JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is looking to build and launch its first satellite, all with Chinese support, media reported. The deal highlights the increased reach of China across the South Caucasus and Central Asia. It is increasingly turning to soft power — building roads and helping with technology — to win favour.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
YEREVAN/Armenia, JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia intends to honour Anastas Mikoyan, a senior member of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s government, by erecting a statue of him in the centre of Yerevan.
Many Armenians, though, are appalled by the decision to build a statue to Mikoyan — a man accused of signing the death warrants of hundreds of his countrymen in the 1930s during the so-called purges. They suspect it is part of a wider plot to curry favour with Russia where Stalin and his associates have experienced something of a resurgence in popularity.
Armenia views Russia as a key ally, ensuring that there is a military balance with Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus and offering the sugar-sweet potential of joining its Eurasian Economic Union, which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus.
With a hint of dry irony, Alina Abrahamyan, a 35-year-old historian, said: “This is another brilliant example of crawling under Moscow’s feet. Or it is just Moscow’s decision to erect Mikoyan’s monument in its Armenian suburb?”
Mikoyan was a Bolshevik and Soviet statesman who served under Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev. Mikoyan was the only Soviet politician to remain at the highest levels of power within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and some revere him for this.
Some others also say that Mikoyan was an adept politician who was able to argue the Soviet Union’s position among the top statesmen of the day.
“Mikoyan was a politician equal to Churchill. It was due to him that the world escaped a third World War, as he was the famously able to calm the Caribbean tensions down,” 70-year-old Maya Manouelian said. “But at the same time we know that he signed executions of so many Armenians. He, though, did not have an alternative as his political status forced him to do it.”
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)
JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing two of its soldiers along the border of the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh, raising tension around one of the South Caucasus most delicately-balanced flash-points.
Shootouts are common between the two countries around Nagorno-Karabakh, where a barely discernible peace is held together by a fragile 1994 UN-negotiated cease-fire, but the heightened war-mongering rhetoric from Armenia alarmed international observers.
Azerbaijan denied the accusations.
Both sides are playing to their internal audience. The problem for Armenia is that the rhetoric has serious geopolitical implications.
It wants to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union which also counts Belarus and Kazakhstan as members. Armenia has the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Its dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has, though, caused some consternation. Media reported that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev raised objections to Armenia’s membership because of its dispute over Nagorno- Karabakh a the signing ceremony last month.
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)
JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament ratified a $100m loan from the Asian Development Bank that will be used to finance the construction of a road that will improve transport links between the north and the south of the country. The road, linking Talin and Lanjik, is considered an important part of the general infrastructure upgrade.
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)
JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov has criticised the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union as a thinly disguised effort to create a broader political group.
Mr Karimov is, perhaps, the first leader from Central Asia to offer such brazen criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects.
Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg reported Mr Karimov saying that joining the Eurasian Economic Union would mean losing national independence.
“They say that they will only create an economic market and it won’t relinquish sovereignty and independence. Tell me, can political independence exist without economic independence?” Mr Karimov said according to 24.kg.
Of course, Uzbekistan is the most unilateral of the Central Asian countries and criticism from Tashkent of the Eurasian Economic Union is not unexpected but Mr Karimov’s comments are particularly barbed and the timing poignant.
Alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are also members of the Eurasian Economic Union which was signed into existence last month at a ceremony in Astana. But Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are all eager to join.
Many Western analysts have said that despite assurances from Mr Putin, the Eurasian Economic Union is little more than a thinly veiled effort by the Kremlin to extend its political power. Clearly Mr Karimov shares these views.
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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)
MAY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is considering dropping visa requirements for US citizens, media quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Manasarian as saying. Earlier this year Armenia allowed EU citizens to stay 90 days without a visa after the EU relaxed rules for Armenians.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on June 4 2014)
MAY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is considering dropping visa requirements for US citizens, media quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Manasarian as saying. Earlier this year Armenia allowed EU citizens to stay 90 days without a visa after the EU relaxed rules for Armenians.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Consumer prices in May fell by 0.8% compared to April, media reported. Food price deflation was the main driver of the overall drop, the national statistics office reported. It did not explain why food prices had dropped. Overall year-on-year inflation for end- April was 3.6%.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian president Vladimir Putin threw his support behind Armenia’s planned entry into the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU). Media quoted Mr Putin as saying that Armenia should become a member as soon as possible. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are currently the only members of the EaEU. Kyrgyzstan also wants to become an EaEU member.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Astana, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed into existence the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU).
The EaEU is the successor of the Customs Union and is designed to further integrate its members’ economies. The rhetoric has been of high praise for the EaEU but the reaction on the street has been markedly different, as a correspondent for The Bulletin discovered in Almaty.
Berik, a 35-year-old office worker wasn’t even sure of the treaty. “Who are the parties involved?” he said. “Belarus and Russia. I’m not sure, with them it could go either way. It could either be a success or a failure.”
An ethnic Russian lady hurrying along the street also said she doubted the value of the group. “It would have been better if they had not signed the treaty,” she said.
Other people agreed. Most had either not heard of the EaEU or said they doubted it would be positive.
One of the few people to support the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union was Saken a 50-year-old man who worked in real estate. He said that Soviet era ties remained and that the union would be stronger than if countries pursued their own agendas.
“In the Eurasian Union we will welcome troubled countries like Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, who are not really as stable as we are, but we will definitely help them, with the same friendship we used to relate to each other during the Soviet era,” he said.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
