Posted on 12/02/2003 9:09:38 PM PST by Destro
Wednesday December 3, 10:24 AM
US defense chief to visit strategic south Caucasus region
BAKU (AFP) - Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was heading for the south Caucasus, a region of strategic importance for the United States but where regional superpowers Russia and Iran are also jealously guarding their own interests.
The Pentagon has not announced the visit but local officials confirmed Rumsfeld is due to fly in to Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic on the Caspian Sea, for talks with President Ilham Aliyev and Defence Minister Safar Abbiyev.
Analysts have said one subject likely to figure in those talks is a plan to establish a US military presence in Azerbaijan to protect the country's oil fields and the pipelines for shipping the crude to western markets.
General Chuck Wald, Deputy Chief of the US European Command, hinted earlier this year that Azerbaijan could become the site of a forward operating base as part of a review of how American troops are deployed.
"It is obvious that these things will be discussed" during Rumsfeld's visit, said Vafa Guluzade, Azerbaijan's former state adviser on foreign affairs and now a political analyst.
"Azerbaijan's territory is situated in the best place for US bases and provides the best flying times to the Middle East, Russia and even China," he said. "I am sure that Azerbaijan will go for that sort of cooperation. Airfields will be provided and bases will be opened."
Azerbaijan too has much to gain from a US military presence on its soil, according to analysts.
It lies in a tough neighbourhood. To the north is Russia, its former imperial master which is still competing with Washington for influence in the Caucasus region and control of the Caspian Sea's oil.
In the south is Iran, a country with which Azerbaijan has cool relations and which US President George W. Bush has designated as part of an "axis of evil".
In the summer of 2001, Tehran sent a gunship to press its claim to a prospective oil field in the Caspian Sea which Azerbaijan insists belongs to it. The two sides are now locked in a tense standoff.
Some Azeri officials also suspect Iran of trying to export its Islamic revolution into a mostly Muslim but politically secular Azerbaijan.
The US defense secretary last visited Azerbaijan almost exactly two years ago, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Since then the two countries have built close military ties. Azerbaijan is the only nation with a Muslim majority to send troops to Iraq, where it has a contingent of about 150 soldiers assisting the US-led security operation. The US counts it as a member of its global coalition against terror.
Washington has returned the favour by providing several million dollars in military aid.
It is helping improve Azerbaijan's border security, it provides intelligence assistance and has contributed five second-hand coastguard cutters to bolster Azerbaijan's tiny Caspian Sea flotilla.
There was also speculation that the US Defense Secretary could also call in on neighbouring Georgia while he is in the region. Neither the Pentagon nor Georgian officials have announced though that Rumsfeld will be coming.
Like Azerbaijan, Georgia has strategic importance for the West. It lies on the route of a pipeline being built by western oil majors which, when completed in 2005, will ship Caspian Sea oil to world markets.
Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze was deposed last month in a bloodless coup after protests sparked by rigged parliamentary elections.
He was replaced by an interim government which is keen to win the West's endorsement. But Russia is an influential player in Georgia and does not want to give Washington a free hand there, say analysts.
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