However, although the EU so far has remained skeptical toward dealing with GUAM as a group, and seemingly sees the organization as adding little value to the bilateral relations already in place with these states, this is not to say that this approach is embraced by all EU member states. Especially Rumania, Poland and Lithuania, have all attended GUAM summits with a high-level representation and sought to lobby EU recognition for GUAM as an organization. During the recent summit in Baku, these three countries were represented by Presidents Traian Basescu of Rumania, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, and Lech Kaczynski of Poland. The presidents of Lithuania and Rumania both attended the summit in Chisinau in 2005 and Kiev in 2006 as well. Poland’s engagement with GUAM has also been formalized in the GUAM-Poland meetings. The first of these was held in Baku coinciding with the GUAM summit in 2007, the second in New York in September the same year, while the third took place in Warsaw two months later. Combined, these three states have pursued GUAM’s agenda within the EU and sought to convince EU of the strategic role this organization possesses in pursuing the EU’s stated goals for the GUAM region. These goals are similar to those specified in the Black Sea synergy document and primarily relate to energy diversification and transit to the Caspian Sea region and resolution of the secessionist conflicts in line with EU’s approach to the region.16 This backing for an EU-GUAM dialog has now also been formalized within the Group of GUAM Friends in EU, although it remains to be seen if this will achieve any results.17
GUAM may have achieved little in way of substantive results and has a proven record which appears dismal and ad hoc, thereby explaining the disinterest the EU has expressed in engaging the organization. Despite the fact that EU’s stated ambitions for the region harmonize well with those of the GUAM members and the organization’s aim to facilitate energy transit, democratization processes, and resolutions to the frozen conflicts, the EU scarcely mentions the organization in its regional strategy paper as part of its European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). True, beyond recognition from the EU there is probably little the EU and GUAM could accomplish in terms of practical cooperation. Nonetheless there is a tendency to evaluate GUAM for what it has not accomplished rather than what it has accomplished. Ignoring the fact that the member states of this organization have managed, against all odds, to stay together (with the exception of Uzbekistan) is perhaps worth due recognition in itself. Instead, a full explanation for the EU’s disinterest in GUAM and overall approach to the region need not only be concerned with organizational efficiency as a yardstick but also with geopolitics.
Of the regional organizations around the Black Sea, the EU has so far only acknowledged BSEC, and to a limited extent the Black Sea Forum as prospective partners for EU engagement in the region. BSEC, encompassing all regional states, is able to function as a platform for regional
16 See: V. Socor, “GUAM at Ten.”
17 The initiative was launched by Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus in November 2007 at the conference “The Baltic States and EU Neighborhood Policy” held in Riga.
cooperation based on consensus on the part of these states, which is much to the EU’s taste. Russia’s membership in BSEC also reduces some of the geopolitical concerns Russia might have over the EU’s engagement with the states surrounding the Black and Caspian Seas. GUAM, on the other hand, is perceived by the EU as an organization with a narrow coverage which in large part serves to promote and coordinate the political and security agendas of its members. Formal EU support for GUAM would thus imply an involvement in the region’s geopolitics which the EU is not interested in, and potentially taking a stand on certain issues against other regional states including Russia.
This is especially evident regarding the GUAM members discussions on conflicts and peacekeeping. These have largely focused on the members’ support for each others’ territorial integrity and the need for internationalizing the peacekeeping and negotiation formats in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria which since their inception have been dominated by Russia. Nagorno-Karabakh lacks peacekeepers and has a more internationalized negotiation format through the OSCE Minsk group which has, however, failed to produce tangible results. While the EU has begun to envision a need for engaging in these conflict resolution processes, its credibility as a future actor in these lies in its perceived neutrality. Formalized cooperation with GUAM in this regard could easily be interpreted as siding against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, and possibly against Russia in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.
