06 January 2006
Central Asia Now "Arc of Opportunity," Not "Crisis," Rice Says
State Dept. putting regional focus on Afghanistan and its northern neighbors
Washington – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says South Asia and Central Asia are high on her list of global priorities, and the State Department is adjusting its bureaus so that the same teams of experts and diplomats are focused on both regions.
“One of the things that we did in the State Department was to move the Central Asian republics out of the European bureau, which really was an artifact of their having been states of the Soviet Union, and to move them into the bureau that is South Asia, which has Afghanistan, India and Pakistan,” Rice said January 5.
“It represents what we're trying to do, which is to think of this region as one that will need to be integrated, and that will be a very important goal for us,” Rice told reporters in Washington. (See related story.)
The five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are predominantly Muslim nations with a combined population of nearly 60 million. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, they generally have interacted with the same teams of U.S. diplomats and regional experts who concentrate on Europe.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Asian republics cooperated with the U.S.-backed operation to overthrow Afghanistan’s repressive Taliban regime, which harbored leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network. Since then, the United States has been helping Afghans build a stable, tolerant government.
During a conference at the end of January in London, representatives of Afghanistan and the international community will discuss the next steps in international assistance now that Afghanistan has an elected government in place. (See Democratic Afghanistan.)
“Obviously, the two big challenges are to do something about the drug trade, but also to do something about now starting to move Afghanistan to a sustainable economic system,” Rice told reporters. “It’s a country that, after 25 years of civil war, essentially has no economic infrastructure, and I think we’re going to have to recognize that if we don’t want the economy to be drugs and foreign assistance, then there’s going to have to be a lot of attention to building a sustainable economic system.” (See related story.)
Building a strong economy “means that we will need to look at Afghanistan in its regional context,” Rice said. “When I was in Central Asia, I was very much struck that the countries of Kyrgyzstan, of Kazakhstan, even of Tajikistan, very much see Afghanistan as a part of the region that is Central Asia,” she said.
Shifting the republics to the State Department’s South Asia bureau would integrate the region better, Rice said. Along with Afghanistan, the South Asia bureau includes diplomats and regional experts who work with Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
“That whole South Asia region I expect to be very high on my list of priorities,” Rice told reporters. “Enhancing the relationship with India will be extremely important. As you know, we believe [President Bush] will be visiting sometime this year, enhancing the relationship with India at the same time that we maintain a good relationship with Pakistan and help Pakistan in its efforts to fight extremism.”
For decades, South Asia and Central Asia were characterized by so much instability that former President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, once called the region an “arc of crisis,” Rice said. “It's now, in many ways, an arc of opportunity,” Rice said. “But we're going to have to work very hard in South Asia, and I expect that to be very important.”
A transcript of Rice’s remarks is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
