GLEN OWEN, MAIL ON SUNDAY POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Tony Blair was last night accused of helping to secure a plum job for Alastair Campbell's firm on a 'dictator's payroll'. The claim was made after US Government documents revealed the extent of links between the former Prime Minister and the lobbying company that employs his former spin doctor. According to US Justice Department papers, the authoritarian Kazakhstan regime in central Asia is represented in the US 'through Windrush Ventures Limited, through Portland PR Limited'.
Turkey has not received an official offer to join the Customs Union, which comprises Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, Turkish media reported on October 26 citing sources in the Foreign Ministry. According to the report, a year ago Ankara was invited to join the Customs Union and the organization held negotiations with Turkey in this regard. However, currently the talks have lost their relevance.
President Vladimir Putin with President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev (l) and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko before a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. Turkey is interested in joining the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and India also wants closer ties with the organization, President Vladimir Putin said at the EurAsian Economic Community summit in Minsk on Thursday.
Russia is pressuring Ukraine to join Belarus and Kazakhstan in a Eurasian Customs Union led by Moscow. Acquiescing to Russia's wishes would anchor Ukraine in a Moscow-dominated economic zone and impose higher tariffs on Ukrainian trade with the European Union. Russia also wants Ukraine to join the Joint Economic Space, the Eurasian Union, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. This integration would recreate the geography of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire, strengthening and emboldening Moscow as a global geopolitical actor. It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent Ukraine from becoming a Russian satellite and a key member of a Moscow-dominated sphere of influence. The U.S. needs to assist Ukraine and its European partners in derailing Russia's pressure tactics for bringing Ukraine into Moscow's orbit.
The country is poised to lead on everything from controlling nuclear weapons to energy security. Upon gaining its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan became the world's fourth largest nuclear power, only to voluntarily renounce its entire atomic arsenal shortly thereafter. We closed the world's second largest nuclear test site, blended down three tons of highly enriched uranium for peaceful use and helped establish a "nuclear weapon free zone" across Central Asia – one that now serves as a model for regions around the world, including the Middle East.
Kremlin kingpin Vladimir Putin's pet project to drive former Soviet states back into Moscow's embrace – via the Customs Union — is gathering momentum. But the possibility of expansion doesn't thrill all the union's current members.
The family of an exiled Kazakh tycoon accused of fraud filed a lawsuit in Italy on Wednesday against three diplomats for the alleged illegal extradition of his wife and daughter to Kazakhstan. Mukhtar Ablyazov's daughter Madina accuses the diplomats in the lawsuit, including Adrian Yelemessov, Kazakhstan's ambassador to Italy, of "aggravated kidnapping" over the incident.