Regarding GUAM’s energy agenda, projects pushed by the organization are largely in line with the EU’s overall diversification strategy. However, the realism in implementing plans for reversing the oil flow through the Odessa-Brody pipeline and extending it to Gdansk is again highly dependent on Ukraine’s future foreign policy orientation. Since Azerbaijani oil has proven insufficient for fueling the pipeline, the project is also dependent on the development of Trans-Caspian pipelines and serious commitment of above all Kazakh oil to this project. In this light, projects aimed at diversifying energy transit proposed by GUAM members largely rely on solving the same issues as other EU-sponsored energy projects. However the promotion of these projects within GUAM as an organization would potentially, from the EU’s perspective, fuel the current controversies between EU and Russian designs for provisions of European energy security. Therefore, while the project itself may well attract more EU interest in the future, it is unlikely that the commitment needed from involved states would be secured through GUAM, rather than the EU’s own regional diplomacy.
These and other geopolitical implications of EU-GUAM relations provide additional impediments to the prospects for Brussels to establish relations with the organization. It remains to be seen whether new EU members, which largely share the GUAM states’ political and security agendas, may help tie the organization closer to EU regional cooperation initiatives.
C o n c l u s i o n
The ten year anniversary of GUAM can be said to mark an important accomplishment in itself, since the organization’s members have managed to stick together in spite of serious past and present challenges facing the organization and its members. The revitalization of the organization in 2006 mirrors a set of positive geopolitical developments in the Black Sea region, as well as within the GUAM member states. The closer proximity of the EU to the regional states has provided increasingly realistic hopes for success in sustaining state-building and democratization processes, as well as sustainable economic development. GUAM as an organization does serve to promote these hopes on the part of its members, and provides a platform for coordinating their efforts in achieving their goals.
However, while cooperation and integration with the EU are probably the most efficient means of GUAM member states in achieving these objectives, it is questionable whether GUAM as an organization will play a significant role in this regard. Due to the divergences of interest and frequent lack of cohesion among the member states, one may indeed question what the EU would gain through engaging with GUAM that it is not already achieving through its bilateral cooperation frameworks with its member states. Indeed, considering the geopolitics intertwined with several of the issues on GUAM’s agenda, commitment to the organization would in many respects counteract the EU’s defined interests in Black Sea regional cooperation. This will not prevent ties between GUAM and individual EU states from developing and flourishing. For the EU as a whole, however, if future engagement with GUAM is established, this will likely circle around non-controversial issues compatible with the EU’s larger strategy, and avoid issues that would challenge the interests of other regional players.
THE CIS AND GUAM
Andrey GROZIN
Political scientist, department head at the Institute of the CIS Countries (Moscow, Russia)
From almost the very beginning of the post-Soviet era, the territory the Soviet Union left behind became an arena of tough rivalry and confrontation among several world centers of power. The United States, Russia, China, the European Union, and the Muslim world can be described as the most active players. The latter is represented by individual countries and official organizations, as well as illegal radical structures. Nearly all of the actors mentioned above (with the exception of China, because of its special position) are more or less interested in trimming Russia’s influence across the post-Soviet expanse, thus strengthening their own position in the region.
America is especially active in this respect; to achieve its aims it is using both governmental structures and all sorts of NGOs and nonprofit organizations operating in the post-Soviet states. Washington has already spent a lot of money to entice the ruling circles of several of them to its side.
The Commonwealth of Independent States is obviously losing its importance as an interstate integration structure. Today, we can even say that it is falling apart into individual structures, each with foreign policy orientations of its own. The first signs of this were apparent at the very early stage: Ukraine, for example, refused to sign the CIS Charter.
Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan remain Russia-oriented, partly because of their membership in several regional structures of economic or military-political orientation: the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC).
On the other hand, several countries pooled their efforts to squeeze Russia at least out of the most important spheres of interstate relations. Supported by the United States, they set up a regional
organization of their own called GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) as a counterweight to the pro-Russian structures. In the last few years, the pro-Russian political forces in these countries have lost much of their former influence, not only in the foreign policy sphere, but also on the domestic scene. The Georgian leaders, for example, make no secret of their anti-Russian position, which gives Moscow reason to look at them as American puppets.
Despite the fact that GUAM was set up back in 1997, its international status is fairly recent: it dates to 2006 when the members gathered together in Kiev for their first summit.1 It acquired a new name—the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development—GUAM, a Charter, and headquarters in Kiev.
