The U.S.-Kyrgyz negotiations on opening a military center in Batken have raised controversial security and geopolitical considerations that might become momentous for the Fergana Valley and Kyrgyzstan’s multi-vector foreign policy. Kyrgyzstan entertains legitimate concerns about its poorly protected borders that have seen activities of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and drug trafficking networks extending from Central Asia to Europe. But amidst intensified water and border disputes, competition of great powers, an enhanced ability of the Central Asian states to influence regional dynamics, U.S. plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan’s own unstable domestic position, the center might well spur militarization of the region.

BACKGROUND: On March 9, the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek announced that the U.S. had earmarked US$5.5 million for constructing a military training center that would belong to Kyrgyzstan and defend the porous borders identified by Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev as “the biggest threat” to the nation’s security. The center will be located in Batken province in the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley bordering Tajikistan’s Tavildara area, which was once a safe haven for Islamic forces affiliated with the IMU, and provide training to the Kyrgyz armed forces as part of an overall effort to address radical, terrorist, and narcotics trafficking activity.

The announcement came a day before the meeting of U.S. CENTCOM Commander David Petraeus with Bakiev on March 10 that focused on the bilateral efforts in Afghanistan and the continuing U.S. presence at Manas, and several days after the visit by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke to the region seeking to boost support for the military campaign as NATO forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2011.

The Belyi Parus newspaper reports that talks on the center date back to 2008. But as then, no related agreements have been signed. An unidentified source close to the President suggested in an interview to Gazeta.ru that the related negotiations were not even taking place and that such a center would not be constructed. There is also no clarity regarding the lease of the Manas transit center that expires in June 2010 and requires a 180 day advance notice before the deadline to terminate the lease. Otherwise, it will automatically renew for one more year. However, Pentagon officials and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbaev stated that no lease extension agreements had been concluded during Holbrooke’s visit.

The military center will certainly upset Moscow, despite Petraeus’ reassurances that the U.S. does not intend to deploy another base in Kyrgyzstan. While there is no evidence, the timing of the decision on the center, visits by Holbrooke and Petraeus to Kyrgyzstan, and Russia’s plans to establish a base in the south of the country might suggest that the U.S. attempts to counter Russia’s moves in the militarizing Fergana Valley through opening of such center.

In 2009, Kyrgyzstan agreed to the deployment of a second Russian base in Kyrgyzstan as part of the CSTO Rapid Reaction Force. But the deal has been stalled ever since. Three possible interpretations on the delay, unsubstantiated with evidence, could be advanced. First, planning and bureaucracy might be standing in the way. Second, both sides may have disagreements on the location and financial arrangements. Kyrgyzstan, which is interested in promoting development of its provinces and strengthening its military preparedness given the perceived hostility from its neighbors, has insisted on Batken as the preferred location for the base. Russia, in turn, had its eyes on the southern city of Osh, which houses an international airport. Finally, the delay may be related to Russia’s promised but now suspended loan to Kyrgyzstan for the construction of the Kambarata-1 and the announcement on the military center in Batken.

In this context, Uzbekistan’s opposition to military bases in the vicinity of its borders and the water projects of its neighbors might have affected the delay of the Russian base in Kyrgyzstan and impacted Kyrgyz interest in establishing the military center close to Uzbekistan’s border. Russia now supports Uzbekistan’s call for international feasibility studies of the Tajik Rogun and Kyrgyz Kambarata-1 dams, which may leave Uzbekistan with reduced regional leverage and a plethora of economic ills if constructed. Possible concerns about the growing U.S.-Uzbek military cooperation and Kyrgyzstan’s supposed failure to remove the U.S. base from the country in return for the 1.7 billion Kambarata-1 loan might have induced Russia to side with gas-rich Uzbekistan and withhold the loan to Kyrgyzstan. This, in turn, suggests that the U.S.-Kyrgyz center deal could be a way for Kyrgyzstan to force Russia to reconsider its suspension of the loan, proceed with Russian base deployment on Kyrgyz terms, or both, especially given that Kyrgyzstan has reportedly not secured a similar loan from China. However, no evidence exists to support these considerations.

In the interim, tensions have escalated between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, especially after the former announced plans to construct the Kambarata-1 dam. As a result, several people have died on both sides of the joint border since 2010. Uzbekistan also closed a large border crossing with Kyrgyzstan and the railway connection to its areas in the Fergana Valley through Tajikistan.

IMPLICATIONS: Kyrgyzstan has recently faced severe energy, border security and financial problems that have come to represent a serious challenge to the incumbent regime – a challenge not exclusively coming from the domestic audience dissatisfied with corruption, poverty, and failed policies. The international community and regional states now question the extent to which the Kyrgyz multi-vector foreign policy can bring multiple benefits to the country and its partners, as well.

This does not negate the need for cultivation of the U.S.-Kyrgyz relations or the effectiveness of the center to achieve its stated objectives. After all, the center seeks to interdict terrorist and drug trafficking activity that might only intensify after the U.S. military disengagement from Afghanistan – an exit bonus all concerned parties should welcome. It will be recalled that the IMU militants, some of whom are currently driven back to Central Asia from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas by NATO operations there, already infiltrated Kyrgyz territory in 1999 and 2000 in an attempt to enter Uzbekistan and undermine its secular regime.

However, addressing the implicit concerns of its partners about the U.S.-funded center will be hard for Kyrgyzstan given its commitments within the CSTO, SCO, CIS and dependence on Russian oil and gasoline, Uzbek gas, Kazakh electricity, and Chinese goods. Indeed, a multitude of “sticks” exist that could be utilized by the country’s neighbors. Cutting deliveries of jet fuel re-exported by Kyrgyzstan to coalition forces in Afghanistan, currently bringing US$ 36-80 million in annual revenues is one. Kyrgyzstan might also face a slim chance of joining the Customs Union that comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Kyrgyzstan can further suffer from additional customs regulations undermining its re-exports of Chinese goods to other markets. Russia alone accounts for 30 percent of the trade turnover of Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki stated on March 8 that foreign military bases in the region do not enhance security and stem from “interventional and expansionist aims”. The statement comes after Iranian special forces allegedly captured an agent on February 23 who was trained by Western intelligence services and heading to the transit center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan to meet with U.S. officials. This affair galvanized portions of the Kyrgyz population which feel that the country’s relations with neighbors only suffer as a result of military cooperation with the U.S., Russia, or both.

CONCLUSIONS: In this connection, and given the potential expansion of the U.S. and Russian military presence in Central Asia, the center might trigger militarization of the Fergana Valley and provisionally shelve Kyrgyzstan’s multi-vector foreign policy. Being the only country in the world hosting both a U.S. and a Russian military base, Kyrgyzstan has stood on two “legs” and accommodated the short-term interests of these major powers in the region for years. But some feel that the mistrust generated by the country’s recent policies and new initiatives, including with partners far afield, might corner Kyrgyzstan, leaving its seemingly crippling multi-vector foreign policy with too little room for maneuver.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Roman Muzalevsky is an international affairs and security analyst on the Caucasus and Central Asia. He is also Program Manager at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.