WASHINGTON —
U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia boil down to stability and sovereignty, according to Washington's top diplomat in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich republic sharing long borders with Russia and China.
With an eye on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, a fellow former Soviet republic, the countries in the region have adopted a hedging strategy, maintaining deep links to Moscow while also bolstering relations with the West.
U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Daniel Rosenblum told the Caspian Policy Center gathering on Jan. 4, that the main goal of U.S. policy for Central Asia is to ensure that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “stand on their own, be fully sovereign and independent countries that can make their own choices about who to associate with, who to trade with, who to have relations with — without undue external pressure.”
Rosenblum pointed to the so-called C5+1 group, including the United States and the five republics, underlining its “value in acting as a group, integrating with one another, cooperating — that makes each of them stronger individually.”
A second focus for Washington is border security and counterterrorism, a third is boosting trade and investment, and a fourth is promoting human rights and the rule of law, he said.
Kazakhstan is America’s top business partner in Central Asia, with $3 billion in bilateral trade in 2022 and an estimated 15% increase last year, plus $5 billion direct investment in 2023.
Despite holding regular talks on human rights, Rosenblum said Washington and Astana “do not see eye-to-eye” on the lack of meaningful political competition and the continuous arrests of critical voices.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch sites enduring concerns.
"Two years after large-scale anti-government protests rocked Kazakhstan in January 2022, few officials have been held accountable for their part in [the] disproportionate use of force against protesters, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees," HRW issued this week.
“When I arrived in November 2022, there were seven names on the list [of political prisoners], which had been going down steadily. And now there are 23, which is not a good trend,” Rosenblum said.
Akbota Karibayeva, a Ph.D. candidate at the George Washington University, agreed with Rosenblum, stressing that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s transformation package branded as the "New Kazakhstan" has not yet had major effects.
“In the 'New Kazakhstan,’ we continue to see a familiar cycle of detaining activists for expressing their opinions and repeatedly denying registration to opposition movements. The space for dissenting voices has barely expanded, if at all,” Karibayeva told VOA.
Asserting that Astana is complying with sanctions against Russia, Rosenblum pointed to the U.S., EU and U.K. comprised list of 45 categories of goods.
“Those 45, our experts say, are less than 2% of Kazakhstan's exports to Russia. Even if they weren't controlling it at all, it would not constitute more than 2%,” he said.
Rosenblum defended Kazakhstan, which has a 7,644-kilometer border with Russia.
“Since the sanctions were first imposed back in 2022, Kazakhstan's record, I’d argue, is a good one, both in terms of their ability to prevent sanctions evasion and also making sure that they're complying with all the sanctions when it comes to their domestic companies, relationships with Russian companies, Russian banks, and so on,” he said.
Kazakhstan last month removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups.
“They gave us advance notice that they were doing this, which is in the spirit of the partnership of no surprises,” Rosenblum said. “Kazakhstan has made clear that it will not recognize the Taliban government, and that remains its position until there's an international consensus and certain benchmarks are made. And this doesn't change that. They've also made clear that they prioritize developing some level of economic relations with Afghanistan, even with the Taliban regime in charge there.”
Before his current assignment, Rosenblum served as ambassador to Uzbekistan, whose leadership has also promised reforms.
“When I arrived in Tashkent [in 2019], it was already a couple of years into the reform process. … Things were slowing down,” he said.
In Rosenblum's view, Uzbekistan's initial steps toward change were dramatic, despite the backslidings many observe now, specifically the systemic challenges, testing President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s commitment and his regime’s willingness to transition from an ingrained authoritarian government to a democratic one.