It should be said that all analyses of GUAM, the CIS, EurAsEC, and CSTO are based on analysts’ political biases. If an analyst believes that American and EU influence in the post-Soviet expanse is obviously beneficial, he will spare no compliments when talking about the “post-Soviet democracies.” More likely than not, such people tend to ignore the undemocratic developments in these countries. Typically enough, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Grigory Karasin offered the following comment on the eve of the Vilnius GUAM summit, which marked the Organization’s first decade: “So far it is hard to offer positive comments about an organization that has been working for ten years now. Time will show. It is much more interesting to discuss another aspect: the correlation between the United States (itself not a member) and the GUAM countries.”2 President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev was even more straightforward. In his interview to El Pais he said: “GUAM is a purely political structure and I don’t believe that its horizons are vast.”3
Any analyst who wants Russia to preserve its leading role in the post-Soviet expanse will go out of his way to present all Russia-dominated structures as peaks of political and economic efficiency, even if some of Moscow’s not totally constructive steps do not fit the “black-and-white” picture.
The media seem to be fascinated with the question of whether the CIS and GUAM are partners or rivals. The shared opinion is that they are the latter rather than the former.
It was for many objective reasons that Central Asia moved to the center of attention of the pro-Russian and anti-Russian structures operating across the post-Soviet territory. Today, it is the scene of permanent and active geopolitical transformations of a revolutionary nature.
It should be said that in the early post-Soviet period Moscow was taking its time (a fairly long time to say the least) to formulate coherent “Central Asian” policies; what was more, the Russian Federation’s ideas about what should be done in the region and how were pretty vague. No serious and systemic work was carried out with the elites of the newly independent states. Between 1991 and 1996 the Russian political leaders were mesmerized with their Euro-Atlantic orientation, which seriously crippled Russia’s interests in Central Asia. Other forces moved in to pull the region to their side.
Today, Russia has not yet completely formulated its policies in this region of huge geopolitical and geo-economic importance, however, new trends can be discerned.
Recently, the situation has been gradually improving: Russia is acquiring its Central Asian tactics and the skeleton of its strategy, but sometimes Moscow acts impulsively as though trying to keep abreast of the United States and China.
Despite the frantic Western efforts, the region’s rich natural resources are still “tied” to Russia by the region’s limited access to the world market and the weakly developed communication networks of all kinds. The newly independent states regard Russia as their main trade partner, a transit
1 See: I. Alekperova, A. Dubnov, “SShA otkazalis’ voyti v GUAM. I budut tol’ko nabliudat’ za nim,” Vremia nov-ostey, 19 June, 2007.
2 A. Matveev, “‘Ostrov’ GUAM pod protektsiey NATO,” Voenno-promyshlenny kur’er, No. 40 (206), 17-23 October, 2007.
3 P. Bonet, “Occidente tiene un interés malsano en la energía kazaja,” El Pais, 2 Abril, 2007.
territory for their hydrocarbon and other raw materials, the main supplier of weapons and military equipment, and a training base that produces highly skilled personnel.
Many of Russia’s rivals can hardly reconcile themselves to this, which allows the absolute majority of Russian experts to quite rightly regard GUAM as a tool for undermining the Kremlin’s influence in Central Asia.
The West is convinced that Moscow’s continued domination in the transportation of energy fuels from Central Asia might make Russia the prevailing force there. The local countries will not be able to independently choose transportation routes. At worst, the Russia-Central Asia axis might develop into a “gas OPEC” and an energy club within the SCO. After that, Moscow’s monopoly will become practically invincible.
There is no agreement in Europe about what could be described as energy security. This explains why the EU’s position is fairly ambiguous: there are too many opinions about the right strategy inside the European Union itself.4 The EU members, in groups or individually, are looking for an acceptable solution to the problem called “diversification of supplies.”
Seen from Vilnius and Warsaw, the Russian-German agreement on the Baltic pipeline looks like the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Poland joined forces with the Baltic countries to obtain fuel resources from Central Asia. For a long time now Warsaw has been trying, single-handedly, to convince Kazakhstan to send its oil via the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline.
This can hardly be done through GUAM: the volume of fuel produced in Azerbaijan is not growing fast enough, while its hydrocarbon reserves are much smaller than those of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
It should be said that many in the Russian expert community are convinced that GUAM counts on Caspian, or rather Azeri, oil. Some analysts tend to describe the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk project as the economic foundation of the “Baltic-Black Sea belt.”
