The country has supplied fuel for American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, "delivered free of all duties and taxes."
"Fuel is exempt from local duties and taxes due to Turkmenistan's and Azerbaijan's participation in the NATO Partnership for Peace program....Similar arrangements are in place in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan....US military aircraft have been using Turkmen airspace and facilities since at a least 2002, and Ashgabat is a hub for operations involving C-5 and C-17 transport planes."
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) told Tynan the following:
"It is DLA's understanding that both Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are partners in the NATO Partnership for Peace. As partners, they agree to abide by the terms of the NATO status of forces agreement, which provides in relevant part that NATO member countries shall make special arrangements for fuel, oil and lubricants for use by another member countries military and civilian personnel to be delivered free of all duties and taxes." [10]
Tajikistan, with China to its east and Afghanistan to its southwest, has hosted a French air force contingent of at least 200 personnel, C-160 transport aircraft and Mirage multirole fourth-generation jet fighters since early 2002.
Last week the nation's state-run railroad disclosed that in 2010 "In keeping with the agreements signed by the Tajik government, republican railroads delivered over 160 tonnes of commercial cargo, which was later taken by motor transport to Afghanistan for NATO needs." [11]
In 2007 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers financed the construction of a bridge across the Panj River connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
On January 17 U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Susan Elliott was in Kyrgyzstan to arrange for resuming bilateral consultations, which were suspended last year after the second violent overthrow of the government in five years occurred. [12]
The following week Kazakh Secretary of State Kanat Saudabayev visited Washington, D.C. for two days. Before meeting with his counterpart Secretary of State Clinton, he met with Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, ConocoPhillips Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Mulva and Halliburton Energy Services Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David Lesar.
Clinton and Saudabayev stressed "the importance of timely implementation of the agreements" between President Barack Obama and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the sidelines of last April's Global Summit on Nuclear Safety in Washington. Accords that, according to Senior Director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council Michael McFaul, "will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole to the region." [13] U.S. and British troops led NATO Partnership for Peace training exercises, codenamed Steppe Eagle 2010, in Kazakhstan last August and afterwards Kazakhstan assigned military personnel to NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
As Washington and NATO consolidate military-to-military relations with the five nations of Central Asia, the majority of both Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Collective Security Treaty Organization members will be shifted from the Russian and Chinese to the U.S. column.
Indian analyst and former diplomat M K Bhadrakumar wrote an article a month after NATO's summit in Lisbon in November in which he stated that "the alliance is well on the way to transforming into a global political-military role" and "NATO is by far today the most powerful military and political alliance in the world."
He added: "The various partnership programs of NATO in Central Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Mediterranean regions can be viewed as part of the overall approach to take recourse to other states or groups of states to promote the Euro-Atlantic interests globally."
"From a seemingly reluctant arrival in Afghanistan seven years ago in an 'out-of-area' operation as part of the UN-mandated ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), with a limited mandate, NATO is suo moto stepping out of the ISAF, deepening its presence and recasting its role and activities on a long-term basis."
"It is within the realm of possibility that NATO would at a future date deploy components of the US missile defense system in Afghanistan. Ostensibly directed against the nearby 'rogue states,' the missile defense system will challenge the Chinese strategic capability."
The current geopolitical reality in Central and South Asia "is very much linked to NATO's future role in Afghanistan. US strategy toward an Afghan settlement visualizes the future role for NATO as the provider of security to the Silk Road that transports the multi-trillion dollar mineral wealth in Central Asia to the world market via the Pakistani port of Gwadar."
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