KZBlog

Apparently I have achieved a certain status as a Kazakhstan/Central Asia blogger status where people expect me to comment on events. I even get mentioned in the same sentence as Registan.net, something I had only dreamed of.

So here is my take on the OSCE summit. First though let me point out that it is worth looking at Upyernoz‘s post for links to some good articles about the summit and the measures Kazakhstan took. And for the primary sources, check out the the OSCE Summit site, which is full of transcripts and videos and so on.

From my point of view, if the goal of the summit was to put Astana on the map and increase the reputation of Nazarbayev, then it was more or less a success. Nothing bad happened. Diplomats took it seriously. There were no embarrassing questions from the press or serious gaffes by the President or Saudebayev (although whether it was necessary for Saudebayev to congratulate President Nazarbayev on his election in 1991 in his opening address, the first words out of the Chairperson-in-Office’s mouth, is a valid question I believe). The opposition didn’t steal the limelight nor did the West overly criticize Kazakhstan’s human rights record. Bad timing on the Wikileaks leaks, but that’s for another post. The only slight to the reputation of the capital of our country was that Obama didn’t come, but Hilary Clinton is pretty high-level. And Obama is a bit busy at the moment.

On the other hand, outside of Kazakhstan, the consensus seems to be that nothing really good happened either. The Nagano-Karabakh dispute is no closer to being resolved. Challenging words were spoken about the Georgia-Russia war of 2008 (although nothing overly aggressive and certainly nothing new), little was said about Kyrgyzstan, and no Action Plan was signed. The Astana Declaration, much hailed in the domestic news apparently because it has the word Astana in it, is a pretty vague document and contains no surprises. Apparently the world leaders are all for peace, security and prosperity and worried about Afghanistan and the Middle East. And they think the OSCE is doing a good job but could be doing a better job. Now to be fair, most declarations of international organizations look like that.

I have read analyses (none of which I can find now of course) that indicate that part of the problem was that the agenda for the summit was not agreed upon until July. So there wasn’t enough time to really prepare for the meeting. It does seem that Kazakhstan spent a great deal of its time and energy as Chairman of the OSCE using political capital to get the summit approved in Astana, as opposed to ensuring that the summit would be a success or paying attention to other things. Now Kazakhstan has done a lot and drawn international attention to critical issues like Nagano-Karabakh. It also has made some nice gestures like allowing Afghan students to come study in Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev suggested at a press conference that this program might continue in the future. But one wonders how much more might have been accomplished if Kazakhstan had spent time concentrating on Kyrgyzstan or Armenia and Azerbaijan instead of trying to increase the prestige of the capital city. And one wonders if there will be blame spread around for the fact that the second day of the summit was the first day of a cold snap, and a small blizzard here.

One also wonders what other countries really think about the way the city was shut down (Seoul was not shut down for the recent G20 conference and New York is never shut down for UN meetings) in the name of security.

Overall, I would give the summit a solid C+/B-. Everything went fine. But so much more could have been done.