South Stream Vs Nabucco: the Turkmeni affair

Within the turn of the week, the thorny issue of Caspian gas to EU has also dramatically changed. In short, Nabucco is down and South Stream is up.

Bulgaria has given the ratification of the South Stream (that comes after the Greece, Serbia and Austria ) pipeline, which is expected to run with Azerbaijani gas. Meanwhile Turkemistan is granting its gas to Gazprom , undermining the Nabucco project. As the article points clearly, there is now insufficient gas to have Nabucco project feasible and meaningful, unless it is considered the “Hobson choice”: Iranian gas. Turkey, pushing for Nabucco as South Stream bypass Turkey via Black sea, is already lobbying Tehran to double the existing Iran.-Turkey pipeline.

It is still unclear whether it would be iranian or (again) turkmeni gas to be pumped in the pipes, and the memory of January 2008 shortages due to Theran- Ashgabat strife and occasional pipeline blowups are always reason for concern.

In any case Registan.net makes a good argument why South Stream would be more viable and more likely to occur. Not only it is shorter and economically more sound, but it cuts short of problematic areas with separatism problem (Georgia, Turkey), bypassing the crowded Bosphorus.

SCO Dushanbe summit: Afghanistan has a new gardener

SCO next meeting, in August 28^th in Dushanbe – Tajikistan, will be an important demonstration of the maturity the organisation has gained in the last decade. It is significantly set after the Olympiads, as if it intended to appreciate the security SCO can deliver to China in terms of Anti-Terrorism intelligence. It will also be a test to the capability of the organization to make safe its “Bagh”, its garden as the Middle ground between oil and gas-fields and Indian and Chinese soaring economic zones.

Securing this part of the world (that spans from XinJiang to Kashmir and Iran) is a matter of infrastructures and Military self-sufficiency, coupled with single states´goodwill. We have a good example of this in SCO dealings with Afghanistan. As said in a precedent post, SCO produced to Afghanistan a broader “Loya Jirga” in an early summit in Kyrgyzstan. The supposed aim was to lay patent the intertwined interests and problems of the region, specially in the current worsening Afghani-Tajiki border problem (in 2005 Russia retrieved its border guards Tajikistan to the current four-fold increase of drug trafficking).

Given its record-high opium production SCO is considering a joint action with India and China “to build drug-secure belts around Afghanistan”, after the expression of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The stance was reiterated in early July by Russia in a UN Security Council on Afghanistan and was shortly followed up by the Tajiki proposal, suggested in July 28^th, of an SCO regional antidrug center in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Afghanistan is therefore benefiting form strategic help in its illegal traffics (that finance mainly the Taliban insurgency) while being provided with Russia weaponry.

Nord Stream opening delayed

Alas, Nord Stream delays his delivery to 2012. EU environmental concerns , notably raised by Poland, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark, may have played some part in it. However seems that neighbouring Poland is voicing interest: if not to halt the project, Poland may partake, in the prudent words of former President Kwaśniewski . Obviously it would then make no strategic sense for Germany and Russia to bypass Poland and the Baltics just to have them as stakeholders. A more feasible solutions would be to have them benefitting from the materials and technology supply, as is the case of italian SAIPEM (see former post about Nord Stream).

Would Afghanistan join the SCO club?

In May 25^th Afghan foreign Minister Mr. Spanta stated that Afghanistan is not interested in neither SCO or CSTO membership. The declaration came after a Pakistani proposal; NATO to join SCO in Afghanistan. Yet the recommendations and diplomatic efforts to have the landlocked country join forces with other partners have all but ceased. Just last month in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, a summit bearing the title "Afghanistan, SCO, Central Eurasian Security and Geopolitics" showed the high interest in Afghanistan pacification as well as it displayed the Afghani stranger" elements that would possibly play a stabilizing role in Afghani politics. Tajiki is for example an important minority in the north, that happened to be the back-bone of the Northern alliance, Uzbeki are important MP´s and local chiefs (some say “warlords”), Shi´a Hazara is the ethnicity that may prove useful in dealing with Iran. This seizing of the stakeholders multiplicity was perhaps the main success of the conference, and points directly to Central Asia ties in every attempt to studying a really democratic and pluralistic Loya-Jirga. Moreover, it befriended Afghan authorities with SCO proceedings and featured the Friedrich Ebert Institute, testifying that Europe is not idle.

If Afganistan is to join SCO, it would be a chance to meet another major actor in Afghan struggle, Iran, in a multilateral environment. As a matter of fact Iran wants to improve its relationship seeking a full membership, now hindered by its Nuclear Program.

Moreover it would help SCO to exit an impasse. As the interesting analysis of Dr. Erica Marat stresses, Russia and China are said to be weary over the very mission of SCO.

Russia is seeking to merge CSTO and SCO, which concerns China as this would definitively present the organization as military, whereas it has been kept up to now an economic partnership (despite the military drills, which Chinese authorities don´t want to be re-staged).

Afghanistan and Iran membership would re-connote the organization as Strategic (not merely economic) and move the balance of the organization towards the observers Pakistan and India.

Museveni mused to mediation role

Seems like much is on the move in this hot sudanese summer: while ICC confirms its charges against Al-Bashir, UN is planning to nominate Burkina Faso president as mediator and unspecified sources name also Joweri Museveni, Ugandan president, to mediate directly with Sudanese government (sources have not been specified, and the whole plot seems a bit hasted). Darfour already had as mediators Chad (later dismissed as accused to support the JEM) and Eritrea. As for the nomination of Museveni, it comes in a moment of high relations between Uganda and Southern-Sudan president and Sudan vice-president Salva Kiir, and it would be the second time Museveni to be assigned to Sudan , given his previous Southern-Sudan mediation.

Internationally, things are getting a different spin: China, with its many vested interests in Sudan and the fear of having them exposed during the Olympiads, is opposing the indictment and recommending other means. As of today, China's ambassador to the United Nations, Guangya Wang, said that the UN Security Council should suspend ICC warrant and suggested the five permanent Security Council members -- China, Russia, the United States, France and Britain – to meet with Moreno-Ocampo, "warning him about the negative consequences" of the arrest warrant for al-Bashir.

Russia to arm Afghanistan

Commitment of Russia in Afghanistan is broadening. An early agreement in March 2008 regarded logistical support (transit facilities), yet recently a joint statement issued in Moscow following the meeting of the United States-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism ( CTWG ) confirms the agreement to be “in principle over the supply of Russian weaponry to the Afghanistan National Army”. Manifestations of Russia interest in helping in Afghanistan date back to 2007 , implicitly answering to the patent power void in the almost entirety of the country. The project is to welcome the country in the fold of nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia opens up National downstreaming Business

The news of Russia acquisitions of downstream businesses in the Balkans (Serbia, Bulgaria) spread fears of political usage of these assets, got Bulgaria to be blamed as a Troian horse within EU and were universally received as a proof of Russia will to dominate the oil business in order to blackmail EU...

As of July 8th some news have helped joining many dots in Russophobic inconsistent literature: Russia welcomed Eni as the first foreign downstream player. According to Eni sources: "Eni will become the first European player to enter the Russian gas downstream market through sale and purchase deals, [...] to achieve the target set out in the strategic plan 2008-2011 of 900 million cubic meters to be sold in 2011."

Russian Government is said to be pursuing a "gradual plan of price increases that, following the trend of world energy outlooks, will make European and internal gas prices aligned between 2011 and 2014, net of transportation costs and export taxes."

This progress might well be a benefical example of how sound economic interests can harbour and strive in Russia and perhaps help as a blueprint in the redaction of an EU Energy Treaty.