JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Czech Republic should cancel an invitation to Uzbek President Islam Karimov to visit Prague later this month because of its poor human rights record. HRW accuses Mr Karimov of presiding over a regime that uses torture.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament ratified a deal that will simplify visa rules for EU citizens.
From October, Azerbaijani media quoted various government officials as saying, the cost of a visa for Azerbaijan will roughly half and the time it takes to get a visa will also be reduced.
This is undoubtedly good news for Azerbaijan. Visas in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have become a geopolitical issue. A few years ago, Georgia scrapped all visa requirements for EU citizens, a move that Kyrgyzstan followed in 2012. Kazakhstan has also said that it is considering dropping or heavily reducing visa requirements for citizens from a clutch of countries.
Azerbaijan, though, had been going the other way, although it is some way off the restrictive visa regimes of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Until 2010, EU citizens travelling to Azerbaijan had been able to buy a visa on arrival at Baku airport. That was abruptly scrapped without explanation.
This new deal is an important corrective step.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia unveiled a so-called road map to joining the Russia-led Customs Union by September 2014. Last year Armenia elected to join the Customs Union ahead of further integration with the EU. Importantly, though, this move did not set off the anti-government protests that have rocked Kiev in the past few weeks.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Delegations from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan continued their discussions on how best to delineate their troublesome border. This was the second Uzbek-Kyrgyz border meeting in January. Last year tension flared between the two sides around a disputed border area.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EU Special Representative for Central Asia Patricia Flor travelled to Uzbekistan for the fourth time in 18 months.
Ms Flor met ministers and civil society leaders but not President Islam Karimov. The importance of another mission to Tashkent by Ms Flor is precisely that. It underlines Uzbekistan’s re-emergence in the international arena.
And this is most obviously down to Uzbekistan becoming the fulcrum for NATO’s co-called Northern Distribution Network to move its military kit out of neighbouring Afghanistan and back to Europe.
There has not been a discernible shift in Uzbekistan’s human rights record since government forces allegedly killed hundreds of people at a demonstration in Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan in 2005.
Instead realpolitik has elevated Uzbekistan. Last year, Mr Karimov visited Latvia when it held the rotating EU presidency and next month he travels to Prague. These are important successes for Mr Karimov.
While she was in Tashkent, Mr Flor underlined the EU’s belief in human rights and the rule of law. These are busy times in Uzbekistan for the EU and NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — French President François Hollande will visit Azerbaijan in May, media reported. France is a major investor in Azerbaijan and has played a relatively active role in the politics of the region. Mr Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, visited Baku in October 2011 during a tour of the Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will hand out visas more easily to foreign investors, media reported. Under the new rules, signed by Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Jan. 20, foreign investors will be able to obtain a multiple entry visa for their entire investment period rather than three-month-long single entry visas. This is, potentially, good news for foreign investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili, flew to Israel for a two day visit. During a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Garibashvili signed a bilateral trade deal aimed at expanding ties between the two sides. This was the second high profile Georgian visit to Israel since June 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Paris to continue their glacier-slow peace talks over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. In the region, though, reports said that there had been an increase in the number of shootouts between the two sides. Both sides reported casualties.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh defence minister Adilbek Dzhaksybekov flew to Tel Aviv to sign a military deal with his Israeli counterpart Moshe Ya’alon. Media reported the two states would hold joint military exercises and that Kazakhstan would buy various Israeli-made weapons. Kazakhstan has said it wants to modernise its military.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
