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Aviation liberalisation talks start between Armenia and EU

APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia and the EU started the first round of negotiations over an aviation deal which analysts have said should depress air ticket prices to Europe from Yerevan and open up the market for Armenian airlines. Armenian airlines have struggled to stay solvent over the past few years, often blaming high landing tariffs. Armenia wants to join the EU’s common aviation space. This is, essentially, the free market mechanism that the EU has used to open up the aviation sector and allow airlines from any countries to fly between any cities with the area.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Georgia says Russia is still its biggest threat

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TBILISI, APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In its latest national defence review, undertaken every four or five years, Georgia said that its biggest threat was still Russia despite a marked improvement in relations between the two neighbours since 2012.

Quoting from the Georgian language document, the civil.ge news website said that a build up of Russian forces in the Caucasus and the Black Sea region was a threat.

“The main factor for planning national defence and security still remains the threat from the Russian Federation,” the civil.ge website reported. The review has not yet been published in English.

Relations between Georgia and Russia have improved since the Georgian Dream came to power in 2012 and former president Mikheil Saakashvili fled into exile.

The report, which sets the tone and agenda for the Georgian military up to 2020, said that Russian aggression and its lack of respect for international law posed a serious threat to Georgia. In particular, the report’s authors said the build up of Russian military in the region “will weaken the West’s access to the Caucasus region, and, accordingly, decrease its capability to balance Russia.”

Russia has increased its military cooperation with the rebel Georgian states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since a war with Georgia in 2008. This has included holding military exercises in South Ossetia deploying thousands of soldiers.

Since annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia has also strengthened its presence in the Black Sea.

Part of Georgia’s defence plan is to join NATO and in the Defence Review it said that it would continue to support NATO, EU and UN operations.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Yandex opens office in Kazakhstan

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APRIL 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yandex, the Russian language search internet search engine, opened its first office in Kazakhstan, another sign of renewed confidence in the region’s economy. The office in Almaty is an effort by the Russian language search engine to boost advertising revenues from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the eighth office that Yandex has set up outside Russia. It said there are 5m hits on its search engine each day from Kazakhstan. Yandex has its own dedicated yandex.kz URL.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Iran pledges to develop hydro in Kyrgyzstan

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APRIL 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rounding off a three day tour of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif said that Iran could help Kyrgyzstan develop its hydropower sector. Kyrgyzstan has been looking for partners to develop its hydropower sector ever since Russia pulled out of pledged investments during a recession in 2015/16. For Kyrgyzstan, electricity generated by hydropower is seen as a vital export. It has signed deals to sell electricity to Pakistan and India through the US-backed CASA-1000 scheme, due to come on line over the next couple of years. For Iran, investing in Kyrgyzstan’s hydro sector would help it develop links in the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Putin adviser visits Georgian breakaway region

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APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, travelled to Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway Russian region of South Ossetia for the inauguration of Anatoly Bibilov as the province’s new leader. Mr Bibilov had won an election earlier in the month. Russia is one of the only countries to support South Ossetia’s independence claim.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Car production in Uzbekistan halves after tough 2016

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APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car production in Uzbekistan halved in 2016, state-owned Uzavtoprom said, highlighting the problems that one of the country’s most high- profile industries is facing.

Data on car production in Uzbekistan, an important employer around the city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley, is tightly controlled and for the state’s main car producer to admit that there is a problem means that it is nervous about its future.

Last year the GM Uzbekistan joint venture with US’s GM which is based at the Andijan plant produced 88,200 cars out of total Uzbek car production of 92,625.

There was no comment on the press release, although it was widely cited across Uzbek media.

Last year was a decidedly tough year for the Uzbek car industry. It is reliant for much of its sales on Russia which has been dealing with a recession triggered by a fall in energy prices and by Western imposed sanctions. Sales figures repeatedly reported a drop in demand of around 37%.

