Central Asia: Q&A With U.S. Assistant Secretary Of State Daniel Fried

In this interview, RFE/RL speaks with US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried about U.S. Policy toward Central Asia. Fried recently made a tour of Central Asia. During the tour he gave voice to increasing U.S. impatience with the refusal of Uzbek President Islam Karimov to permit an international investigation into the May violence in Andijon, and addressed other regional concerns. He spoke with RFE/RL on 5 October in Washington.

RFE/RL: There has been an unfolding series of high-level visits to the region. Is this a rediscovery of Central Asia or an especially important time in its transition?

Daniel Fried: A rediscovery suggests we lost it. We didn't have that kind of a moment. You're quite right to notice there's a lot of attention paid to the region. There are two factors at play here. One is the set of problems we've had in Uzbekistan that have been developing not just because of Andijon but over the last couple of years, which have been accumulating mainly as a result of Karimov's lack of economic and political reforms, which we thought we had his agreement to pursue back in 2002 when he visited the United States. The fact that he's not pursued the reforms, the fact that the country seems to have stagnated or gone backward on the reformist scale is one factor which is troubling, of course, because of Uzbekistan's importance.

The other factor is that Kyrgyzstan experienced what the people there call the March events. Some people call it the Tulip Revolution but nobody in Kyrgzystan called it that to me, but it was March events as a result of which an authoritarian president was overthrown because of widespread revulsion at perceived massive corruption and other factors. There followed elections which were just about the freest the region had seen and you have a reformist leadership trying to move the country ahead and trying to get it on its feet.

The third factor is the slow emergence of Kazakhstan as an increasingly important country because of not only the oil money coming in but the way President Nazarbaev has managed the money which has been to build up the economy beyond just the energy sector.

So you have all of these factors -- trouble in one place because of lack of reform, a newly reformist government and a sense throughout the region that this 10-year period of really minimal reform again with the partial exception of Kazakhstan is coming to an end, that things are accelerating again. That really was the basis for my trip and the secretary's trip [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She is due to travel to Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan on 10-13 October). [U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security] Bob Joseph can speak for himself but a major, one of his major purposes is to discuss a non- and counter-proliferation agenda with these countries, something we share and to discuss what we can do in a practical way so he has a very particular agenda which has relevance for Central Asia, obviously, and the secretary [Rice] is going out there to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, just emerging from a civil war and Kazakhstan. She's not going to Uzbekistan.

RFE/RL: Nor Turkmenistan?

Fried: No, that's right.

RFE/RL: [U.S. State Department spokesman] Sean McCormack was talking yesterday in terms of an important time for all of these countries as well.

Fried: I wanted to give you some context as to the meaning of important time. Important time is a phrase, behind that is an actual thought -- one country is moving backward, one country moving ahead quickly but somewhat uncertainly and Kazakhstan moving quite steadily ahead on the economic side with a presidential election, which is a fascinating moment.

RFE/RL: Looking at Kazakhstan for a moment, taking one of the three, yesterday [there was] a sign of the difficulty political opposition may face. There was a police raid of a pro-democracy youth group. Analysts of the region have pointed to a chill that has gone through the country since the March events in Kyrgyzstan and in other countries in the region. Everybody refers to the colored revolutions, which have become sort of a metaphor for the overthrow of existing regimes and have become sort of a trouble spot. How does the U.S. counter that or try to deal with that issue?

Fried: There are real issues in Kazakhstan of democracy and elections, that's what I said when I was there. That was an issue of high importance for us. President Nazarbaev has said several times he wants good elections on 4 December, we take him at his word but we also tell him pretty clearly that we take this seriously, this is important. Elections and democratic reforms matter to us. If we wanted to have a one-dimensional security relationship without reference to political reform and steps to democracy we could have a very cozy relationship with Karimov but that's not the deal. I understand what you say about a chill after the March events through the region. The fact is that repression does not lead to stability. It is reform that leads to stability particularly when that reform is led by strong leaders who want to move their country forward. There's no contradiction between having a strong leader who's also a reformer. That can happen and it needs to happen in Central Asia whether Nazarbaev sees it that way, that's his issue but we are very clear about the importance of democracy and I'm aware of the issue of the raid and when I was in Kazakhstan I met with the opposition, I met with civil society [representatives], I raised the issue of free elections and space for the opposition. Free elections are not just counting the votes, free elections are the atmosphere, the access to the media, an atmosphere free of intimidation, we raised these issues and these are important to us.

RFE/RL: The group in Kazakhstan known as Kahar the government alleged accepted "foreign financing" for its efforts. This is something that comes up repeatedly as you know. How does this affect the way the U.S. tries to promote democracy in the region? Obviously, the U.S. is supportive of pro-democracy groups and NGOs and so on and yet there are these accusations that come out about foreign financing trying to undermine sovereign efforts to reach their own path to democracy.

Fried: I'm always a little suspicious of