Author Archives: Editor

Tajikistan boosts intelligence sharing with China

SEPT. 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Beijing, Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon agreed to a general boost in relations with China that included a clause to increase intelligence sharing. China has been increasing its security and diplomatic efforts across Central Asia over the past few years, part of its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative to boost trade with Europe. Last year it also agreed to build a network of security outposts along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Senior Central Bank official named head of Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom

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AUG. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Galymzhan Pirmatov, formerly deputy chairman of the Kazakh Central Bank, was named head of Kazatompron, Kazakhstan’s atomic energy agency, replacing Askar Zhumagaliyev who was made a deputy PM earlier in August (Aug. 31). Kazatomprom is a high profile company in Kazakhstan, with Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev pushing nuclear power and uranium mining. Mr Pirmatov has previously been a VP at Kazatomprom.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Uzbek authorities take 16,000 people off terror blacklist

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SEPT. 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan have removed 16,000 people from a blacklist of 17,000 people with alleged links to extremist groups, media reported. Analysts said the move was another attempt by Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev to pursue more liberal policies and to create a clear departure from Islam Karimov, who ruled the country as an authoritarian dictator.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Gazprom opens new gas pipeline in Kyrgyzstan

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BISHKEK, AUG. 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller officially unveiled a renovated section of the gas pipeline that pumps gas from Bukhara in Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan and on to Kazakhstan.

The pipeline renovation is seen as a major piece of regional infrastructure that should improve access to heat and electricity for residents of Bishkek and other Kyrgyz cities. It also highlights the power of Gazprom in the region. It bought the Kyrgyz gas distribution business in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 for a symbolic $1, promising to improve its performance.

The opening of the new pipeline will go along way to making good on this promise and also towards strengthening Russia’s soft power impact in the region.

“The reconstruction of the Kyrgyz section of the Bukhara Gas-Bearing Province – Tashkent – Bishkek – Almaty gas pipeline has taken us to the next level in terms of reliability of gas supplies not only to the north of the Kyrgyz Republic, but also to the south of Kazakhstan,” media quoted Mr Miller as saying.

Gazprom officials said that the capacity of the pipeline had been doubled and that nearly 2,000 extra homes in Kyrgyzstan had been added to the mains gas network.
Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev was also at the opening ceremony of the pipeline. His presence underscored the pipeline’s significance and also how it connects neighbours with often fractious relations. Previously, under Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan had withheld gas deliveries to Kyrgyzstan as a weapon.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Thousands of Turkmen lose homes before Games

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch accused the Turkmen authorities of forcibly evicting people from their homes and for failing to give them adequate compensation. The allegations were made on the eve of the opening of the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Turkmenistan’s president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has set much store by the Games. News reports have been leaking out of the country over the past year of mass evictions to make way for Games’ infrastructure. The Turkmen government has not responded.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Lola Karimova quits UN job

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AUG. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a speech in Samarkand, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, second daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, said that she would step down as the country’s representative to UNESCO. Instead, she said, she wanted to concentrate on running the charity named after her father. Karimova-Tillyaeva is currently based in Europe. She has fallen out with her elder sister Gulnara Karimova who has been kept under house arrest in Tashkent since March 2014. Islam Karimov died in September 2016 after ruling the country since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Forest fire rages in Azerbaijan

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has sent 520 soldiers to help try and put out forest fires around the city of Gabala, media reported. The emergencies ministry has said that high winds and unseasonably hot temperatures had whipped up the fires. Fire teams across Georgia and Armenia have also been dealing with forest fires this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Bomdardier-Azerbaijan corruption trial begins

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SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial started in Stockholm of Evegny Pavlov, a 37-year-old Russian national, who is accused of bribing Azerbaijani officials in 2013 to win a $340m contract for Canadian train maker Bombardier.

Mr Pavlov was head of the Baku office of Bombardier, reporting to the company’s Europe office in Stockholm when it won a contract to replace and install train signals across Azerbaijan.

It had partnered with an unknown Azerbaijani company called Trans-Signal-Rabita to win the contract. Trans-Signal-Rabita was owned by employees of the Azerbaijani ministry of transport awarding the contract.

His lawyers have argued that he was too junior to influence the process and that any corruption issues lie higher up. Bombardier has denied any wrongdoing.

Five other Bombardier employees have been described as suspects, including Peter Cedervall, a senior official in the Stockholm office.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Israeli drone-maker may have attacked Armenian soldiers

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AUG. 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) –The Israeli government has suspended the licence of weapons manufacturer Aeronautics Defense Systems for allegedly showing off a new drone weapon to Azerbaijani clients by attacking Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The case shows both the growing military partnership between Israel and Azerbaijan and also the lengths that Israeli defence companies will go to win contracts with their Azerbaijani counterparts.

Aeronautics Defense Systems made the disclosure to the Israeli stock market.
“The Defense Ministry’s Defense Export Controls Agency informed the company that it was suspending the marketing and export permit for the company’s Orbiter 1K model UAV to a significant customer,” it said in a statement.

A couple of weeks earlier, Israeli newspaper had reported on a leaked complaint made to the Israeli defence ministry. It said that officials from Aeronautics Defense Systems had travelled to Azerbaijan in July to show off their Orbiter 1K suicide drone that is packed with explosives and deliberately flown into an enemy position.

During the demonstration, the reports said, Azerbaijani officials asked Aeronautics Defense Systems to attack an Armenian position in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The two controllers of the drone refused but two other members of the Aeronautics Defense Systems team took the controls and attacked the Armenian position.

The alliance between Azerbaijan and Israel has been growing. Azerbaijan is one of the biggest importers of Israeli military kit and in 2012 Israel also reportedly made a deal with Azerbaijan to use its airbases in a preemptive attack on neighbouring Iran.
Armenia-backed forces currently control the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which hey fought over in the 1990s.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Georgia closes second school linked to Gulen

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TBILISI, AUG. 360 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Georgia closed a second school linked to Turkey’s Gulen movement, nearly four months after they detained one of its senior staff members and accused him of being linked to terrorism.
Turkey has pressured its neighbours into arresting and deporting people it has linked to a failed coup last year that it blames on so-called Gulenists. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have, so far, refused to bend to the pressure but Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and, increasingly, Georgia have acquiesced.
In an interview with the Georgia-based Open Caucasus Media, Gia Murghulia, deputy head of the education ministry’s Council of Authorisation of Secondary Schools said that it had revoked a licence for the private Demirel College in Tbilisi.
He insisted, though, that the school had been closed for teaching failures and not for any political reasons.
“We are not interested in political aspects,” he was quoted as saying.
Others were sceptical and said that the closure was political.
In May, Mustafa Cabuk, a Turkish manager at the school was detained for his alleged links to the Gulen movement. He has since been fighting extradition attempts, saying that he would be tortured if he was sent back to Turkey.
Georgia has also revoked the licence of a school in Batumi linked to the Gulen network and detained a Turkish businessman.
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gulenists, followers of the exiled of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, headed out from Turkey and set up a series of schools and universities across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Georgia has been fostering increasingly close ties with Turkey. It jointly hosts a gas pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Europe, is developing commercial interests and hosts joint military exercises.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)