New Delhi
13 March 2008
India will seek to revitalise her ties with Central Asia when Vice
President Hamid Ansari travels to Kazakhstan soon. It will be Mr Ansari's maiden visit
abroad as Vice President.
New Delhi will hope to make further amends for its sluggish engagement of the region
during Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee's likely visit to Kazakhstan later
this year for the ministerial meeting of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue.
The visits will happen at a time when India's Look East policy and her recent interest in
Africa seems to have dropped Central Asia off Delhi's radar. This, despite the fact that a
"Great Game" was played out in Central Asia even as the new scramble for Africa
gathered pace.
India's profile in the region has risen with the setting up of her military base in
Tajikistan. Such are the stakes for India that Russia sought to employ the Ayni base as a
bargaining chip to bag big-ticket arms deals.
However, the importance of Central Asia in India's security paradigm, and also from the
standpoint of energy security, is matched only by the disproportionately infrequent high-
level political contacts between them.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for instance, has made 27 foreign visits since the UPA
Government came to power on May 22, 2004. He has travelled to over 20 countries on
bilateral visits but Uzbekistan is the only Central Asian republic he has visited so far.
The Prime Minister visited Uzbekistan in April 2006. A former minister of external affairs,
Mr Natwar Singh, stood in for the Prime Minister at the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation) Summit at Astana, Kazakhstan, in July 2005.
Besides energy and security, Kazakhstan can become important for India if her nuclear
deal with the United States becomes operational. Kazakhstan is among the world's top
three producers and suppliers of uranium, along with Australia and Canada.
Kazakhstan could also come into play if New Delhi begins to consider Turkish Foreign
Minister Ali Babacan's offer of facilitating the supply of oil from Central Asia to India
through pipelines and tankers.
Also, Kazakhstan finds favour with the United States as a source of oil and gas supplies
to India. A former US diplomat Nicholas Burns has said that India should turn to
Kazakhstan instead of persisting with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, India was the first country visited by
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev after his country's independence. Mr
Nazarbayev visited India in December 1996 and February 2002 too.
Mr Nazarbayev's visit in 1992 was followed by a visit to Kazakhstan by the late Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao in 1993. The last Indian prime minister to visit Kazakhstan was
Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee in June 2002.
The late President KR Narayanan visited Kazakhstan when he was Vice President in
September 1996.
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