Russia 110505 Basic Political Developments

Russian chief drug enforcer expects G8 to discuss Afghan drugs

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=241625
MOSCOW. May 5 (Interfax) - Russian Federal Drug Control Service Director Viktor Ivanov hopes that the G8 countries will discuss Afghan drug trafficking in the context of the anti-drug fight.

"Global drug trafficking will be discussed at the G8 meeting on May 26-27 for the first time ever. France, which is chairing the Group, will highlight cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe and ways to suppress these shipments. I think we should highlight Afghan drug trafficking to Europe," Ivanov told a Thursday press conference at the Interfax main office.

A G8 ministerial conference in Paris on May 10 will discuss drug trafficking from Afghanistan, Ivanov said. "I will make a related report as the head of the Russian delegation [to the conference]," he said.

Ivanov hopes that G8 leaders "will discuss joint efforts of the Group in the suppression of narcotic drugs coming from Afghanistan," he said.

Russia "has become the leader in international anti-drug diplomacy. Its key goal is to crush the global top level of drug crime," Ivanov said.

te eb

05/05 11:45   Tajikistan won't agree to bring back Russian border guards to border with Afghanistan – source

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=241615

Russia in Border Talks With Tajikistan

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-in-border-talks-with-tajikistan/436305.html
05 May 2011

Reuters

Russia is in talks with Tajikistan to send up to 3,000 border guards to the country to protect its border with Afghanistan against militants and drug smugglers, said security sources and analysts.

Russia fears the planned withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014 will create a power vacuum allowing Islamist militants fighting U.S. forces there to move into Central Asia.

Moscow, Beijing and Washington are vying for influence in the region.

"There are negotiations ongoing with Russia," said a high-ranking border security source in Tajikistan, referring to talks about border guards.

Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow sees Central Asia as part of its sphere of interest and worries that an upsurge in Islamist violence or heroin trafficking could upset the predominantly Muslim, oil- and gas-producing region.

Moscow wants to clamp down on the region, which has served for centuries as a major drug-trafficking route. Moscow's anti-drug tsar Viktor Ivanov says up to a quarter of all Afghan heroin reaches Russia, coming through Central Asia.

Russia is the world's largest per capita heroin consumer and is struggling to contain a potentially crippling heroin crisis, with at least 2 million addicts, Western health officials say.

"Russia fears the weakness of Tajikistan forces when the U.S. pulls its troops out of Afghanistan. They expect that a large number of Islamist extremists and drug traders will penetrate Tajikistan's borders and enter Central Asia," said regional expert Vyacheslav Tseluiko from Ukraine's University of Kharkiv.

Russia says heroin is smuggled out of Afghanistan through the porous border with impoverished Tajikistan, then via Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and onto the Russian market.

"Right now talks are ongoing between Russia and Tajikistan regarding the issue of raising the number of border guard troops to 2,000 soldiers," said independent analyst Adil Mukashev, who is based in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

"There has already been a preliminary agreement, and the talks are expected to be completed by July," he said, citing several sources in Russian security organizations.

A U.S.-based security analyst, citing Russian and Tajik sources, said Russia was effectively taking over border control by sending 3,000 border guards to train and manage Tajik forces.

Russian border guard troops withdrew from Tajikistan in 2005, ending a Soviet-era legacy, though Moscow still has between 5,000 and 6,000 military troops in its military base on Tajikistan's western border.

The Border Guard Service did not answer repeated requests for comment.

Russia Troops to Return to Afghanistan's Border?

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63421
Submitted by centralasia on May 5, 2011 - 2:42am

Russian news agency Interfax is reporting [6] that Russia is pressing Tajikistan to allow its troops to resume border defense duties in an effort to stem the flow of drugs coming from Afghanistan.

The border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan is long and hard to guard. In some sections, all that separates the two countries in narrow high-walled gullies is a shallow, unfenced and fast-moving river. It is often possible to drive for hours on the barely paved road running alongside the border before coming across any signs of a military presence.
Not surprising, therefore, that Moscow should be applying relentless pressure [7] to be enabled to supplement Tajikistan's tightly stretched frontier forces. But, as one unnamed Tajik source tells Interfax: "Very complex negotiations are under way; Russia wants to return to this geopolitically important southern border of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States], but Tajikistan is still cool to the idea."
Reuters cites [8] anonymous security sources and analysts saying Russia may seek to send up to 3,000 border guards to Tajikistan. 
Russian border troops left Tajikistan in 2005 in a development that seemed to mark yet another stage of Moscow's gradual strategic withdrawal from the region. But with the drug problem in Russia showing no sign of abating, the emphasis has now moved from broad issues of strategy to more pragmatic areas [9]. 
Russia officials have expressed concern that the eventual pullout of US troops from Afghanistan will only serve to deepen instability, which will in turn further exacerbate the drug trade.
Interfax's source suggests Tajikistan's intractability may be down to a matter of pride: "It is not politically profitable for Tajikistan to once again transfer border protection responsibilities to Moscow. It will look like we have failed to do the job and have asked our 'big brother' for help."
As the Interfax report also notes, border service officials from the two countries met in Dushanbe in February [10] to discuss security cooperation, but the details of those talks are not known. Tajikistan's officials staunchly deny there has been any talk of a return of Russian border guards, but that is clearly not the full truth. 
One also has to wonder whether there is more to Tajikistan's reluctance to welcome back the Russians than mere pride.
The scale of the drug trafficking industry in Tajikistan has inevitably given rise to a rich, powerful and influential criminal business class that even the authorities must contend with. Islamist militants [11] have faced the full force of Tajikistan security forces, but no such measures would appear to apply to the drug barons that arguably pose an even greater risk to Tajik society.
If there is some kind of accommodation between the government and drug traders, the last thing President Emomali Rakhmon wants is Russians meddling with the set-up.