Kazakhstan balanced between Ukraine and post-NATO Afghanistan

[dipsydoodle]

Exclusive - Kazakhstan balanced between Ukraine and post-NATO Afghanistan.

Looking at the neighbourhood around Kazakhstan on a spinning globe, the Central Asian nation's foreign minister sees both partnerships and peril in the form of the Russian-Ukraine crisis and the coming NATO pullout from Afghanistan by year end.

Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov used the globe in the country's Mission to the United Nations on Monday to illustrate the geopolitical conditions it faces, with perhaps the biggest influence coming from Russia, its former Soviet overlord, to the north.

Kazakhstan, which is rich in oil and minerals, is five times the size of France but populated by just 17.3 million people, of which between 21 percent and 22 percent are ethnic Russians. There is also a sizeable minority of 300,000 ethnic Ukrainians.

Like other former Soviet satellite states, Kazakhstan has taken note of how Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March. Moscow is seen by Kiev and the West as meddling in the internal affairs of Ukraine by supporting pro-Russian separatists.

"We as a matter of principle support an independent, sovereign, forward-looking, advancing politically and economically Ukraine. That is the core of our policy towards Ukraine," said Idrissov.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/23/uk-kazakhstan-idrissov-idUKKCN0HI1EN20140923?feedType=RSS&feedName=GCA-GoogleNewsUK

[geek tragedy]

1. it's kind of cute how they think they're an independent nation with sovereignty

and the right to set their own destiny.

They're next on the chopping block.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/01/kazakhstan-russian-neighbour-putin-chilly-nationalist-rhetoric

But it is in the south, not in the north-west, that the chilly blast of Putin's rhetoric is being felt, far away from Europe and from Nato.

In little-noticed remarks last week, he called into question the legitimacy of the post-Soviet state of Kazakhstan while ordering the Kazakhs to be on their best behaviour when it came to serving Russian interests.

The remarks, to an audience of young people in Russia on Friday, sent shocke waves through the central Asian republic, which also hosts a large ethnic Russian minority centred in the north on the Russian border.

Putin said there had never been a country called Kazakhstan, that the republic was purely the product of the current president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"I am confident that a majority of its population supports development of close ties with Russia," said Putin. "Nazarbayev is a prudent leader, even the most prudent in the post-Soviet space. He would never act against the will of his country's people."

Kazakhstan, he said, was "part of the large Russian world that is part of the global civilisation in terms of industry and advanced technologies. I am confident that that's the way things are going to be in the medium – and long-term."

Nazarbayev had "done a unique thing. He created a state in a territory that had never had a state before. The Kazakhs had no statehood."

[dipsydoodle]

2. Despite Putin's off hand spouting,

I do acknowedge his ability to open his mouth without engaging his brain at times, they're in the Eurasian Customs Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Customs_Union

Given at least some of the background to issues in Ukraine with regard to the EU trade agreement he's hardly likely to want disturb that.

Check out the size of that country sometime - its enormous.

[geek tragedy]

3. As long as Kazakhstan doesn't try to act like an

independent state they'll be allowed to call themselves one.

Huge country, lots of mineral resources, no real options.