NATO and Kazakhstan

- Cooperation plan of NATO and your country embraces a very wide range of topics and governmental bodies, including issues of extremely civil planning, providing of securities on the borders, issues of securities in energy sphere.

Therefore, our interaction does not limit with agenda of the Defense ministry. We have a very good relationship with your parliament and senate, and I consider, that we have reached in fact great success for the last years, he declared on the final press conference.

One may assume, that because of the chronological coincidence, the visit of the high-ranked NATO diplomat is somehow linked with the recent summit in Bucharest, and it is a result of the appeared during the summit disagreements between Russia and the NATO members, and that because of escalation in relations the NATO leadership is striving to enforce its image in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

However, the basic reason of the Simmons visit is rather simple and closer to the Kazakhstani agenda. The point is that, the first cycle of the cooperation plan between the republic and NATO is about to be completed, and it is necessary to analyze its results and define the basics for the second analogical plan. Namely, with this goal the Special representative of the Secretary General of NATO arrived in Almaty.

There is also another motive of the visit. The military operation of the NATO in Afghanistan is not just reduced, but is continuing and expanding, and the bloc commanding is aimed at getting a guaranteed transportation corridor for supplying of its forces. The principal agreement about such a corridor has been already reached with Russia, as for now, it is necessary to get an agreement of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Each of these countries due to geographical factor is an important 'unit' for on-land supply of forces in Afghanistan. And Mr. Simmons admitted that it became one of the main topics of his negotiations in Astana.

It is worthy of mentioning that geopolitical location of Kazakhstan in this connection appears to be (as it is in reality) is very beneficial. On one hand, it is impossible to ignore, attempting to exit to the system of transportation communication of Afghanistan, and it rises political importance of Kazakhstan in the regional politics. On the other hand, due to absence of the common border with the troublesome country, the republic can enjoy a relative distance from the center of the "Afghan intrigue."

It expands the space for a possible political maneuver in the 'game' with biggest 'players,' with such as, in particular, the NATO and the USA, in Central Asian politics. Here, the position of Kazakhstan as anywhere else is convenient and even winning, and this fact is well-known in the headquarters of the NATO in Brussels.

Robert Simmons did not enlarged a lot on the topic of condition of negotiations with Astana on the issue of transit corridor. But in general, he looked enough confident when had mentioned about it.

Actually, what is there so secret, if the diplomat declared that the transit corridor will be used to deliver exceptionally non-military provision, although meant for army: from medical vehicles to sanitation facilities.

It should be noted that the situation with the agreement on the Afghan transit presents a very comfortable for Astana way to position itself in the conditions of the NATO-Russian disagreements by the method, with which the international image of the country will be observed, and not a single participant of the above-mentioned confrontation will have a basis for getting offended with Kazakhstan.

The situation with energy issues does not look much smooth and favorable. Simmons said that among directions of the NATO cooperation with the other states, in particular, of course, with Kazakhstan, an important place is taken by the issues of insuring an energy security

The Kazakhstani journalists asked a question about how to ensure an energy security, provided that the exporting oil pipelines and gas pipelines are laying in the western direction on the territories of the countries, which do not enter the NATO. Will the leaders of the alliance raise an issue of entering of its military contingent in these countries for "insuring energy security"?

Such development of the situation seems to be not realistic. But the case with the NATO radars in Poland seemed to be an insane one five years ago. And today it is almost a reality …

"We are conducting an active dialogue and organizing seminars on these issues. An opinion, shared by many people, says that today the most serious risks in the energy sphere are connected with the terrorism threat. Therefore, the mechanism on exchange of investigation data is installed, including Kazakhstan, about terrorist activity. This mechanism of early warning. I consider the role, which will be played by the alliance in insuring of security in energy, will be limited with the protection of energy infrastructure, and we consider to include this topic in the program of military cooperation with Kazakhstan, the diplomat said.

But what "protection of energy infrastructure" means, it remained unclear.