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Irad–Kazakhstan relations

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Irad–Kazakhstan relations are the dealings between Irad and Kazakhstan, its neighbor to the north and northwest and the state through which most of its exports pass. Kazakhstan claims Irad de jure and recognizes no Iradi administration. It nevertheless conducts a wide range of practical business with the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) through its border, customs, pipeline and water agencies, an arrangement it describes as technical and "without prejudice" to its claim.[1]

The relationship rests on mutual dependence. Iradi crude oil enters the Kazakh pipeline network near Shymkent, and antimony and most rail freight cross Kazakhstan, while Kazakh farms on the middle and lower Syr Darya depend on releases from the Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex and Kazakhstan buys Iradi electricity. Both sides have used these dependencies as leverage in limited disputes, but neither has allowed them to escalate.[2]

Claim and recognition

Kazakhstan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Kazakh official statements concentrate on the northern lowlands of Irad, the lower Chu around Nurzhan, the Moiynkum sands, the southern Betpak-Dala and the Karatau foothills, which lie alongside its Jambyl and Turkistan regions.[3] In 1992 Kazakhstan closed its border during the First Iradi Civil War and objected to the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty as a breach of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. It recorded a reservation of its position but dealt with the US-administered territory during the territorial period. After the United States withdrew from the treaty in December 2006, it formally asserted its claim and declined to recognize the Democratic Republic of Irad.[4]

Since 2007 Kazakhstan has treated the ISEZ as a de facto authority in territory it claims. Its dealings with Talas are conducted by technical agencies rather than by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the documents are signed by heads of delegation rather than by ministers. Kazakh officials describe each arrangement as implying no recognition.[1]

The Bill of Sale

Between December 2006 and February 2007, while declining to recognize the DRI, the Kazakh foreign ministry took part in secret talks with the cabinet of Prime Minister Bakyt Orozbekov, held under cover of border and water consultations. The drafts that resulted, known in Irad as the Bill of Sale, would have given Kazakhstan the northern steppe, the lower Chu with Nurzhan, and the lands adjoining its Turkistan and Jambyl regions, in return for compensation paid into escrow, with concession shares in the oil fields for companies tied to DRI ministers.[13] Erlan Toktarov made the drafts public on 25 February 2007. Kazakhstan describes the talks as consultations and has not published its copy. It has not rescinded its claim since, nor threatened military action, and analysts describe the prevailing view in Astana as one of waiting for Irad to break apart on its own.[4]

History

Soviet period and the 1992 war

The boundary between the Iradi and Kazakh SSRs went back to the Soviet national delimitation of 1924–25. It was an internal administrative line, largely unmarked on the ground. Economic ties were close: during the Kobozev bread riots of 1989, First Secretary Vasily Chernov arranged emergency grain deliveries from Kazakhstan.[5] In 1992 the Kazakh border closure disrupted rail traffic and fuel supplies during the siege of Talas. The Provisional Government's first contacts with the United States were made through the US embassy in Almaty.

Territorial period (1992–2006)

With the approval of the US federal government, the territorial government concluded the Treaty of Good Neighborliness (1994) with Kazakhstan. The treaty set up joint hydrological monitoring on the Chu and Talas, confirmed the Soviet-era rule dividing the flow of the Talas equally between the upstream and downstream sides, and set procedures for coordinating canal withdrawals along the border reach of the Chu. It did not demarcate the frontier.[6] Iradi crude went by rail to the refinery at Shymkent until 2000, when the 85-kilometer Northern Export Feeder of the Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium opened into the network operated by KazTransOil.

The 2008 border arrangements

The end of US administration and the Second Iradi Civil War left the frontier without an authority that Kazakhstan was prepared to deal with formally. Contacts began in early 2008 under the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, with the United Nations Mission in Irad providing logistics and a venue at Kara-Oi. They produced the Northern Border Demarcation Protocol of October 2008, a set of technical arrangements between the ISEZ and the Kazakh border and customs services. It covers the roughly 285 kilometers of the frontier held by the ISEZ in the lower Chu and lower Talas valleys.[1]

  • More than 300 numbered concrete markers without national insignia mark the line. Kazakhstan's copy of the text calls it a "line of administrative control" rather than a border.
  • Three crossings were established: the Chu Gate freight crossing east of Nurzhan, the Talas North Terminal rail and road crossing, and the seasonal Kum-Shagyl crossing for farm traffic. Other roads across the marked sections, such as the trunk road from Korday at the Betkaynar crossing, are barred at the markers.
  • An annex sets the metering point and customs procedure for crude carried by the Northern Export Feeder.
  • The Republican Gendarmerie of Irad and Kazakh border units run coordinated patrols, each remaining on its own side of the markers, with a radio link between the two commands.

