Fw: Afghanistan: The New Great Game Is About Oil and Gas

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 From: Praxis1871 at aol.com
 Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 17:16:05 EST
 Subject: Afghanistan:  The New Great Game Is About Oil and Gas
 To: niagara at tao.ca, ncawr at hotmail.com, ocsj at ocsj.ca
 X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows CA sub 59
 
 Subject: STRUGGLE FOR OIL PIPELINE ROUTES IN THE NEW AFGHANISTAN
 
 New great game is about oil and gas
 
 ISLAMABAD, Nov 18: The collapse of Afghanistan's
 Taliban regime opens a new chapter in the "Great Game"
 of Central Asia, with Pakistan, Russia and Iran
 jockeying furiously for influence in their mutual
 neighbour.
 
 With the Taliban on the run, Tehran and Islamabad -
 under watchful Russian and US eyes - are racing to
 establish diplomatic beachheads in a country that has
 been at the crossroads of regional politics for
 centuries.
 
 Ethnic and religious passions, fears of unstable
 borders and a potential petro-dollar windfall are all
 on the table in a regional update of the 19th century
 Anglo-Russian rivalry that became known as the "Great
 Game."
 
 Iran, an ardent supporter of the victorious Northern
 Alliance in Afghanistan, is rushing to be among the
 first countries to open an embassy in Kabul, the
 government newspaper in Tehran reported Saturday.
 
 Sources said Iranian foreign ministry officials took
 to the road from eastern Iran to prepare for the
 reopening of their diplomatic missions in the capital
 as well as the cities of Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.
 
 Moscow has dispatched a senior 12-member government
 delegation to establish ties with the new Afghan
 leadership. It too plans to reopen its Kabul embassy
 as soon as possible and put a consulate in
 Mazar-i-Sharif.
 
 Russia signed up for the US-led coalition but has
 become increasingly concerned that Western powers were
 seeking to pacify Pakistan by pushing for a new Afghan
 government that would include a large Taliban
 contingent.
 
 In contrast, Pakistan and the United States were
 struggling in their dealings with the Northern
 Alliance, which ignored their appeals to stay out of
 Kabul until the question of a new government could be
 settled.
 
 The Northern Alliance has never had any love for
 Pakistan, the last country to support the Taliban, and
 has become increasingly critical of what it calls
 Islamabad's efforts to put its stamp on a new Afghan
 government.
 
 The alliance also appears to have little time for the
 United States, despite six weeks of US air strikes
 that helped it sweep the Taliban from nearly all of
 northern Afghanistan and Kabul.
 
 Indeed, James Dobbins, the US envoy to the Northern
 Alliance, has been in Pakistan since Wednesday but
 still has no plans to travel to the Afghan capital,
 according to officials in Washington.
 
 On one level, Pakistan and Iran have similar interests
 in Afghanistan. Both are concerned about a potential
 outpouring of refugees; both fear continued chaos in
 their neighbour could trigger unrest in their
 countries. But if the 19th century matchup of
 diplomatic wits, bribery and betrayal between Britain
 and Russia was about trade routes and rail links, the
 "New Great Game" is all about oil and gas.
 
 The intrepid soldiers and spies of a bygone era have
 given way to engineers and deal makers as the states
 jockey for the lucrative business of building
 pipelines to tap the vast reserves of the landlocked
 region.
 
 Islamabad has been hoping to run a gas pipeline from
 Uzbekistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan, and
 perhaps to India. Iran has its own pipeline dreams but
 had run into strong US opposition.
 
 "The Iranians are not interested in stabilizing
 Afghanistan under any regime which would allow the
 pipeline to go ahead," said M.A. Niazi, a prominent
 political analyst.
 
 "The only way of bringing Iran on board and to make
 them active partner in stability, is to give them
 their pipeline," he said. "But the Americans' interest
 is to go through Afghanistan and Pakistan."
 
 Russia and Iran have been conferring closely in recent
 days, and their foreign ministers met in New York on
 Friday to discuss Afghanistan's future, according to
 Iranian radio.
 
 Perhaps not coincidentally, two days earlier senior
 Russian and Iranian negotiators urged accelerated
 efforts, including a five-country presidential summit,
 to a decade-old dispute over sharing Caspian Sea oil
 wealth. But Iran and Pakistan have also maintained
 contacts on the situation in Afghanistan. -AFP