U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

The Year Ahead in South and Central Asia

Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
April 23, 2008

1:00 P.M. EDT

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QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador Boucher. Naichian from Phoenix Satellite Television of Hong Kong. Could you comment on how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has affected the U.S. geopolitical position in Central Asia, especially it seems Iran fits into the block pretty well? And is the U.S. pursuing any form of participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Thank you.

AMBASSADOR BOUCHER: We're not pursuing any particular form of cooperation ourselves with Shanghai Cooperation. There's plenty of organizations in the region that have different memberships and different rules for membership. This is not one that we're particularly attracted to ourselves. It is for the countries of the region. We do think it's had a very useful role in some of the economic issues, the border issues, the transit issues and things like that. We've criticized it when they went wandering into political areas. We've criticized it when they started making pronouncements about other countries, like us. But I'd say for the last couple years, it's pretty much stuck to its agenda and done some useful things. So we keep in touch with countries involved. When I was last in Beijing, I met with the people at the Secretariat of Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I'll probably do that again next time I get a chance to go. But no, we're not looking for any formal association with this organization.

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QUESTION: Naseem Stanazai, VOA, Afghanistan Service. In relation to Afghanistan, that -- given the developments in Afghanistan and the problems, especially the security one, does it have any bad impact or - on Central Asian countries, given the fact that they can use Afghanistan as their trade route with other countries? If you can comment on that. Thank you.

AMBASSADOR BOUCHER: I think -- I think Afghanistan is vital to the Central Asian countries for good and for bad. That what's happening now in Afghanistan, stabilizing Afghanistan as an open economy, as a friendly nation for everyone, is really not just necessary to fight the terrorism that we're all concerned about, but it's a strategic and historic shift. I mean, for several hundred years, some would say for a thousand years, Afghanistan has been a barrier between Central Asia and South Asia. It's prevented -- largely prevented people from moving across. Certainly, for the last couple hundred years, it's been the barrier between empires.

Now, for Afghanistan to open up as an open nation, a trading nation, a nation with good relations all around, really presents everybody in the region with a new strategic opportunity. Everybody from India with a potential new source of energy and a place to export to, to Pakistan, which becomes a logical port and hub for a lot of this trade. Afghanistan, which becomes a transit point and contributor to the trade or Central Asia, which in addition to their ties to Russia, China, Europe, gets to open up another set of export routes and avenues.

So we do believe that this development in Afghanistan is vital to these countries and presents a tremendous opportunity. At the same time, the problems of Afghanistan, the problems of terrorism and narcotics, are very much of concern to the countries of Central Asia. So we're working with them on how to control the problems, how to deal with terrorism, how to deal with better control of borders, how to deal with narcotics flow, working together at the center that's being organized in Almaty on sharing information on narcotics trafficking so we can stop it better.

But we're also working with them on the opportunities. We opened -- last August, Secretary Gutierrez and I opened a bridge between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. And if you look at what's going on in the region, there's enough roads being built by us and Japan and the Asian Development Bank and the Chinese and others that there's really coming together an Almaty-to-Karachi highway that this bridge is part of. That's new. That's different. That's good. And that's an opportunity. Customs revenues across that bridge have already increased 10 times since last August across that crossing point. So definitely an opportunity there. We're working with all the countries, all the neighboring countries of the north -- Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan -- to develop electricity lines and supply for Afghanistan, because Afghanistan needs electricity and they can generate it. We're working with Tajikistan to help bring electricity south to Pakistan, where Pakistan really needs the electricity.

So all these things are happening. So I think, yes, the problems of Afghanistan are problems for the region, but the opportunities of Afghanistan are strategic and historic opportunities for the region as well. And we need to work on it all.

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