Meanwhile, Baku is barely coping with filling the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) to capacity. At first it moved about 10 million tons of oil every year, whereas to achieve its earning capacity the line should move five times more oil. This explains why the West spares no effort to convince Kazakhstan to send more oil to BTC. Back in the summer of 2006, Kazakhstan signed an agreement under which up to 25 million tons of oil from the Kashagan oil fields in the northern Caspian were to be sent to BTC.5 Very soon, however, it became known that the field would not start operating before 2011-2012.
Even if the West succeeds in attracting Kazakh oil into pipelines alternative to the Russian routes, the BTC will be loaded to only 75-80 percent of its capacity,6 which means that Azerbaijan will hardly agree to support the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk project at the expense of BTC.
It should be said that if Kazakh oil reaches Ukrainian territory through the Trans-Caspian pipeline and across Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Black Sea bed, the final cost will be short of prohibitive.
The GUAM members repeated time and again that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines will keep the bloc well supplied and will ensure Europe’s energy security. For the same reason GUAM supported the American Nabucco project, which was expected to bring Caspian gas to Turkey and to Europe to compete with the Russian routes from Central Asia. Today, however, Nabucco’s future looks uncertain.
Western political blunders and faux pas in Central Asia are obvious to all. In 2005, the White House’s course in Uzbekistan aimed at the “regime democratization” failed ignominiously and forced
4 See: E. Bakyt, “Evropeyskiy Soiuz i Tsentral’naia Azia: energetika ili demokratia?” 24 kg Information Agency, 20 October, 2007.
5 See: M. Kalishevskiy, “Partner deystvuet iz podpol’ia,” Novoe russkoe slovo, 21 March, 2007.
6 See: Z. Karazhanov, “Energeticheskoe GUAMtanamo,” Liter, 11 May, 2007.
Tashkent to move away from Washington. In Kyrgyzstan, the events that followed the so-called Tulip Revolution demonstrated that the “revolutionary government” that replaced Askar Akaev preferred to follow the old foreign policy course. It is ready to serve anyone who has money and is willing to pay. Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s visit to Kazakhstan in the summer of 2007 failed to accomplish two main aims: he could not convince President Nazarbaev to attend the energy summit in Poland or to join the Odessa-Brody project. More than that: Kazakhstan’s oil fields remained closed to Poland’s top oil refinery, PKN Orlen.7
In the wake of his meeting with the Polish president, Nursultan Nazarbaev made an interesting statement to the effect that Moscow should be invited to join the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk project: “We should by all means involve the corresponding Russian structures in the process.” To load the pipeline, said the president of Kazakhstan, we should move the oil across Russia. In the absence of railways, the amount of hydrocarbons will depend on the throughput flow capacity of the North Caspian CPC oil pipeline. “We should treat the issue seriously,” said President Nazarbaev. “If we approach the matter in this way, we shall definitely start moving oil through the pipeline by 2011-2012.”8
Compared with the fairly useless trip of the Polish president, President Putin’s visit to Astana was much more productive. In May 2007, the Russian president toured Central Asia in an effort to bury the Trans-Caspian pipeline project (TCP), which could have left Russia out in the cold, and set up a single energy system with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In fact, it was an effort to set up an energy alliance in which Russia could control the routes via which Central Asian resources would reach the world’s markets.
President Putin’s visit showed that Russia was resolved to fight stubbornly and as long as it would take to ensure its continued monopoly on Central Asian fuel transportation routes and scored the first victory. The Agreement was signed on the Caspian Pipeline with a planned capacity of 30 billion cu m; construction works are scheduled for the latter half of 2008. Together with the new project, the sides discussed the task of increasing the carrying capacity of the old gas pipeline Central Asia-Center (CAC).9 A corresponding agreement was signed by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
In June 2001, GUUAM acquired the status of an international regional organization, registered by the Yalta Charter signed by the GUUAM heads of state. Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova met in Yalta to lay a new Silk Road from Ukraine to Central Asia across the Black Sea and the Caucasus. .. .The five states challenged time—and Putin—to realize the Silk Road idea before Russia, which is rapidly gaining confidence, interfered with this.10
In July 2002, the GUUAM presidents met for their regular summit and signed an agreement on a free trade area (which Kiev was actively lobbying) within their organization. This means that another attempt was made on post-Soviet territory to set up a single economic space. However, it remained purely declarative.
