FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Customs officials in Malta detained a hunter returning from a trip to Azerbaijan after he tried to smuggle 50 dead birds into the country, media reported. Fifteen of the birds — which included bustards, tits, egrets and wildfowl — are listed as protected species.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Baku between Indian and Azerbaijani officials both sides talked up the importance of a south-north transport corridor.
The idea is to bolster trade through a route that runs from Mumbai to Bandar Abbas in Iran on the Persian Gulf by boat and then on to Azerbaijan by train and into Russia.
Cooperation between India and Azerbaijan has increased over the past couple of years and E.M.S. Natchiappan, the Indian minister for commerce, said this was key to the new trade route.
“The two countries have the requisite momentum to take the relationship to next level,” he said. “Completion of the corridor will lead to mutually beneficial connectivity between the two regions.”
Not only is the plan important for regional commerce but it is also important for regional stability. A busy trade route with India may help smooth over their varying differences between Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
Mr Natchiappan said India would test out the suitability of the route later this year.
In 2013, India’s state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh bought a 2.72% stake in Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field and a 2.36% stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline for $1b from Hess Corp., a US company.
This was an important deal for India because it had been looking to boost its energy reserves after being rebuffed by Kazakhstan. It was also an important deal for Azerbaijan which has wanted to diversify its energy client base and pull in a new trade partner.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The final US aerial re-fuelling tanker supporting military missions in Afghanistan took off from the Manas airbase outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the US military said. According to US data, re-fuelling tankers have flown 33,000 missions from Manas. The US military is quitting Manas this year.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan chalked up a diplomatic success when the government of Honduras in Central America passed a motion earlier this year condemning Armenian aggression in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani media reported. Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia in the early 1990s. Watch out for fresh investment in Honduras by Azerbaijan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran’s ambassador in Uzbekistan, Ali Mardan-Fard, said trade between the two countries would jump to $1b by the end of the year, tripling the turnover in 2013, media reported. Mr Mardan-Fard said Iran’s gradual opening up to the West and Uzbekistan’s position as a through path to Europe were driving the expansion.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili made his first trip to Baku since taking over the presidency in November. At a press briefing after meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Mr Margvelashvili said Georgia and Azerbaijan were part of a bridge linking Asia and Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — After weeks of pressure it was Uzbek officials who, officially at least, cancelled a planned trip by President Islam Karimov, to Prague planned for Feb. 20-22.
Human rights activists had urged Czech president Milos Zeman to cancel the trip before Mr Karimov.
They argued that Mr Karimov’s human rights abuses were too deep to be overlooked but Mr Zeman had refused to back down. He said the invitation was a reciprocal deal because the Czech Republic’s president in 2004 had travelled to Tashkent at Mr Karimov’s invitation.
A trip to the EU would have been something of a coup for Mr Karimov. He has tried to reintegrate back into the international community since they turned their backs on him after soldiers allegedly shot hundreds of demonstrators in a town in eastern Uzbekistan in 2005.
Since then, though, NATO countries have wooed Mr Karimov to help extract their military kit from neighbouring Afghanistan. In 2011, Mr Karimov visited NATO and EU headquarters in Brussels and in 2013 he visited Latvia, then the rotating head of the EU.
But, while Mr Zeman couldn’t be deterred from meeting Mr Karimov, Czech government ministers could. What appears to have tipped Uzbek officials into cancelling the trip was various Czech ministers pulling out of meetings leaving Mr Karimov with nobody, other than Mr Zeman, to meet.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan and Iran signed a deal to improve cargo and passenger communication between the two countries. The deal may only be a minor one but any agreement between these two neighbours is important. Tension between the two sides has been rising over the past two or three years.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) –Azerbaijan accused the United States of spying after two US officials visited a high-profile Azerbaijani opposition journalist.
Khadija Ismayilova, a journalist for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said the authorities had accused her of giving dossiers on opposition politicians and other prominent figures to US government officials masquerading as US senators.
The accusations are important for a handful of reasons.
Firstly, it betrays Azerbaijan’s nervousness and paranoia. The US is meant to be an increasingly close post-Soviet ally and yet here it is accused of spying. The United States denied accusations that it had been spying on Azerbaijan.
Secondly, the accusations also have the tinge of a vendetta. The authorities in Azerbaijan dislike Ms Ismayilova and her work.
Ms Ismayilova is a relatively widely known investigative journalist who has revealed alleged corrupt government schemes. In 2012, video and pictures of Ms Ismayilova having sex appeared on the internet. They were taken with a camera secretly installed in her home. She accused the authorities of blackmail and intimidation.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan intends to use the inaugural European Games in Baku next year to build its case to hold the 2024 Olympic Games, Azad Rahimov, the Azerbaijani sports minister told reporters at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Azerbaijan has twice bid to host the Olympics. It failed to make the short-list on both occasions.
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(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)
