Afghanistan: Faced with refugees fleeing the Taliban, Central Asia worries without panicking
Members of the Tajik army during a joint military exercise with Russia and Uzbekistan on August 10, 2021, in the Khation region, near the Tajiko-Afghan border, upstream of the capture of Kabul by the Taliban .
© Didor Sadulloev, Reuters
Text by: Régis Genté Follow
6 mins
After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, some European countries have raised the idea that Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan could host a share of the potential half a million Afghans fleeing their country.
But these former Soviet republics are hardly in favor of it.
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From our correspondent for Central Asia,
Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors show a clear reluctance to welcome Afghan refugees.
But this may not be a sign that panic has gripped these countries over the arrival of the Taliban: there is no panic, but concern.
They are “
ex-Soviet
”
republics
with secular traditions:
they therefore do not welcome the coming to power
of these “
theological students
” - the translation of the official name of the Taliban.
But this is not panic, because they know that the Taliban movement is first and foremost an Afghan nationalist political force, with no desire to export their ideology.
The Taliban have also repeated on several occasions that they do not want to interfere in the affairs of their neighbors, reassuring the Central Asian capitals as to their unwillingness to mind their own affairs.
If the concern is real, it stems from the fact that an Islamist regime is, whatever happens,
at the gates of Tajikistan
, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
And the past - especially when the Taliban was in power between 1996 and 2001 - has shown that Afghanistan could be a rear base for terrorist movements from these Central Asian countries.
The watchword of Central Asian diplomats today is “
pragmatism
”: the Taliban are in power, but we have to look good.
There is a willingness to establish good neighborly relations.
Only Tajikistan has not contacted the new Afghan authorities for the moment.
►
To read also: Afghanistan: "We are really witnessing a redistribution of the cards"
Only Tajikistan has agreed to accept refugees
But the
Kazakh
and Uzbek
authorities
have clearly expressed their refusal to accept Afghan refugees.
Only Tajikistan has decided to open a camp at Koulob airport in the south of the country for the temporary reception of 1,000 refugees.
The only people welcome are the important figures, such as the leaders of the ethnic communities on which the three capitals rely in their Afghan politics.
This is the case of the famous Afghan warlord Abdoul Rachid Dostom, who is the main representative of the Uzbek community and who is said to have taken refuge in Tashkent.
Barbed wire, mines, soldiers: strong security measures at the borders
Faced with this scenario, the Central Asian republics have taken fairly strong security measures.
They had also anticipated, from the first announcement of a US withdrawal in 2014 by US President Barack Obama.
The 137 km of Uzbek-Afghan border has been fitted with two rows of barbed wire in recent years, electrified, with parts mined.
The three countries have also deployed armed forces along their borders with their neighbor to the south.
Tajikistan, which has 1,200 km of a difficult border with Afghanistan because it is partly mountainous, has received reinforcements from Russia, which has a large base in the country.
Russia, for
its part, has not hesitated to show its support.
Moscow has also organized military exercises
in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan this summer.
►
To read also: Report: In Kabul, the whole system seems to be at a standstill
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Afghanistan
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan
Taliban