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| Vol. 4, Issue 5 May 2012 |
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Letters From |
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Tajikistan |
The White Elephant in Tajikistan
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| It was but four years ago that Ayni Airbase was set to become India’s first visible geopolitical move into Central Asia. What happened? |
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Published : 1 November 2010 |
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PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU |
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| Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil visiting with the Defence Minister of Tajikistan, Colonel General Sherali Khayrulloyev, in
Dushanbe on 7 September 2009.
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| W |
HEN INDIA BEGAN RENOVATING
Tajikistan’s Ayni airbase earlier
in the decade, it looked set to become
India’s first foreign military
base, and to make Tajikistan a
player in the competition among
outside powers jockeying to establish outposts in Central
Asia. The Indian government appeared ready to declare the
base operational in 2006. |
In early September that year, Tajikistan’s president, Emomalii
Rahmon, declared the base and its 3,200-metre runway
to be open. And although information about the base
is closely guarded by both the Indian and Tajik ministries
of defence, it now appears that India will not use Ayni after
all, depriving isolated, impoverished Tajikistan of the
rent money and geopolitical clout it could have been gaining
by allowing another country to use the base. And India
remains without this foothold in Tajikistan, a mountainous
country of about seven million, just north of Afghanistan.
Tajikistan—the poorest corner of the former Soviet Union,
and still unstable after a brutal civil war in the 1990s—holds
a geographic position with obvious appeal to India, offering
Delhi not only a strategic counterweight to Pakistan’s considerable
influence in Afghanistan, but an airbase within
striking distance of its troublesome neighbour.
But India’s ambitions in Central Asia have been thwarted,
according to many in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, by
Russia: Moscow does not want anyone else to use the base,
though Tajikistan’s deteriorating relations with Russia
have disinclined Dushanbe from wanting to host another
Russian base in its territory.
“They [members of the Tajikistan government] don’t know what to do with this airbase. We don’t need it for ourselves,
but to give it to someone else would create problems
with other countries,” said Faridoon Khodizoda, a political
analyst in Dushanbe.
The Russian Embassy in Dushanbe did not respond to
requests for comment, and a spokesman at the Indian Embassy
said he could not comment on Ayni, but referred
questions to Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defence. They did not
respond to requests for comment.
India has renovated runways and hangars at Ayni, but the
Indian government has never publically stated its longerterm
intentions for the base. Reports in the Indian press
have suggested that India hoped to base a squadron of
MiG-29 fighter jets there, in an effort to bolster its clout in
Central Asia and to counter Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.
“Once called the white elephant of Asia, India’s strategic
aspirations have now finally come of age,” wrote Shiv
Aroor, an Indian journalist who obtained classified information
about India’s plans in 2007. “The country’s first
military base in a foreign country will be declared ready
for use next month. Welcome to Ayni, Tajikistan, India’s
first military outpost in a foreign land. Bare minutes from
Tajikistan’s border with war-torn Afghanistan, the base
gives India a footprint for the first time ever in the region’s
troubled history.”
Indian political analysts also raved about India’s bold foray
into the strategically vital Central Asian region. “There
are several reasons underpinning India’s interest in a base
at Tajikistan,” wrote analyst Sudha Ramachandran in 2006.
“It is close to areas where scores of camps for jihadist and
anti-India terrorist groups are based, and it is in the proximity
of territory where Pakistan and China are engaged
in massive military co-operation. Besides, Tajikistan is in
Central Asia, a gas-rich region in which India has growing
interests.”
Analysts of India’s military now say that those expectations
may have been too ambitious. When the renovations
began in 2004 and 2005, India did not have a clear plan as
to how it would eventually establish a base at Ayni, according
to one source close to the Indian armed forces, whose
employer does not allow him to speak on the record. “The
point, sadly, remains the same: while the Tajik government
has kept doors open, at least in a limited sense, the government here hasn’t quite gotten its act together about precisely
what or how to leverage the opportunity,” he said.
Some analysts said that India’s foray into base politics
was merely an attempt to act like the superpower it has
not yet become. “India is playing a game,” said Imran Baig,
a Washington, DC-based analyst of South Asian security.
“To maintain a base with no aircraft is not expensive at all.
But to deploy a high-tech fighter squadron full-time at a remote
location far from the country of origin is a very, very
costly affair and can only be afforded by superpowers.”
Still, India appears to want to keep the question of its presence
at Ayni open. India’s president, Pratibha Patil, visited
Dushanbe last year, and Indian engineers continue to work
on construction projects at the base, including a “hotel,” according
to one worker at the base who spoke on condition
of anonymity. But there were no Indian aircraft there, the
worker said.
Meanwhile, analysts in Dushanbe argue that Tajikistan’s
government may have been courting India with the intention
of playing Delhi off Moscow to exert a higher price for
Russian usage of the base.
Russia appears disinclined to allow India any access to
the airfield. Russia’s defence minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov,
said last year that Tajikistan and Russia would jointly utilise
the base, but Tajikistan has never confirmed that. And
Russia, which already maintains a large military base for
its 201st Division at Dushanbe, does not appear interested in actually using Ayni, but merely in keeping other countries
from using it, said Zafar Sufiyev, the editor-in-chief of Ozodagon,
an independent weekly newspaper in Dushanbe.
Neither does Tajikistan appear interested in allowing
Russia to use the base. Tajikistan’s president, Emomalii
Rahmon, recently suggested that Russia, which currently
does not pay rent for the 201st Division base, should do so in
the future. The two sides, however, agreed to put off that
decision until 2014. Tajik-Russian relations have also been
harmed by Moscow’s failure to support Dushanbe, either
financially or diplomatically, in the construction of the Rogun
Dam, which Tajikistan’s government sees as vital to its
future economic security.
“Rahmon is not independent enough to say ‘no’ to Russia,
and he’s afraid to say ‘yes’ to anyone else,” said Saymuddin
Dustov, an analyst in Dushanbe. “So he does nothing.”
There has been speculation that the US, facing continuing
uncertainty over the use of the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan,
might be interested in Ayni as a possible replacement.
The Tajikistan government would allow the US to
use Ayni at the right price, said Safiyev. “If the government
gets more for it than the Americans pay for Manas, they’ll
be interested,” he said. “It’s a market.”
But the US has said it has no interest in using the base,
and it’s not clear anymore whether India would be interested
either. It appears that Russia may have made that decision
for them.
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