The arrangements do not cover the longer stretches of the frontier held by the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR) in the Northern Steppe and the Karatau, which are patrolled by the clans' El-Choro Militias and have never been demarcated. Kazakhstan has no comparable arrangement with the clans. Roads across the tribal sections are held by El-Choro posts, among them the Karakur, Oyyk and Jylandy crossings in the Karatau and the Aksüyek and Kashkanteniz crossings at either end of the roughly 200-kilometer stretch of the Kazakh highway from Almaty to Lake Balkhash that runs across tribal steppe; the clans take a customary transit levy there, which Kazakhstan has never acknowledged. Kazakhstan has declined ISEZ proposals to extend the protocol, and the Iradi Freedom Society says it is not bound by it.[7]

Trade and transit

Kazakhstan is Irad's main transit route. Crude from the NurGaz fields is refined at Shymkent or shipped onward to Russia under commercial contracts between the Iradi consortium and the Kazakh operator. NurGaz reports output of about 120,000 barrels per day; independent estimates are lower.[8] Antimony from the Sary-Bulak Antimony Works and cotton yarn from the Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities travel by rail through the Talas North Terminal to China and Kazakhstan, and the bonded convoys of Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics use the Chu Gate crossing.

Since Kazakhstan joined the customs union with Russia and Belarus in 2010, goods sold into Kazakhstan have paid the union's external tariff, while sealed cargo crosses under bonded transit. Iradi dollar payments are commonly settled through correspondent banks in Almaty.[9] Lieutenant Governor Aidar Maksat has led ISEZ talks with Kazakh delegations on transit tariffs, and Emil Bekzatov of NurGaz is responsible for the company's crude transport contracts with Kazakhstan.

Labor and people also cross the frontier. Seasonal migration from the ATR to farms and building sites in southern Kazakhstan is common, and remittances, mostly from this work, are estimated at about 5 to 8 percent of Irad's GDP. The 2018 census recorded Kazakhs as 3 percent of Irad's population, living mainly in the Chu lowlands.[10]

Water and power

Kazakhstan's irrigated districts on the middle and lower Syr Darya lie downstream of the Toktogul reservoir. It attends the joint technical commission of the Naryn Water and Power Protocol as an observer, receiving the reservoir data without a vote, and does not recognize the commission as a legal body. Kazakh officials have complained, like Uzbek officials, of reduced summer releases in dry years, and they have sought a greater say in the commission.[11] On the Chu and Talas, the technical provisions of the 1994 treaty have continued in practice. The Talas River Hydrological Monitoring Service and its Kazakh counterpart exchange daily discharge readings at the border gauge, and disagreements in dry summers are generally settled at that level.

Disputes over Toktogul releases have spilled into the border arrangements. Kazakh authorities have slowed customs clearance and tightened pipeline scheduling during such disputes, and the ISEZ has responded by trimming electricity exports at peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because both sides depend on the trade.[2] As the current Naryn schedule nears renewal in 2027, Kazakh officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ in Governor Erlan Toktarov's absence. The DPI says Maksat signs on his behalf, and Kazakh officials monitor the 2024 Iradi Executive Transition Crisis for its possible effects on oil and mineral exports.

Other issues

References

  1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 501: Executive Directives of the Irad Special Economic Zone (2007–2023).
  2. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Pipelines, Water and Recognition: Irad's Northern Transit.' Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 64–88.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Last Soviet Apparatchik: Vasily Chernov.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 78–94.
  6. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  7. ^ Talas State University, Faculty of Geography (2018). Physical Geography of Irad. Talas State University Press, Talas, pp. 132–151.
  8. ^ KazTransOil (2023). Annual Report: Southern Network Throughput and Third-Party Transit. Astana, pp. 34–42.
  9. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  10. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  12. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2024). 'The Petroleum Oligarchy: Kamran Bekzatov and the Russo Faction.' Vol. 31, Iss. 2, pp. 88–104.
  13. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
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