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New Russian President Dmitri Medvedev set out July 3 for a tour of several former Soviet states on his way to the G8 meeting in Japan on July 7. Medvedev will stop off in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, three countries that have already met with the new president — some more than once — in the two short months since he took office. The tour clearly demonstrates Moscow’s move to consolidate its relationships with countries of strategic importance to Russia.
Just two weeks after taking the helm in Moscow on May 7, Medvedev made his first official foreign trip, heading east to Kazakhstan and China rather than the traditional Russian presidential voyage westward to Europe. Medvedev’s choice was a sign that Russia’s focus was not mostly on the West anymore and that Moscow was in the process of not only consolidating its relationship with Kazakhstan but also showing China that Moscow still considers Central Asia to be Russian turf.
Central Asia and Azerbaijan are strategically important to Russia for several reasons. First, they are part of Russia’s periphery that has many other large and looming powers on the other side — such as China on the other side of Central Asia and Iran on the other side of Azerbaijan. The West has also infiltrated the former Soviet regions interested in their large energy wealth. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan each have considerable oil and natural gas supplies which are just now being significantly tapped:
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