The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, and we all owe a debt to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, for promoting it and for bringing to our attention—not merely in this debate but with the great vigour that he has shown in dealing with this region—the tremendous potential and importance of an area with which, I would say quite frankly, not many of us were too familiar a few years back. In fact, if I think back to my schoolboy days, I would have had difficulty when I opened the map in establishing exactly which part of the world we were dealing with. Now—and this is evidence of the new international landscape with which we are all dealing—power, wealth, interest and influence have all shifted. As a trading nation and as a nation that wishes to contribute to the stability and good governance of the planet, we are right now to concentrate very much on these nations.
We are looking at two sets here, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, knows: five central Asian nations and three in the Caucasus, all with unique qualities and some with problems, but all with a degree of dynamism. In a sense, on the biggest in the south Caucasus, we are much the biggest investor in Azerbaijan. At £85 billion, Azerbaijan has the biggest GNP in the south Caucasus. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, and many others spoke about Azerbaijan’s potential and the links; indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, has just mentioned that potential. I had some close connection with UK-Azerbaijan relations before I joined the Government and am very familiar with the dynamism of that place and its determination to move on from the distant, sovietised past and establish an entirely new and very welcome role for itself in the comity of nations and the world economy.
I shall take some of the comments made quite quickly; I then want to come to my own overview of how we should proceed. My noble friend Lord Sheikh, who is immensely familiar with this area, kindly mentioned the central Asian and south Caucasus association which has been formed. I had the privilege of sharing its launching occasion. It was a very dynamic occasion and Asia House has done an extremely good job in promoting and taking a lead on it. My noble friend also mentioned in particular Nagorno-Karabakh, which one obviously feels enormously involved in by visiting it. One only has to visit Azerbaijan to understand the centrality of the issue and the difficulties with its neighbour. We are concerned that this conflict goes on and on. It is, of course, a source of regional instability and the longer that it remains unresolved, the greater the deprivation and loss of life on the line of contact and the more difficult a settlement could become.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the British Government support the OSCE’s Minsk Group peace process, and we encourage Azerbaijan and Armenia to accelerate efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement based on the principles of refraining from the threat of using force, territorial integrity and the people’s right to self-determination. We do not underestimate that this will involve some difficult decisions and necessary compromises on both sides, but compromises there must be. I have visited some of the displaced persons in the outskirts of Baku. They feel that they have lost their land, and I realise the intensity of feeling on both sides about this very difficult issue.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for his success in bringing the issue of the Commonwealth—dear to my heart—into a region where, frankly, the Commonwealth does not feature very visibly. He brought home the point that the Commonwealth is a network, as is the area we are looking at. We have to understand these countries not as top dogs and lower levels and so on. They are all countries which deserve a great deal of respect and to be part of the new network of the planet, of which the Commonwealth is certainly a part as well. He urged, as others have done, more involvement in the energy question, and I shall say a bit more about that in my final remarks.
I mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Laird, in relation to Azerbaijan. He also raised the question of the network of pipelines and the pipeline politics that are developing around the region, the most prominent physical feature of which at the moment is the Baku-Ceyhan oil line. There are many plans for further gas development and for getting gas out of the region, even possibly from Turkmenistan across the Caspian, although there are difficulties there. A great deal of the Turkmenistan gas may, in any case, go eastwards rather than westwards.
Then we came to the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, who is tireless in her work for human rights and against torture and other hideous practices. She asked particularly about the case of Evgeniy Zhovtis in Kazakhstan. We and our EU partners have raised this case with Kazakh authorities on a number of occasions. Our concerns centre on the reliability of the legal process. Those concerns are reinforced in a report by the International Commission of Jurists published in March, which concluded:
“There are strong indications that the proceedings against Evgeniy Zhovtis failed to meet international fair trial standards”.
Therefore, we continue to encourage the Kazakh authorities to address the systemic weaknesses in the judicial system which his case appears to highlight. The noble Baroness also raised broader questions of human rights to which I shall return in my closing remarks. However, she asked about the EU/central Asia strategy. We fully support the strategy, which provides an effective framework for relations between the regions. I shall come back to other concerns in a moment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, rounded off the debate with her usual skill. She spoke about the human rights issue. That is central to our concerns and part of our strategy, to which I want to turn, but I shall just say a word about Uzbekistan, because that was raised specifically. We have a good, constructive and balanced relationship with Uzbekistan and there have been some good exchanges recently. The Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office visited Tashkent earlier this month. We are concerned about the overall level of respect for human rights in Uzbekistan, but there have been some positive steps; for example, the abolition of the death penalty, which we are all working for; the introduction of habeas corpus; the release of Sanjar Umarov; and enhanced co-operation with the EU and OSCE on issues such as criminal justice reform and police training. However, a lot more needs to be done. The UK and the EU stand ready to assist Uzbekistan in this respect.
Perhaps I may now sum up the excellent contributions to this debate, initiated by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley. I want to put my thoughts under three themes: first, prosperity and economy; secondly, security; and, thirdly—although perhaps one should put this first because in a way it is the most important—human rights and good governance. Supporting our own nation’s prosperity is obviously the central theme in our foreign policy. We have to survive, perform and prosper in a very difficult new world. As I mentioned, we are very well placed in Azerbaijan, where we are the largest investor, and in Kazakhstan, where we are among the top five investors. The big names—Shell, BP, BG Group and others—are all taking forward huge and very important projects. Another country which is increasingly important is Turkmenistan, which, as I have already mentioned, is developing fast. In all these, energy is the big focus. Gas out of the Caspian, in particular, could be the vital contribution to pan-European energy security and could perhaps provide a better balance with the sometimes rather erratic domination of Gazprom from Russia.
At the same time, the general world gas situation, as noble Lords know, is becoming easier with the rise of Shell Gas. All of that is good for us because in the next few years, until we get fully into the renewable and green economy, we will have to see a growth in gas consumption. As the noble Lord, Lord Laird, reminded us, it is not just energy—there are financial services, law and education and all kinds of other exports of skills that we can contribute to this region. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, mentioned Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which we also think offer important opportunities, and there are UK companies already operating there. We welcome the recent increase in commercial activity in the whole of this region. The Minister of Trade, my honourable friend David Lidington, took a trade delegation down to Baku recently, and we have established a Turkmenistan-UK trade council and the Uzbek-British Trade and Industry Council. I have tried personally to contribute to these activities with various speeches and meetings.
Of course, there are barriers; there are problems of corruption and an absence of transparency, as well as other difficulties, but we think that we can crack these difficulties, and we intend to keep trying. On the security side, there is Afghanistan, with its vast frontier with Tajikistan, which is very relevant to our concern with the Caucasus generally. We need to look for alternative supply routes to our forces, and the central Asians in particular can help underpin the long-term security of the region. I have not got time to mention narcotics considerations, but they are also central to the area. I should add that my honourable friend the Minister of State and my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister are at this moment at the OSCE conference; they are obviously in a position to take up and pursue all the issues, including the Minsk process issue that we have discussed. That is very good and positive.
I end on what is, in a sense, the most important area of governance and human rights. We need to underpin this whole engagement with central Asia and the Caucasus with substantive political dialogue, and we intend to work closely with the region to support development of its democratic institutions in all aspects. We have serious concerns, as does the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, but it is not just a question of lecturing. That will not work. We need to share experience and work together and, when necessary, to remind our friends in this dynamic new area of their growing international commitments. That benefits all of us and helps the long-term stability of the whole area.
The thread linking our policy is common interest and mutual gain. We stand ready to support central Asia and the south Caucasus and the countries of that region, which have been through many difficulties but have acted with heroism, to help them to meet the challenges ahead.