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Tazhin’s Quest
Marat Tazhin, Kazakhstan’s new foreign minister is in DC to plead his country’s case for chairing the OSCE in 2009. We know what he is going to say, as his address to a special meeting of the permanent council of the OSCE last week in Vienna provides a preview of his remarks.
He’ll argue that Kazakhstan is making steady and sufficient progress in democratizing the country to have earned the right to be the first post-Soviet state to have this privilege. Noting that the country is an indisputable economic success, he will add that Kazakhstan is uniquely suited to advance the OSCE’s security agenda in the region, because of its simultaneous commitment to religious tolerance and the eradication of extremism which breeds terrorism.
Kazakhstan’s bid has strong support of Russia and other CIS states, and most EU members are also supporting it. The UK’s opposition is a notable exception, Whitehall is likely to want Washington to continue its earlier opposition, which has been expressed in the form of arguing that a Kazakh chairmanship would be more successful if deferred until 2011.
There is certain to be pressure from various US based human rights groups that Kazakhstan’s 2009 chairmanship bid continue to be blocked. These groups will find plenty of supporting argument in the State Department’s own recent analysis of the human rights situation in that country.
