Kazakstan and NATO Get Close, but Not Too Close

President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s recent visit to Brussels has sparked speculation that Kazakstan could become a key NATO ally in Central Asia, leading to a substantial increase in military cooperation.



However, NBCentralAsia political analysts say that both Kazakstan and NATO are very well aware that any cooperation will take place within a set of clearly-defined limits, so as to avoid encroaching on the Kazaks’ existing commitments to other regional groupings.



When Nazarbaev visited NATO headquarters on December 5, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Kazakstan was the alliance’s most active partner in the region. Kazakstan works with NATO both as a Partnership for Peace member and also on ecological and humanitarian information projects.



Political commentators say closer cooperation is certainly possible. At its recent summit in Riga, NATO announced plans to expand cooperation with Central Asia. This could mean that Kazakstan becomes NATO’s prime partner in the key areas of energy security and support for the peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.



“NATO has lost out in Uzbekistan and the future of the [United States-led Coalition] military base in Kyrgyzstan is unclear, so cooperation with Kazakstan is growing,” said Andrei Chebotarev, director of the Alternativa think-tank. “Kazakstan could gradually become the focus of NATO’s military and political interests in Central Asia.”



But this cooperation will never be too close, given the boundaries set by Kazak membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.



“Cooperation between Kazakstan and NATO will be reasonably productive, but both sides know there are limits they must not transgress,” said Dosym Satpaev, director of the Risk Assessment Group. “It would foolish to suggest that NATO has any kind of expansionist interests in Kazakstan.”



These limitations exclude, for example, a NATO military presence in Kazakstan. As political scientist Ilyas Karsakov put it, “military bases on Kazak territory are out of the question”.



Kazakstan has proved quite adept at balancing the interests of the United States, the European Union and Russia. But moving towards greater military, technical and energy cooperation with NATO could be risky, as Russia might see this as a threat to its own national security.



“Russia would probably impose some kind of economic sanctions on Kazakstan if it got involved in NATO plans to support of Georgia and Ukraine with energy,” said Chebotarev.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)