The Pentagon is going local in Central Asia, seeking to increase the role of regional long-haul trucking firms and food producers in supplying US troops in Afghanistan. Local economies stand to benefit from new business opportunities, officials in Washington say.
US legislators are willing to lift restrictions on the Defense Department’s ability to provide military assistance to Uzbekistan, a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records.
The United States wants to significantly expand traffic on the Northern Distribution Network, the rail, road and air network that ferries supplies across Central Asia to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. As Pentagon planners and commercial carriers contemplate their transit options, attention is focusing on Turkmenistan.
That adage, attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, remains valid even in the 21st century. The NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan depend heavily on far-flung supply lines for the food, fuel, and goods they need to go on fighting.
Uzbekistan is squeezing Washington for more money to transport military supplies along the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). On February 1, just days after Uzbek leader Islam Karimov met with NATO representatives in Brussels, Tashkent announced it was raising transit fees for goods headed for Afghanistan via Uzbek railroads.
The US Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General (DoD OIG) is conducting an audit of transit operations on the Northern Distribution Network.
Uzbekistan wound up 2010 still quarrelling with its neighbors over water, energy, and security issues. Tashkent cut off gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan, which is still struggling to recover from political and ethnic unrest, and provided only 72,000 cubic meters per day instead of the usual 90,000 cubic meters, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL) reported.
President Islam Karimov made a state visit to Turkmenistan October 20-21, extolling the two nations’ common "ancient and glorious history" and similar positions on global issues.
A diplomatic tussle between the United States and Pakistan, coupled with a recent series of attacks on fuel tankers destined for coalition facilities in Afghanistan, is refocusing the Pentagon’s attention on the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a US-NATO supply line running through Central As