GUAM, a regional economic organization set up to strengthen integration ties between Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, is one of the Great Game instruments. The absence of a Central Asian component is one of the instrument’s most obvious faults. This became even more obvious when Uzbekistan left the structure. It should be said that it joined the organization called GUAM, which was set up in 1997, two years later—in 1999.
For a long time the leaders of Uzbekistan expected that its economic and military-strategic cooperation with the U.S. and the leading supra-national financial and economic institutions would help
7 See: A. Asrorov, “Tsentral’noaziatskiy pasians. Khitry khod ES,” Gazeta.kz, 11 July, 2007.
8 V. Iakubian, “GUAM protiv Rossii—bakinskiy round,” Regnum.ru, 23 June, 2007.
9 See: S. Smirnov, “Tri kaspiyskie truby,” Ekspert-Kazakhstan, 3 October, 2007.
10 See: G. Whittell, “Old Soviet States Defy Russia with Plan to Rebuild Silk Road,” The Times, 8 June, 2001.
Tashkent deal with its economic problems without insisting on painful economic and political reforms.
In 1995-1998 Tashkent started moving away from Russia: it was sure of itself. Foreign companies interested in its cotton, gold, and uranium opened their offices in the republic and started joint ventures. The European Union treated Uzbekistan and all the other Central Asian republics benevolently and increased the quotas on their products on its territory. This was done mainly for geopolitical considerations: the West did not want the “younger brothers” to return to the “older brother.”
The Uzbek leaders no longer looked at Russia as the leader or driving force, even though it was still vaguely described as a “strategic partner.” President Karimov pinned his hopes on the United States in the expectation of integrating his country into the world economy while preserving its political system intact, postponing radical changes, and offering no real protection to private property.
After the economic crisis that shook Russia in 1998, Uzbekistan chose to ignore political agreements and rejected the earlier military obligations. It concentrated on bilateral contacts in international relations.
In 1999, Uzbekistan left the Collective Security Treaty, and in April of the same year, it joined GUAM at the meeting of GUAM presidents in Washington, where they all came to celebrate NATO’s 50th anniversary.11 GUAM became GUUAM, but the practical results of the name change were negligible: from the very beginning Tashkent had its doubts about the Organization’s economic value, even though the latter posed itself as an economic structure. Because of Washington’s support, the prospects looked mainly political.
Time and again the Uzbek president described the Organization as “half-baked,” while its political biases, he argued, reduced its economic development potential.12
The year 2003 ushered in a new development stage in Uzbekistan’s relations with Russia. Tashkent, disappointed with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other supra-national structures, received aid from other sources. Russian companies, among others, promised investments in the processing of agricultural products and oil production. In 2004, Russia and Uzbekistan signed not only an agreement on strategic partnership, but also a treaty on the joint use of the Air Force and air defense units.13
The rupture between Uzbekistan and GUAM appeared long before the Andijan events and the foreign policy U-turn that followed them. When leaving, Uzbekistan created as much noise as it could: its president refused to attend another regular summit, being occupied, according to his own statement, elsewhere.
On 13 June, 2002, the then Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov informed everyone that his country had left GUUAM and pointed out that its previous involvement had been prompted by the country’s desire to become part of multilateral economic cooperation; no positive results, though, had been registered after four years of membership, the minister concluded.
He summed up that his country left the Organization because of “the lack of progress.” A week later Uzbekistan corrected its previous statement, obviously under Washington’s pressure, by saying that it had merely “suspended its membership.” Indeed, on 16 June, the U.S. State Department issued a statement to the effect that America was convinced that continued GUUAM membership would strengthen Uzbekistan’s status as the regional leader and that Washington hoped that the Uzbek leaders would reconsider their decision.14 This could not be ignored—Uzbekistan left the Organization only after the Andijan events.
