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Kyrgyz PM resigns after failure to end gold row

APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Djoomart Otorbayev resigned as Kyrgyzstan’s PM after barely a year in office.

The 59-year-old former international economist was the fourth Kyrgyz PM to resign since constitutional reform shifted power from the president to parliament in 2010.

Earlier this month the Kyrgyz government appeared to change tack significantly and argue for a great number of directors on the Centerra Gold board rather than the creation of a new company, with a 50:50 ownership, to run Kumtor.

His resignation was linked to the failure to secure a permanent solution to the ongoing row with Canada’s Centerra Gold over ownership of the Kumtor gold mine in east Kyrgyzstan — the country’s single biggest industrial asset.

“I think my decision to resign will allow the majority coalition to choose a more decisive prime minister,” Kyrgyz media quoted Mr Otorbayev as saying.

Kyrgyzstan owns 32.7% of Centerra Gold, which is listed in Toronto, and has been looking to boost its influence over the mine.

Importantly, Mr Otorbayev’s resignation highlights the unstable nature of Kyrgyz politics and also the dominance of the Kumtor ownership issue.

The three-party majority coalition now has 15 days to nominate a new PM for parliament.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Armenia remembers 1915

APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia officially marked the 100th anniversary of the killing of thousands of its countrymen by Ottoman Turks, an event it wants recognised as a genocide.

On the eve of the ceremony in Yerevan, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, joined a growing list of countries calling the death of up to 1.5m Armenians a genocide.

“What happened in the middle of the First World War in the Ottoman Empire under the eyes of the world was a genocide,” media quoted Bundestag Presi- dent Norbert Lammert as saying at the debate on the issue.

The issue is sensitive in Germany as historians have said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler used the killings of the Armenians in the east of modern-day Turkey as evidence the world would turn a blind eye to his plans to kill Jews in Europe.

Presiding over the sombre ceremony in Yerevan, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said: “Recognition of the genocide is a triumph of human conscience and justice over intolerance and hatred.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande were among the foreign dignitaries to attend the service.

The US sent a delegation but President Barack Obama has pointedly steered away from describing the deaths as a genocide.

Turkey has denied the genocide. It says Armenians died in the chaos around the final days of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said that he feels Armenia’s pain over the killings but he is quick to criticise descriptions of the deaths as a genocide.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Azerbaijan’s jailed reporter wins award

APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Increasing pressure on Azerbaijan over its treatment of journalists, the Swedish National Press Club gave its Freedom of Speech Award to imprisoned Azerbaijani reporter Khadija Ismayilova. The award was set up in 2006 after the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Lukashenko visits Georgia for the first time

APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko visited Georgia for the first time on April 23-24.

Officially, this visit, initiated by Minsk, was to strengthen Georgian-Belarusian relations. The parties signed 15 different agreements and declared that they want to boost bilateral trade from $65m/year to $200m/year.

But analysts think that this visit was planned to improve Lukashenko’s position at home, in Moscow and amongst western European leaders before the upcoming presidential elections in Belarus in November.

During his visit, Lukashenko once again expressed his support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. He also called for a better dialogue between the Kremlin and Tbilisi, and expressed hopes that Belarus, Georgia and Russia can someday live as “one family like before”.

The director of Georgian Institute of Politics Kornely Kakachia said Mr Lukashenko’s visit had some positive implications for Georgia because he expressed support for Georgia’s territorial integrity over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“But on the other hand, Lukashenko is a side player and does not have big influence on Moscow-Tbilisi relations,” he said. “Also, the president of Belarus is not the best company for Georgia to be seen with by the West.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Turkmens celebrate horses

APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan celebrated one of its biggest holidays of the year on the Day of the Horse, an important symbol for the country that celebrates horsemanship as a key skill and sign of manhood. Not the retiring type, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov also accepted a new title of the People’s Horse Breeder.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Hollande visits Azerbaijan

APRIL 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After visiting Yerevan, French President Francois Hollande travelled to Baku to meet Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. According to reports he raised concerns about Azerbaijan’s human rights record. Importantly, French businesses have won a handful of lucrative deals in Azerbaijan

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Kuwaitis visit Uzbekistan

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A parliamentary delegation from Kuwait visited Uzbekistan to discuss boosting ties. Kuwait wants to win a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council in 2018-19.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Kazakhs protest after fire

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of small stall owners protested in Almaty after a fire ripped through a trading centre. The protest was one of the biggest acts of social discontent in Kazakhstan this year. There have been a number of suspect fires in trading centres in Almaty.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Kazakhstan jails Ukraine fighter

APRIL 27 2015(The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Atyrau in western Kazakhstan sentenced an unnamed 27-year-old man to jail for three years for fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, media reported. Radio Free Europe said this was the second case this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Kazakhstan elects fifth president

>>Real question facing Kazakhstan is what happens next

APRIL 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev won a fifth presidential election in Kazakhstan with a 97.7% share of the vote.

Western election monitors complained that there had been little, or no, real opposition. The only two alternative candidates to Mr Nazarbayev both supported his re-election.

Not that this seemed to bother Mr Nazarbayev.

“I’m sorry that these numbers may seem inadmissible to super- democratic countries. But there is nothing I can do about them. Had I interfered, that would have been anti-democratic,” he said according to reports.

The key now — for interested observers of Kazakhstan’s business, political and social scenes — is to watch out for what happens next. Mr Nazarbayev and his close band of elites called an early election to impose his authority over the country at an increasingly difficult period. The economy is under pressure from a drop in oil prices and a sharp fall in Russia’s economic vitality. This has generated pressure on the Kazakh tenge to devalue,

<<Election was a prelude to more important decisions <<

With a successful election, now may be the opportune time for Kazakhstan to devalue its currency without triggering social upheaval.

And then, of course, there is the question of succession. At 74-years-old, Mr Nazarbayev’s years in office are probably numbered. He has yet to anoint a successor. Now, though, may be his chance.

The 2015 presidential election is most likely a prelude to more important decisions facing Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)