Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

Kazakhstan’s wheat shipment arrives in Vietnam

MARCH 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The first shipment of wheat from Kazakhstan reached Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam on March 4, the website of Kazakh PM Bakytzhan Sagintayev said. At a ceremony in Ho Chi Minh City, the Kazakh ambassador to Vietnam said part of the importance of the shipment of wheat reaching Vietnam was to test the transit route from Central Asia, across China and down to south-east Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Azerbaijan quits EITI governance body after being suspended

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MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan quit the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a governance watchdog used as a guide by financial institutions to decide whether to give out loans, 24 hours after its membership was suspended for failing to meet a number of demands.

By quitting the EITI, Azerbaijan risks jeopardising multi-billion-dollar loans from financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank to build a $46b gas pipeline to Europe.

Announcing Azerbaijan’s decision to quit the EITI, Shahmar Movsumov, head of the SOFAZ, Azerbaijan’s state oil fund and the country’s top representative at the EITI, said the EITI had been infiltrated by groups which have shifted its agenda away from transparency in the extractive industries towards concerns about human rights and media freedom.

“We consider the Board’s decision on suspension of Azerbaijan as an unfair one,” he said. “The irrelevant facts introduced by different advocacy groups on various occasions show that the Initiative failed to stick to its original mission and objectives.”

The day before at its meeting in Bogota, the EITI had suspended Azerbaijan’s membership for failing to make sufficient progress in improving human right and NGO freedoms.

The move was welcomed by rights campaigners. Tom Mayne, a freelance consultant, said the EITI needed to throw Azerbaijan out of the group to retain its credibility.

“Transparency of oil revenues and respect for civil society go hand in hand, and both the EITI and independent observers have ruled that Azerbaijan has not created the space for free and open discussion of what happens to oil revenues,” he said.

The EITI is based in Oslo. It was set up in 2003 with the aim of setting “the international standard for transparency and accountability around a country’s oil, gas and mineral resources”.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Car ownership in Kazakhstan rises up 400%

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MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of registered cars in Kazakhstan has nearly quadrupled since 2000, media reported quoting interior ministry figures. It said that there were now 4.4m cars registered in Kazakhstan, compared to 1.3m in 2000. Environmentalists have said that in Almaty, the thick smog that hovers over the city is, at least partially, linked to the high car use. There have been calls to try and curb car ownership in Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Uzbekistan’s Mirziyoyev chooses Turkmenistan for first foreign trip

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MARCH 6/7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev travelled to Turkmenistan, his first overseas trip as Uzbekistan’s leader, opening a new railway bridge and pledging to boost cooperation in the energy sector.

By visiting Ashgabat ahead of other potential first stops as president, Mr Mirziyoyev sends a strong signal that he wants to improve relations with Turkmenistan which had been functional rather than particularly friendly under his predecessor, Islam Karimov.

And the good vibes and determination to get on and improve bilateral relations appeared to be mutual. Both Mr Mirziyoyev and Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov smiled broadly during the opening of a new railway bridge crossing the arid landscape around the Amu-Darya river near the border town of Turkmenabat.

It will replace a bridge built in 1901. They also unveiled a new bust of Karimov, who died in September.

In a statement, the Uzbek government said: “The President of our country underlined that these bridges symbolise the friendship of our peoples and have a geo-strategic significance not only for Turkmenistan, but also for the whole region.”

It’s in the interests of both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to promote trade with their southern neighbours. They want to develop a route south to the Gulf states to send gas, wheat and cotton.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

SCO chief: India & Pakistan will join within three months

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ALMATY, MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — India and Pakistan could become members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) by June, its Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said in a message that will raise concern in the West about the growing influence of the Russia and China-led security and economic alliance.

If, or perhaps when, India and Pakistan, join the SCO it will give the organisation leverage over roughly 40% of the world’s population and extend its geographical focus away from Central Asia towards South Asia.

Mr Alimov, Tajikistan’s former ambassador to Beijing who has been heading the SCO’s secretariat since 2016, put out the statement on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

There has been no official confirmation of Mr Alimov’s message but last year both Pakistan and India did sign an agreement pledging to join the six member group by the end of 2017. On June 8/9, the SCO plans to hold its annual summit in Astana.