11 See: E. Kurilenko, “‘Shche ne vmerla’ GUUAM,” GazetaSNG, 27 January, 2005.
12 See: A. Taksanov, “Tsirk uekhal, klouny ostalis’. Komu nuzhno Sodruzhestvo?” Tribune-uz, 9 February, 2005.
13 See: E. Liubarskaia, “Karimov luchshe grazhdanskoy voyny,” Lenta.Ru, 28 April, 2005.
14 See: V. Sergienko, “Nasledniki Timura,” Kontinent (Almaty), No. 20 (82), 16-29 October, 2002.
Today, Tashkent’s position has de facto developed into a stumbling block on the road toward the aims the GUAM identified as its priorities in Central Asia. Uzbekistan is an important regional player, therefore all the more or less important joint projects require its involvement.
So far the West has failed to regulate its relations with Uzbekistan, a country against which sanctions were instituted. It should be said that its negative experience of cooperation with the United States taught the other Central Asian leaders to seek real investments in their economies rather than counting on statements.
Kazakhstan is another regional economic leader with its own ideas about regional strategies. Even when Astana signed the Caspian Declaration in Tehran in October 2007, or the Agreement on the Caspian Pipeline, it left a certain leeway to be able to deal with the infrastructural aspects of its national energy projects.
After losing Uzbekistan, the West concentrated on Kazakhstan as the regional heavyweight. Russia, in turn, has always regarded this country as its key regional partner.
Their partnership is not free from contradictions, mainly related to the development of the national energy complexes and transport infrastructure on which the fuel and energy complexes of both countries depend.
President Nazarbaev’s response to the agreement between Russia, Bulgaria, and Greece on the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline illustrated the above: in his interview to Russian TV in March
2007, he said that without Kazakh oil the project is unlikely to be economically viable.15 So far the Russian companies, the project’s main shareholders, have shown no haste in inviting their Kazakh colleagues to join the “Balkan pipeline consortium.”
The Russian and Kazakh sides have not yet agreed on the conditions on which gas from the Karachaganak gas-condensate field in Kazakhstan would be supplied to the Orenburg Gas Refinery. The problem of increasing the carrying capacity of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) to the planned annual capacity of 67 million tons is pending. The CPC is used to move oil from the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan to Novorossiisk, from where it is brought by tankers through the Black Sea straits to the world markets. In 2005, Moscow promised Astana that it would finally resolve the problem. Later, when Russian managers came to the CPC helm, the problem was pushed aside once more. So far the foreign oil companies have been deriving their oil export profits from the minimal transit payments to Russia. To acquire at least minimum profit, the Russian side was prepared to bankrupt the CPC.16
Moscow too has its own reasons for being displeased with Astana, which is rapidly increasing its energy potential: its position on the project to extend the Odessa-Brody pipeline to Plock in Poland remains uncertain; the same can be said about the Trans-Caspian project lobbied by the United States and the European Union, about which Astana has already stated that it intends to study the project further. What is more, Kazakhstan is involved in the BTC pipeline, which brings Caspian oil (albeit relatively small amounts of it) to the European market, bypassing Russia.
Recently, Kazakhstan has become involved in all sorts of economic projects without Russia’s participation; Astana is working hard to use the CIS countries in which Moscow is losing its influence in its interests. It seems that the Kazakhstan leaders hope that the Kremlin has, on the whole, reconciled itself to the fact that its ally is stepping up its efforts to move to the forefront in the post-Soviet expanse, even when dealing with alternative export routes.17
15 See: A. Dubnov, “Rossiisko-kazakhstanskaia prokhlada. Nazarbaev peredelaet GUAM v GUAK,” Vremia nov-ostey, 20 March, 2007.
16 See: A. Sobianin, M. Shibutov, “Dozhdiomsia li rossisko-kazakhstanskoy global’noy ekspansii?,” Respublika, 25 May, 2007.
17 See: V. Vasil’eva, N. Pulina, “Luchshiy drug Rossii,” Moskovskie novosti, 19 March, 2007.
For objective reasons Kazakhstan needs less dependence on the Russian transportation routes, particularly the Russian pipelines, even though Astana never fails to assure Russia of its friendship. In any case, Kazakhstan needs diversified fuel transportation routes.
It seems that Russia’s “gas war” with Ukraine and Belarus, as well as Russia’s sanctions against Georgia and Moldova spurred on Kazakhstan’s diversification efforts.
