Tag Archives: international relations

Kyrgyzstan supports the Crimean referendum

MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan threw its support behind the Crimea referendum, saying the vote reflected the will of the people. Crimea voted overwhelmingly to cede from Ukraine and join Russia earlier this month. Kyrgyzstan supported the overthrow of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich but had been careful not to offend Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Armenia inches towards the Customs Union

MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia may be able to complete all the steps needed to join the Customs Union by the end of May, Armenian PM Tigran Sargsyan said. His announcement is the clearest indication so far of when Armenia hopes to join the Customs Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Prince Harry skis at resort in Kazakhstan

MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Prince Harry, third in line to the English throne, spent a long weekend in mid-March skiing at the Kazakh ski resort of Shymbulak, the Sun newspaper reported.

Grainy photos later appeared of Prince Harry posing for photos at the bottom of the slope. He apparently flew to the top of the piste in a hired helicopter.

By design or by accident, Prince Harry’s trip to Shymbulak is the best PR that the resort could have hoped for. Only last month, Kazakhstan unveiled its bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. Shymbulak was the centrepiece of this bid.

Shymbulak is still a curious choice for Prince Harry and his girlfriend Cressida Bonas to choose for a weekend break. It’s a long way from Europe, the jet-leg is heavy and, despite Kazakh PR proclaiming the opposite, the runs are limited compared to the Alps.

Even Kazakhstan’s wealthy prefer skiing in St Moritz and Chamonix.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Kazakhstan’s president meets Obama

MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev met US president Barack Obama on the sidelines of a nuclear security conference in the Hague, the Netherlands. Other than an anodyne joint declaration on nuclear security, neither side gave details on what was discussed. Kazakhstan has supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Georgia and Russia resume talks

MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia and Russia resumed bilateral talks in Geneva aimed at repairing relations after their brief war in 2008. Analysts had speculated that Russia’s move into Crime, Ukraine, this month may have derailed the talks. Georgia has strongly criticised Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Kazakhstan builds new $55m French embassy

MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government plans to buy a new embassy building in Paris for $55m, media reported. The vice-minister for foreign affairs, Rapil Zhoshybayev, defended the purchase as value for money because the housing market in Paris is rising. Kazakhstan has been upgrading its embassies around the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Uzbek FM visits the EU

MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov flew to Brussels to attend a meeting with his EU counterparts. The trip was relatively controversial because of Uzbekistan’s poor human rights record. Uzbek President Islam Karimov cancelled a trip to Prague earlier this year because none of the minister would meet him.

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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Georgia deems Crimean vote illegal

MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili described Crimea’s referendum on independence from Ukraine as illegal, the harshest criticism of the vote yet from a former Soviet state. Two regions of Georgia — South Ossetia and Abkhazia — have held similar Russia-backed independence referendums.

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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakhstan to broadcast news in Chinese

MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state news service Kazinform said it would publish a Chinese-language website, underlining how important China has become to Kazakhstan. Over the past half a decade or so, China has increasingly become Kazakhstan’s main economic partner. It owns a third of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas reserves.

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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Azerbaijan improves ties with Iran

MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In another sign of relations between Azerbaijan and Iran improving, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and the Azerbaijani special envoy to Tehran Kamaladdin Heydarov met to discuss ties. They both stressed that relations between the two countries were improving after a tense few years.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)