Some analysts in the West have previously likened the SCO to an Asian version of NATO, set up to act as an alternative global rallying point to the West. Other observers have said that the comparison is off the mark and that the SCO is a long way off being as developed a military alliance as NATO.

Alongside Russia and China, the SCO members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia also have ‘observer’ status in the SCO, which is headquartered in Beijing and was set up in 2001.

The SCO holds war exercises, hosts diplomatic and governmental get-togethers and shares intelligence between members. It also promotes economic cooperation, allowing China to invest in Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Kyrgyz opposition appoints Tekebayev as presidential candidate

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MARCH 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz opposition group Ata- Meken appointed Omur Tekebayev, arrested last week at the airport for alleged corruption around a telecoms deal in 2010, its presidential candidate for an election set for November (March 5). Ata-Meken have said that the corruption allegations against Mr Tekebayev and other members of Ata-Meken were politically motivated.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR buys oil tankers

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MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Socar, Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company, bought seven large oil tankers from Turkey-based Palmali last month to boost trade capacity in the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean. In an interview with Reuters, Arzu Azimov, head of the Geneva-based Socar Trading, said the company wanted to boost its shipping capacity. Socar Trading now owns 37 tankers, although most of these are significantly smaller than the large tankers it has just bought.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Uzbekistan deports BBC reporter

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MARCH 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — BBC journalist Hamid Ismailov said he was detained and deported when he tried to enter Uzbekistan through Tashkent airport (March 4). Under Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took over as president in September 2016, Uzbekistan has appeared to become marginally more free.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 4 2017)

Georgian and Euro courts argue over TV channel

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TBILISI, MARCH 2/3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) clashed with Georgia’s Supreme Court after it ordered an opposition TV station to be turned over to a pro-government businessman.

The day after the Georgian Supreme Court’s decision, which free speech activists branded an authoritarian move aimed at gagging Georgia’s most popular TV channel Rustavi-2, the ECHR overruled it and suspend its judgment for a week, an order Georgia’s justice ministry grumpily said it would comply with.

“We will follow this procedure,” Reuters quoted Georgian justice minister Tea Tsulukiani as saying.

The row over the ownership of Rustavi-2 has been moving through Georgia’s courts since 2015. It has focused on a claim by Kibar Khalvashi, a businessman sympathetic to the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, that he had been forced by the government of Mikheil Saakashvili to give up ownership of the TV channel.

On March 2, after several rounds in courts, the Supreme Court ruled that Rustavi-2 should be handed over to Mr Khalvashi.

For Europe, the OSCE and the United States, the forceful switch of Rustavi-2’s ownership to an owner sympathetic to the government was yet more proof that the Georgian Dream has politicised the courts. They have previously accused the Georgian Dream, which has ruled Georgia since 2012, of using the courts to imprison its opponents, claims it has denied,

In a thinly coded warning, the OSCE’s media chief Dunja Mijatovic said: “Possible attempts to influence the editorial policy of Rustavi-2, a major independent media outlet, would seriously undermine the pluralistic media environment.”

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Azerbaijani court sends blogger to prison

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MARCH 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Azerbaijan imprisoned a blogger known for criticising the government, drawing fresh criticism from media and human rights activists who have complained of a crackdown on the dwindling band of dissenters (March 3).

Mehman Huseynov, known for blogs that exposed official corruption, was convicted of libel, a tactic that his supporters say has been used by the Azerbaijani authorities to silence journalists, lawyers, opposition activists and NGO workers.

A group of 24 human rights organisations signed a joint letter calling for Huseynov to be released.

“Today’s sentencing and jailing of Mehman Huseynov is outrageous – another example of Azerbaijan’s best and brightest being targeted for expressing opinions critical of the ruling Aliyev regime,” Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.

“It also shows that nothing has changed since the release of a number of high-profile political prisoners last year.”

Members of the European Parliament have clashed with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev over his treatment of dissenters, although the European Union has dodged taking any official action. It needs to keep relations with Azerbaijan strong as it plans to buy most of its gas from the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea.

Huseynov said on Jan. 9 that police had detained him for verbally abusing a passerby. He said that the police had then beaten him for resisting arrest.

The next day, on Jan. 10, police arrested Huseynov for slander linked to, what they said, were his false allegations that they had beaten him.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)