A five-day visit of the U.S. Undersecretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Mr. Donald Lu to Central Asia has had slight results, Afghan state-run news agency Bakhtar (BNA) reported on May 29.
Donald Lu heading a U.S. delegation visited Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan from May 23 to May 27.
Citing the US Department of State, Russia’s Kommersant says the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia Eric Green, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia Rebecca Zimmerman, U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Asia Anjali Kaur, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Naz El-Khatib accompanied Mr. Lu on his trip to Central Asia.
Russian media reports said at the beginning of the US delegation’s visit that the Undersecretary of State would focus on expanding relations, as well as discussing US secret goals in the region.
The trip came as Russia is carrying out the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
According to Kommersant, Donald Lu tried to focus on the United States and its subsequent assistance to the former Soviet republics. During his five-day visit to Central Asia, he reportedly tried to promise that sanctions against Russia will not harm them.
Meanwhile, BNA says the State Department’s talks show that Central Asian countries did not pay much attention to the main goals of Donald Lu’s visit, as they try to maintain a cautious relationship with Moscow and, as in the past, remain Russia’s strategic friends. Central Asian countries reportedly no longer trust the United States and are skeptical of American promises.
In their discussions with Donald Lu, the countries of Central Asia, instead of strategic cooperation in the security and political sectors, addressed other issues that were undoubtedly unpleasant for this American diplomat, according to BNA.
BNA says that according to experts in Central Asia, the United States sent a delegation to Central Asia to try to convey the idea of a “red line” about Russia to those countries.
Political experts reportedly said that the U.S. diplomat’s trip to Central Asian countries had been fruitless and had not been able to make the idea of their cooperation with the United States a reality in the future.
