Nato has said that it wants to start withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan
in 2014 and the Soviet-built railway crossing Central Asia into Russia is
now considered the most efficient export route.
Britain has been intricately involved in setting up deals with Central Asian
governments.
Various senior military officers have visited the region and in February and
March Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, and Nick Harvey, the minister
for the Armed Forces, travelled to Central Asia to meet governments.
Britain’s diplomatic push in the region is underscored by its insistence on
maintaining embassies in all five countries in Central Asia.
Despite cuts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s budget, Britain is one
of the only Western countries to keep an embassy in Tajikistan, which
borders Afghanistan, and in December it opened an embassy in Kyrgyzstan for
the first time.
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