Holbrooke spoke on US policy in Central Asia at EAMF

"The United States of America do not have any hegemonic objectives in the Central Asian region, their wish is that the nations here pursue democracy and political liberalisation." Richard Holbrooke, Perseus LLC vice president, former US representative in UN and US state secretary, has stated this today, on 23 April, at a regular session of the III Eurasian Media Forum, KZ-today correspondent reports.

According to him, the Central Asian region is very important for the USA, Europe, and Eastern Asia. It is a connecting link between all parts of the world.

Here, in his view, interests of three biggest world players - USA, China and Russia cross exactly in this order. Besides, the energy resources make this region interesting for the whole world. An access to Caspian resources will diversify the Western resources significantly and lower their dependence on Saudi and Iraqi oil & gas, which are extremely unstable now, the expert said.

We can speak about the biggest oil & gas resources in the region here. $700 billion will come to Kazakhstan from the sales of oil & gas in the nearest 30 years. How they will be spent is the most important issue of regional politics, R. Holbrooke observed. He stressed that many countries, biggest exporters of oil & gas, did not use the resources to improve the life of their peoples. In such countries as Indonesia, Angola, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea their population did not get anything from the oil incomes due to the government corruption and other reasons.

The expert is sure that the Iranian government is not a positive factor in the region, but at the same time the American government has good relations with China and Russia. And there are no reasons that should impede USA, Russia, and China to co-operate in this region in the nearest future.

The USA and other countries that want to help Central Asian states, must concentrate on the real economic development, which will promote the development of stable democratic society, middle class, political liberalisation, R. Holbrooke believes.