AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has started prosecuting people working in public offices allegedly linked to the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen who Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of orchestrating a coup attempt against him in July, media reported. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s strongest ally in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)
AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)
AUG. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to 9.5% from 7%, its highest level since 2008, in an effort to bolster its currency.
Azerbaijan’s economy is based on oil, meaning that a fall in prices has hit its economy hard. Analysts have predicted a recession this year, the first since the 1990s.
The manat currency was devalued twice last year. It had been strengthening throughout 2016 but has lost around 10% of its value since June and is, according to Bloomberg, now one of the five worst performing currencies. The Central Bank increased its key interest rate to 5% from 3% in February.
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(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)
JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italy’s Snam could make an offer to buy 17% of Greek gas distributor DESFA by the end of September, salvaging plans by Azerbaijan’s SOCAR to buy Greece’s pipeline network.
Earlier this month, SOCAR officials had suggested the deal, which is considered vital for Azerbaijani aspirations to supply gas to Europe, was off because a lower-than-expected
price rise by the Greece government for consumers had undermined its value.
But Stergios Pitsiorlas, chairman of the state Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, told Bloomberg that the Snam-SOCAR tandem will buy a 66% share in DESFA.
Snam declined to comment.
SOCAR officials flew into Athens this week to discuss the deal. News reports from both Greece and Azerbaijan have called the negotiations ‘tense’.
In 2013, SOCAR won a bid to buy 66% of DESFA, Greece’s gas distributor.
The deal was later frozen by the European Commission, citing 2009 regulation which stops integration between gas suppliers and distributors.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it will postpone its decision to increase its stake in Holcim Azerbaijan, a cement company. The EBRD already owns a 10% stake in the company. Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim (66%), Germany’s Holcim (10%) and other private investors (14%) own the rest of the company. The EBRD said it will wait until September to take a decision.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An explosion killed at least two workers and injured at least 22 at an arms factory near Baku.
Officially the number of dead and injured from the blast has not risen since the initial assessment but workers said that many more could have been trapped inside.
Azerbaijan’s ministry of defence, which owns the factory in the town of Shrivan, said: “Sparks from the last batch of military products earmarked for disposal caused the explosion.”
The State Prosecutor said it was evaluating whether to open a criminal investigation.
Azerbaijan buys most of its armaments from Russia, where it also sends some of its old arms for disposal. Over the last few years, though, it has developed its own weapons manufacturing sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish authorities have arrested Sadettin Korkut, former CEO of Petkim, an Azerbaijan-owned refinery on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, in what media said was part of a purge of people linked to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen (July 28).
Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR dismissed the claim, saying that the arrest was linked to a spat with another employee of SOCAR Turkey Enerji, its Turkish subsidiary.
Mr Korkut had resigned as CEO, a position he had held for four years, the day before he was arrested. Twenty-seven other employees of SOCAR’s Turkish subsidiary, which operates the Petkim refinery, were also sacked at the same time.
Turkish media immediately linked the arrest and the sackings to the Gulenist movement, which they dub a terrorist network.
“Around 200 workers from Petkim and related companies were sacked due to their alleged ties to the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO),” the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Around 60,000 public sector employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen were arrested in Turkey in the aftermath of an attempted military coup on July 15. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Mr Gulen of masterminding the coup from his exile in the US.
Azerbaijan is one of Turkey’s strongest allies. It backed the arrest.
“SOCAR’s management believes that Turkey will become stronger after these difficult days. We will continue to operate and invest in Turkey with all of our energy,” Vagif Aliyev, CEO of SOCAR Turkey Enerji said in a statement.
SOCAR Turkey Enerji and SOCAR Turkey Petrokimiya own a majority stake in Petkim.
Anar Mammadov, head of SOCAR’s Greek subsidiary, has been appointed new CEO of Petkim.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >>So, we know that the Gulen movement was big in Turkey but in Central Asia? Really? How deep is it and what does it do?
>> The movement, created by cleric Fethullah Gulen, is a social and religious group that has said it wants to integrate moderate Islam into the secular Turkish state and to replicate the model in other Muslim countries. The movement counts millions of followers. As it puts great emphasis on education and upward social mobility, the movement established a network of schools around the world, including in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
>>OK, but who is Gulen? Wasn’t he an ally of Erdogan?
>> Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan found in Gulen a strong ally when he came to power in 2003, a bulwark against a possible military backlash, something that had dogged Turkish leaders for half a century. Gulen and Erdogan, though, fell out in 2013, when a corruption scandal targeting members of Mr Erdogan’s ruling AKP party emerged. Mr Erdogan and others in his party alleged that the Gulenist members of the judiciary had orchestrated the scandal. Since then the government has cracked down on Gulenists in Turkey. Mr Gulen has lived in the United States since 1999 in a self-imposed exile. Now, after a failed coup in Turkey last month blamed on Gulen, Turkey has said it could ask the US government for the extradition of Gulen. Since the coup, Turkish police have detained over 60,000 state employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen allegedly linked to the Gulen movement.
>>Quiete a full-on assault. Will Turkey now force a crackdown on Gulen- linked institutions in Central Asia and South Caucasus?
>> In short, this bureau and the analysts we contacted all agree that Turkey will not go as far as to sever relations with countries that don’t respond to the request to shut down Gulen-linked schools. Apart from Azerbaijan, all other countries are loosely linked with Turkey. Plus, as shown in our story on page 3, these schools are a relative island of quality and reliability in the South Caucasus and Central Asia’s messy educational system. Both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have shrugged off Turkey’s requests to shut down Gulen- linked schools. Georgia appears also to have pretty much ignored Turkey’s request. Only Azerbaijan, Turkey’s super-tight ally, has gone along with Turkey’s request and closed down a TV station that had planned to run an interview with Gulen and brought under government control a university linked to the Gulen movement.
>>OK, but what about the businesses linked to Gulen?
>> The closest business link between Gulenists and the South Caucasus seems to have been uprooted immediately, with the sacking of Sadettin Korkut, chief of Petkim, a petrochemical complex in Izmir, owned by Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR (See the front page of the Business News). It appears that SOCAR was also keeping a list of Gulen-linked people among its ranks. Together with Korkut, who was later arrested, around 200 other employees of SOCAR-linked companies were sacked. This, however, appears to be a one-off act of loyalty from Azerbaijan’s government to Ankara.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is negotiating financing TAP, a trans-Adriatic gas pipeline which forms part of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor network that will pump Azerbaijani gas to Europe. In an interview with AP, the EBRD said it is looking to invest €500m ($550m) in the project. Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR (20%), BP (20%), Italy’s Snam (20%), Belgium’s Fluxys (19%), Spain’s Enagas (16%), and Switzerland’s Axpo (5%) own TAP.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijanis will vote in a referendum on Sept. 26 on reforms to the Constitution proposed by President Ilham Aliyev that he says will create a stronger country but his opponents have said are designed to boost his own powers.
Mr Aliyev set the date for a referendum after formal approval from the Constitutional Court.
Among the proposed changes are the extension of presidential terms from five to seven years, the creation of the new positions of first vice- president and vice-president, and the abolition of the 35-year-old minimum age for presidential candidates.
As well as tinkering with the constitution, Mr Aliyev may be using the vote as a show of strength at a fragile time for his presidency. Azerbaijan’s GDP is set to shrink this year for the first time since 1995, inflation is rising and all-important oil exports have slowed. Earlier this year unprecedented anti-government demonstrations across the country shook the Azerbaijani establishment and demonstrated the depth of frustration felt by ordinary people.
Still, it is likely that the proposed reforms will be passed because of the generally high level of support for Mr Aliyev and also because he has purged his opponents over the last few years. Even so, on the streets of Baku candid opinion was divided over the merits of the proposed reforms.
Talking to the US-funded RFE/RL, a retiree said the changes were a good idea.
“The nation knows the president very well, so why bother with holding elections that often,” he said.
But not everyone is equally enthu- siastic. Some of the changes appear designed to limit free speech, specifically making it more difficult for people to gather in public.
Gulnur, a 29-year-old project manager, said she would vote against the changes.
“I am totally against constitutional changes which will hand extra power to this already long-running dictator,” she told The Conway Bulletin’s Azerbaijan correspondent. “To be honest, I have lost so much hope for any good changes in Azerbaijan.”
A 2009 referendum scrapped a two-term limit, allowing Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father in 2003, to be president-for-life.
Azerbaijan has never held an election considered free and fair by Western election observers.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
