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FOUR-WAY STREET IN KAZAKHSTAN

Robert M Cutler

Asia Times, September 18, 2009

The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan ended their meeting in Kazakhstan's resort city of Kenderly last weekend with its purpose and consequences as clear as distant figures in an early autumn mist.

Two elements did emerge more clearly than others - Turkmenistan's determination to diversify its energy export routes and to make future price talks with Russia tough going, and Iran's displeasure at not being invited to the party.

There was no published agenda for the quadrilateral meeting in Kenderly, against which the Iranian foreign minister issued a public protest at the exclusion of his country, the fifth Caspian Sea littoral state. The foreign ministry of Kazakhstan, the host country, had stated earlier that pan-Caspian issues such as division of rights to subsea resources would not be discussed; but with no official communique or even anonymous press leaks it is difficult to know for certain.

The site of the meeting, near the Caspian Sea port of Aqtau, may have carried its own message - Aqtau, by coincidence, or not, is becoming an important link in the west-to-east transmission of energy supplies from Asia to Europe.

The Kazakhstan-Caspian Transportation System is projected to run from Eskene, onshore near Tengiz, to the port of Kuryk, near Aqtau. The oil it carries will then enter the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, turning it into the Aqtau-Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, terminating near the Turkish Mediterranean coast. (See Caspian pipelines ease Russia's grip, Asia Times Online, July 8, 2008). The project is designed to reduce Kazakhstan's dependence on the Moscow-controlled Tengiz to Black Sea pipeline of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

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