GM Uzbekistan also had problems with its distributors in Uzbekistan, with the life.ru website reporting in May 2016 that it may be forced to stop exports to Russia altogether because of the bankruptcy of its partner in the Voronezh region.

Since then, GM Uzbekistan has said that it is starting to export cars to both Tajikistan and Belarus, an apparent attempt to reduce its over- reliance on Russia for its market.

And there was also a corruption scandal that enveloped its top management. This included Tokhirjon Jalilov, who was arrested and sacked as chairman of GM Uzbekistan after allegedly being involved in a scam to sell cars to neighbouring Kazakhstan to a proxy company and then re-importing them back to Uzbekistan where they were sold to consumers.

The accusation was that the company’s management pocketed the difference.

GM owns 25% of GM Uzbekistan and Uzavtoprom owns 75%.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Uzbekistan’s Mirziyoyev sidelines rival

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has demoted his longtime colleague Rustam Azimov, sources told the Reuters news agency.

The move appears to be an attempt by Mr Mirziyoyev, in power since the death in September of the cantankerous Islam Karimov, to consolidate both his power and his reputation as Uzbekistan’s moderniser.

Mr Azimov, a deputy PM, had been considered one of the two most influential figures propping up Mr Mirziyoyev. He had previously been finance minister but has now, according to Reuters, been given the job of reorganising the rural economy. The other figure considered powerful in Uzbekistan is Rustam Inoyatov, head of the security services.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Convicted terrorists in Kazakhstan to lose citizenship

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APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh MPs passed into law a bill that will strip people convicted of terrorism of their citizenship. Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia have been fighting to dampen a flow of recruits to the extremist IS group over the past few years. The main suspects behind an attack in Istanbul and St Petersburg this year were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Uzbek president to visit China

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APRIL 21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will travel to China in mid-May his aides told media. Since taking over as president in September 2016 from Islam Karimov who died of a heart attack, Mr Mirziyoyev has been on a charm offensive to boost relations with his neighbours. China is a critical influence on Central Asia and an important ally for Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazakh language clubs thrive as people explore national heritage

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ALMATY, APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Kazakhstan’s cities, where Russian was once the dominant language, Kazakh language clubs are increasingly popular.

Alina Achilova, a student at the International Information Technologies University in Almaty, helped set up the Qazaqsha club three years ago. Based in a museum for national instruments, the club has broad appeal, attracting students, professionals and the retired. What they share, Ms Achilova said, was Russian as their first language and a desire to explore their own cultural heritage.

“I had many friends of different ethnicities and native Kazakhs who couldn’t speak or understand Kazakh language and would always ask me for help,” she said. “In Almaty I couldn’t find any places for them to learn Kazakh and thought it’d be good to open such a place.”

Language has once again been thrust into the political spotlight in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said this month that he wants to switch Kazakh to the Latin alphabet from Cyrillic to broaden its appeal and to identify it more closely with other Turkic languages.

Since independence from the Soviet Union he has worked on building the cultural identity of Kazakhstan, promoting national heroes, cultural and language. Kazakh has grown in popularity and in Almaty it is far more widely spoken now than it was even a decade ago.

Some analysts have accused Mr Nazarbayev of trying to airbrush Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet out of Kazakhstan, but it is still an official language, still widely spoken in business and politics and is the main language in the north of the country.

Still, even among Kazakh’s supporter base, there are people who question whether the switch to Latin is such a good idea.

“I think it will be very long, expensive and problematic process,” said Yerke Maratkyzy, at Qazaqsha club.

Turkish is written in Latin, as is Uzbek, although in Kyrgyzstan, the Cyrillic imposed by the Soviets in the 1920s is still used, like in Kazakhstan. Before that, both Kazakh and Kyrgyz had been written in Arabic script.

For Erden Zikibay, a volunteer at another Kazakh language club called Bas Quso, the switch to Latin is a positive step.

“It will help bring together Kazakh people and Kazakhstani people to the Turkic and Western worlds, and increase popularity and prestige of Kazakh language inside Kazakhstan.”

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)