On the one hand, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan want trans-Caspian pipelines to diversify fuel supplies to Europe, while on the other, neither Astana nor Ashghabad are prepared to pour money into the project: they are permitting the Western partners to move ahead.
Against this background, GUAM is hardly discernible; as distinct from the EU, which is working on its Central Asian strategy, GUAM has produced no documents related to the region so far.
In 2006, the second, after the CIS, geopolitical bloc on the post-Soviet expanse made a more or less important step by transforming itself from “simply GUAM” into the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development—GUAM. So far, it has failed to address any of the outstanding problems.
Its practical activities are limited to regular annual summits and the usual practice of producing heaps of documents.
The decisions of the five summits were never executed, they were mere declarations designed to scare Moscow with alternative fuel transportation routes (primarily from Central Asia). The GUAM leaders expected the “pipelines” laid beyond Russian territory to play a dual role.
First, imperial-minded Moscow was to come forward with more concessions, preferences, written off debts, cheap fuel, etc.
Second, this policy was to attract the attention of the West and its political and financial institutions.
As soon as the Kremlin made its policy on the post-Soviet expanse more pragmatic, the situation changed radically. President of Uzbekistan Karimov seems to be the first to register this.18
At first GUAM was planned as an economic structure; its founders announced that their aim was the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transportation corridor laid outside Russia. “Years passed and GUUAM continued its sedate existence—the presidents met once a year and the joint commissions continued working and producing mountains of documents with no tangible results. The same can be said about the CIS for that matter. There was no corridor.”19
GUAM, like the CIS, is not united. Here is an example: President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili refused to buy Russian gas at a “politically motivated price” in the hopes that Georgia’s friends, Azerbaijan and Turkey, would help. No “diversification” followed, and Georgia continued buying the bulk of the gas it used from Gazprom.
The Georgian leaders pinned great hopes on the 2007 Krakow summit attended by Poland, Lithuania, and Rumania. The president of Kazakhstan engaged elsewhere (he was busy signing the Agreement on the Caspian Pipeline together with President Putin) missed the summit. This made it clear that the Southern (Balkan) and Northern (BTC) routes would catch the GUAM countries in a pincer movement. Georgian experts admitted that the West had lost this battle to Russia and that their country, which wanted to pose as America’s reliable ally in the struggle for Caspian and Central Asian energy resources, had failed its patron.20 Using energy sources as a political instrument, Moscow delivered a heavy blow to the West-East energy corridor on which Georgia had carved itself the role of a transit country.
18 See: “Sud’ba postsovetskogo prostranstva ostaetsia neizvestnoy,” Rossiyskie vesti, 10 November, 2004.
19 A. Dmitriev, “SNG i GUUAM: peredel postsovetskogo prostranstva,” APN, 30 September, 2004.
20 See: “Est’ li v Gruzii ekonomika?” Evrasia, No. 65, October 2007.
Georgy Khukhashvili, an expert in economic problems, has written that Moscow is tightening its energy control over Europe. Russia’s strategy proved successful; it closed the energy circle, thus making the BTC and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines redundant. The expert is convinced that “Russia has grasped the initiative and nobody can do anything about this.”21
It seems that this and other similar statements smack of overstatement: the struggle for control over the Caspian and Central Asian resources is just unfurling and the end is nowhere in sight.
Bit by bit, GUAM acquired a military-political component; this is a relatively recent development. Back at the 2003 GUUAM summit, Foreign Minister of Georgia Irakli Menagarisvili announced that the GUUAM members did not intend to set up a military bloc similar to the CSTO, since “it did nothing to ensure their security.” At that time, GUUAM declared: “Many of our projects are related to the counterterrorist rather than the military sphere.”22 On the eve of the 2003 Tbilisi summit there was a lot of talk among the Georgian military that GUUAM should strengthen its military component since Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan had just set up CSTO.23
The GUAM documents say a lot about the member states joint counterterrorist activities, but so far the Organization is able to pool forces merely on paper: there is no information about practical steps.
