May 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A landslide in Georgia damaged a pipeline, temporarily cutting off gas supplies to Armenia, media reported. It’s unclear how serious the damage caused by the landslide is or when gas supplies through the pipeline will resume. Gazprom Armenia said it had enough reserves to cover the shortfall from the pipeline
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Momentum appears to be building for Georgia’s NATO entry, or at least a move in that direction.
William Hague, the British foreign minister, visited Tbilisi and spoke of his support for “Georgia’s Euro- Atlantic trajectory, for its territorial integrity and for its democratic process”. His visit was part of a trip to Ukraine and Moldova too and followed trips from the French and German foreign ministers to Tbilisi.
In 2008, at a summit in Bucharest, NATO said that one day Georgia would be a NATO member. What it didn’t say, though, was when.
Since then, Georgia has been waiting for it membership card. It has supported various NATO initiatives, including the war in Afghanistan. It had hoped that perhaps a summit in Wales later this year may be the entry point, although that notion has been dashed by various NATO officials.
At the same time as Mr Hague was in Tbilisi, Georgia’s defence foreign minister, Irakli Alasania, was in Washington visiting the US defence secretary Chuck Hagel.
And if that wasn’t enough Western diplomatic handshaking, French President Francois Hollande turned up on May 13 on the final stop of his tour of the South Caucasus. Again, Georgia’s potential integration topped the agenda.
Despite some reservations by some NATO members, the crisis in Ukraine appears to have created a real opportunity for Georgia. If Georgia can maintain the forward momentum it has generated over the past couple of weeks, NATO membership may not be far off.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has started work on a thermal power plant that will provide power to the south of the country as well as exporting electricity to neighbouring Afghanistan, media reported. The West has been urging Turkmenistan, which is relatively stable and wealthy, to play an increased role in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip around the South Caucasus, French President Francois Hollande visited Yerevan where he met Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. He visited the construction site of the long-delayed Carrefour supermarket and called on the EU to engage with Armenia despite its proposed accession to the Russia-led Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a visit to Tashkent, US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns tried to woo Uzbekistan’s leaders by pointing to Ukraine and warning of the dangers that Russia still represents. Mr Burns said that the US’ commitment to Uzbekistan and the Central Asia region was enduring.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s government said that it had drafted a road map for its entry into the Russia-led Customs Union (CU). The economic union also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus. Armenia also plans to join this year. Kyrgyzstan’s membership of the CU should also allow Tajikistan to join.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has temporarily banned alcohol imports from Italy, France, Scotland, Belarus and Russia because some of the labelling does not meet requirements laid out by the Customs Union, media reported. It’s unclear exactly what guidelines the alcohol importers have failed to hit.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Tajik media outlet Asia Plus, Jorg Frieden, executive director at the World Bank in charge of its projects in Central Asia, underscored the eggshells the Bank and other international organisations must tread over when dealing with large scale energy projects in the region.
The Bank’s endorsement of hydroelectric projects, whether from a technical or financial point of view, is particularly important for Tajikistan, a country full of hydro potential, but with a track record of failing to attract foreign investment.
Dushanbe is also locked in a perennial conflict over its hydropower ambitions with downstream Uzbekistan. Uzbek President Islam Karimov has said that upstream dams in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan could trigger water wars if constructed.
The World Bank has already pledged $526m towards CASA-1000, a project that aims to deliver power from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to electricity-deficient Afghanistan and Pakistan further south.
Mr Frieden reiterated the bank’s support for CASA-1000 while acknowledging that Uzbekistan strongly opposed it.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appears to have triggered a minor international row by snubbing a meeting of a former Soviet military group in favour of talks with a senior US diplomat.
Mr Nazarbayev had been due to travel to Moscow for a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military group that includes Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Instead he decided to meet with the US deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, in Astana.
Officials were quick to deny there was a problem even though all the other CSTO leaders turned up in Moscow for a meeting chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr Nazarbayev was conspicuous by his absence.
Back in Astana, to make the situation even more uncomfortable for Mr Nazarbayev, diplomats told journalists that Mr Burns had asked Mr Nazarbayev to try and use his influence with Mr Putin to relax Russia’s pressure in eastern Ukraine.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – If more evidence was needed of the burgeoning Turkmenistan- China axis, last week provide it.
First, on May 7, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, sitting rather comically on an oversize gilt throne, officially opened a new gas processing plant at the Bagtyarlyk field in central Turkmenistan.
The field holds an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas which it is pumping to China, just like several other fields in Turkmenistan.
China holds exclusive rights to developing Turkmenistan’s onshore gas fields and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) paid for the new processing plant at Bagtyarlyk.
Turkmenistan’s gas exports have swelled by a fantastic proportion over the past few years. Reuters quoted a CNPC official saying that last year Turkmenistan exported 20 billion cubic metres of gas to China and that this year the amount would grow to 25bcm. He said the aim was to hit 40bcm of gas exports to China in 2016 and 65bcm in 2020 when the giant Galkynbysh field comes on stream.
According to one source, Turkmenistan already supplies a sixth of China’s gas needs.
Mr Berdymukhamedov can claim much credit for this turnaround. His predecessor was more inward looking, more enthralled with Russia. Mr Berdymukhamedov went after China as a client, a strategy which is clearly paying off.
And a few days after opening the new processing plant, Mr Berdymukhamedov was in Beijing on an invitation from the Chinese president. There he was feted as a major ally, given a state welcome and offered a strategic partnership.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
