Washington has intensified its attempts to persuade the nations of Central Asia to support US sanctions on Moscow.
Next week in New York, US Vice President Joe Biden will meet with the heads of five Central Asian countries that are allies of Russia. The White House claims that the conference is “not against any country,” despite a pro-NATO think tank seeing it as a chance for Biden to counterbalance Russian and Chinese influence in the region.
On the fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York next week, Biden will meet with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Since 2015, representatives from these five nations have met with US counterparts, but the New York summit marks the first occasion for their leaders to do so.
The group will examine “a range of issues, from regional security to trade and connectivity to climate change and ongoing reforms to improve governance and the rule of law,” according to Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security advisor, who was speaking to reporters on Friday.
Sullivan continued, “This summit is not against any nation. “With these countries, we want to work through a positive agenda.”
The NATO-funded Atlantic Council, meanwhile, has presented the meeting as a “opening” for Biden to pressure the five countries into upholding US sanctions on Russia and to provide financial support to pro-Western politicians and NGOs in the area.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a Eurasian grouping of former Soviet states, includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. A military alliance dominated by Russia and approximately comparable to NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan as members.
None of the five have denounced Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine or retaliated against Moscow with sanctions. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov stated that he was under “pressure” from Washington to support the US in its standoff with Ukraine amid allegations that the US was preparing so-called “secondary sanctions” on Kyrgyzstan last month.
Though Japarov reiterated that Kyrgyzstan is “an independent country,” he also stated that it “will continue to have equal relations with all countries.”
The US Treasury Department sent representatives to Kazakhstan with similar threats, and they visited Astana in April to put pressure on the government to enforce US export restrictions on commodities going to Russia.
