Kazakh Parliament Votes Down Troop Deployment To Afghanistan

6/9/2011

(RTTNews) - The Upper House of Kazakhstan's Parliament on Thursday refused to send four Kazakh officers to serve with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, three weeks after it was approved by the Central Asian country's Lower House.

A Taliban threat to attack Kazakhstan if it enforces the deployment to Afghanistan might have prompted the Senate to reject the controversial proposal, reports said.

The Lower House on May 18 approved the deployment for non-combat jobs in the ISAF. But any decision by the Lower House on troop contribution will be valid only if it is ratified by the Upper House. Another round of voting on the measure is expected later this month.

Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority nation, which is home to ethnic minorities with historic ties to Afghanistan.

Svetlana Zhalmagambetova, a member of the Senate, said before the vote that the decision to deploy Kazakh troops come at a time "the US is thinking about how to get its troops out of Afghanistan."

"Is it worth ruining our reputation as a peaceful country at the very last moment of the war?" she was quoted as asking.

The proposal has stirred wide discussion in Kazakh society and media, which are normally tightly controlled by the regime of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Energy-rich Kazakhstan has attempted to take a neutral position between Russia, the U.S. and China, all of which are pushing to increase their influence in Central Asia.

Although the Kazakh government approved last year the movement of NATO truck convoys through its territory to deliver supplies to IASF forces in northern Afghanistan, its military cooperates most closely with Russia.

Source: RTT News.
Link: http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1642874&SM=1.