The Organization has no consolidated military or any other program either. The GUAM members and the West, however, have one aim in common: many of the GUAM politicians want to bring their countries to NATO. This has been already decided in Georgia; Azerbaijan also has the chance to develop good partner relations with NATO; the idea is also lobbied in Moldova, even though this country time and again has talked about its neutrality. The political process in Ukraine is too vague to speak about NATO membership at the official level. We all know, however, that President Yushchenko and his team, as well as the Bloc of Yulia Timoshenko that came second at the recent parliamentary elections, are actively lobbying the idea. It was announced that the country is ready to switch to NATO standards, while the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has entered into active contacts with NATO about military and military-technical cooperation.
The conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the Transnistria may serve as another unifying factor: the countries may pool forces to fight the “unrecognized states” and to minimize Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet expanse. Earlier, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Nino Burdjanadze openly said this at a presentation of the GUAM Parliamentary Assembly in Kiev. She pointed out that three out of the four GUAM countries faced a common problem called separatism, therefore each of them could help the others and also pool forces to repel the dual standards practiced “by certain countries which are fighting separatism on their own territories yet encouraging separatism in other coun-tries.”24
So far this idea can hardly be realized. According to Russian political scientist Alexander Krylov, “the idea of a peacekeeping unit within GUAM has been discussed for many years now. Today, the political situation in Ukraine is not conducive to setting up a GUAM peacekeeping battalion. This can be done only if approved by the Supreme Rada, which is at daggers drawn with the president. Most of the deputies would not like to see Ukraine involved in the burning Caucasian developments and dispatch its troops to fight under command of others.”25
21 See: “Est’ li v Gruzii ekonomika?” Evrasia, No. 65, October 2007.
22 E. Buzulukova, “Prioritet: nepochetnoe chlenstvo v klubakh po interesam,” Gazeta SNG, 16 February, 2004.
23 See: M. Vignanskiy, “Virtual’noe sopernichestvo. Deiatel’nost’ GUUAM ozhivil strakh,” Vremia MN, 26 May,
2003.
24 Quoted from: A. Dmitriev, op. cit.
25 Quoted from: S. Markedonov, “‘Postsovetskie demokratii’ vs SNG-2,” Politkom.Ru, 22 June, 2007.
America will support the idea, but it will not be realized in practice. Moscow’s position is not as important as the opposition of the people and the elites of the unrecognized republics.
Today Russia is actively seeking a formula to change the institutions on the post-Soviet expanse that will take into account the geopolitical split inside the CIS and the effectiveness of regional organizations (such as EurAsEC, CSTO and SCO). Today, however, the integration processes in the post-Soviet expanse depend, to a great extent, on the nature of mounting geopolitical rivalry between Russia and America. Success will depend on the balance of forces between the two centers of power. There are too many factors opposing the West’s intention to gain access to Central Asia’s resources via the Southern Caucasus and the Caspian. In fact, Russia’s territory cannot be physically excluded from the oil and gas routes between Asia and Europe, particularly in view of Russia’s wider oil and gas interests in Central Asia of the last decade.26 While China and the European Union are competing over influence in Central Asia, Russia remains the only supplier of Central Asian fuels to Europe.
Central Asia has become one of the key points in this rivalry. This suggests that GUAM’s biased approach to Central Asia (oriented toward energy resources and the routes for their transportation alone) should be revised in the near future to become a conception. If this does not happen, we can expect the post-Soviet Asian republics and GUAM to limit their cooperation even more.
26 See: S. Samoylova, “Postsovetskie instituty: formula reformy,” Polikom.Ru, 8 October, 2007.
GUAM AND THE EURASEC: MAIN GOALS AND PROSPECTS
Gulnur RAKHMATULLINA
Ph.D. (Econ.), chief researcher at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty, Kazakhstan)
The GUAM integration organization was created in November 1997 when the foreign ministers of four countries—Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova—signed a Protocol declaring the creation of this new structure.
Uzbekistan officially joined this organization in April 1999. But in 2002, it suspended its participation in this organization.
Box 1
“Tashkent has never tried to conceal the fact that GUUAM appeals to it from an exclusively ‘transport' or ‘transport-energy' standpoint and that it is not at all interested in it as a geopolitical group. Uzbekistan explained its decision to withdraw from GUUAM by the fact that it did not feel the need for political or military integration
