Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Kazakhstan to set up Navy in Caspian

Bush is not only trying to control the flow of oil in the Caspian largely through NATO he is toying with the notion of putting a floating launch platform in the Caspian Sea, or a base in Azerbaijan, as another viable solution. This is an ‘in your face’ move bordering on attack and as such I would expect the countries of the Caspian to take a defensive posture.

This seems an announcement that Kazakhstan will cooperate with Iran one of the more important littoral states.

-Am

Kazakhstan to set up Navy in Caspian

January 6, 2004

Kazakhstan intends to set up its Navy in the Caspian Sea, the Kazakh Defense Minister Mukhtar Altinbayev said. He underlined that such an intention is based on the principles of friendship and neighborhood.

"The Caspian Sea must be turned into the sea of peace, friendship and kindness," said Altinbayev, noting that his country is ready to cooperate with all Caspian littoral states on security issues.


The Kazakh official added that Russia will assist Kazakhstan in establishing the Navy, ensuring security and training personnel.

http://www.azernews.net/view.php?d=5670



Reference:
The reasons for NATO's eastward expansion are largely economic. For instance, NATO's military access and control over Eastern Europe helps Western European corporations to secure strategic energy resources, such as oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia . The US and Western European corporations will greatly benefit from NATO's control of the oil corridor through the Caucasus Mountains . NATO wants its troops to patrol this pipeline and to dominate the Armenian/Russian route to the Caspian Sea . The Caucasus also links the Adriatic-Ceyhan-Baku pipeline with oil-rich countries even farther east, in the former Soviet Central Asia republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan . Billions of dollars in oil may someday flow through these corridors to Western Europe for the benefit of Western-based oil companies.
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"It's just that they are throwing huge amounts of money trying to get the technology up and running without thinking clearly about the system they are going to construct," complained Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat of the US Senate Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.

"It raises issues of basing it in places like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Caspian Sea," the Rhode Island senator told AFP. "And that introduces geopolitical considerations."

While key variables remain unknown, experts agree that if Iran, as expected, produces an intercontinental ballistic missile sometime within the next decade, the United States will not be able to counter it just from ships patrolling the Gulf.

A study by the American Physical Society issued last year pointed to a floating launch platform in the Caspian Sea, or a base in Azerbaijan, as another viable solution.
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