Tag Archives: international relations

US and Russian military chiefs meet in Azerbaijan

FEB. 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Baku scored a diplomatic coup by hosting the first meeting of the most senior military officers in the United States and Russia since 2014.

The meeting between General Joseph Dunford, US chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, and General Valery Gerasimov, head of the Russian general staff, was scored through with extra importance as it was also the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Donald Trump became US President in January.

A statement from the Pentagon underlined its importance.

“The current sate of US-Russian military relations and the importance of consistent and clear military-to- military communication to prevent miscalculation and potential crisis (was on the agenda),” the Pentagon statement said.

Relations between the two sides have been strained over Russian military action in both Ukraine, where it is supporting pro-Moscow rebels, and in Syria, where it is supporting the forces of Syrian president Bashir Assad.

Before meeting Gen. Gerasimov, Gen. Dunford met with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani defence minister Zakir Hasanov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Armenia sends aid to Syria

FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia sent a second batch of humanitarian aid, mainly canned food, to Syria, the RFE/RL website reported. The aid was sent through the Russian military base in Syria. The food bore inscriptions in Arabic and Armenian which said: “With warm wishes for peace from Armenia to the brotherly people of Syria!” Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians, mainly living in Aleppo, have fled the civil war.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Tajikistan-Uzbekistan flight resumes

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> So what has happened? I’ve read that a commercial flight has flown between Dushanbe and Tashkent

>> Yes, that’s right. This was the first commercial flight between the Tajik and Uzbek capital since 1992. In 1992, Tajikistan was just tipping over into a civil war when commercial flights were scrapped but they were never re-instated after the war petered out a few years later. By this time Emomali Rakhmon had secured himself as the president of Tajikistan, a position he still holds. Uzbekistan was then ruled by Islam Karimov, who died in September last year. The two men loathed each other, Karimov was notoriously cantankerous and Rakhmon is quarrelsome.

>> So, the row was entirely personal?

>> Much of it was but there was also a macro-political and economic angle too. Tajikistan has long-planned to build a dam at Rogun in the Pamir Mountains. This was a Soviet-era plan that never moved from the drawing board into reality. Tajikistan, though, needed to generate more electricity and has been looking for backers for years. And this irritated Uzbekistan and Karimov who argued that the dam would damage water flows downstream where Uzbek cotton fields needed to be irrigated. At times the row became so heated that it threatened to spill over into war that may have dragged in neighbours.

>> What has changed?

>> Karimov’s death in September changed Uzbekistan’s foreign policy outlook. The new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been far more positive in promoting relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours. This has included Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The resumption of a commercial flight between the two capitals may feel a bit of a token gesture but it is actually a very significant step forward for bilateral relations. Rakhmon actually invited Mirziyoyev to Dushanbe for a bilateral meeting last month. This was something that would have been unimaginable under Karimov.

>> And now that flights have resumed, what can we expect?

>> The first flight was operated by Somon Air, a Tajik airline. It is likely that the airline will look to set up a regular service between the two cities. And just making that link, just having it there, is an important part of the heeling process for the region. It’s blighted by complex borders, thanks Stalin, and disparate pockets of ethnic groups, making travel links important. This is especially so between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Many of the people living in Uzbekistan are ethnic Tajiks. Previously, to travel between the two cities, people had to make tortuous road trips that would take days.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Azerbaijan tries to close OSCE office in Armenia

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United States warned Azerbaijan that it shouldn’t try to force the closure of the OSCE office in Yerevan, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported. It said that Azerbaijan may be trying to close Europe’s main security and democracy watchdog after it voted against extending its mission because it was based in Yerevan. The OSCE is heavily involved with monitoring a ceasefire around Nagorno-Karabakh, disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Azerbaijan closed the OSCE office in Baku in 2015.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Tajik president travels to Qatar

FEB. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon travelled to Qatar for a two day state visit with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Mr Rakhmon has said that he wants to attract more investment from Qatar and other Arab countries in Tajikistan’s tourism and hydropower sectors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Kyrgyzstan to sign deal with EU

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan and the EU may sign a new general cooperation agreement next week to replace a deal that has not been updated for 20 years, media reported by quoting the EU ambassador in Bishkek, Cesare de Montis, as saying. There is an element of window dressing in this deal but it is still an important agreement for Kyrgyzstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Belarus deports Russian blogger to Azerbaijan

FEB. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Belarus extradited Russian travel blogger Alexander Lapshin to Baku to face charges of supporting Armenia- backed rebels in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Free speech activists have said thatMr Lapshin’s arrest and extradition are symptomatic of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s authoritarian tendencies.

And in rare move, Russia released a statement criticising the blogger’s arrest.

Mr Lapshin is a relatively popular blogger who is better known for whimsical asides about his travel exploits and his travel pictures rather than his political musings. He travels on three different passports — Russian, Ukrainian and Israeli — and reportedly travelled to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2011 and 2012.

It is not clear why Mr Laphin’s trips to the region would have upset Azerbaijan and its authorities so much.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Georgia tempts rebel areas with EU visa-free access

TBILISI, FEB. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia was accused of baiting its rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with its recently won visa-free access to the European Union.

The row is a reminder to the EU that closer ties with Georgia come with attachments to the Georgia Russia stand-off over the two Georgian breakaway states. Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the two regions less than a decade ago which ended in Russian soldiers temporarily occupying part of Georgia and the Kremlin recognising both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent.

In a speech shortly after the Euro- pean Parliament voted to approve 90-day visa-free access to Georgia and Ukraine to the 26-nation Schengen Area, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said that people living in the breakaway regions could also enjoy the easier access to the EU if they reapplied for a Georgian passport.

“We are happy that our Abkhazian and Ossetian citizens will join us in enjoying every benefit offered by close relations with Europe,” he said. The rebel regions were not amused and said Mr Kvirikashvili was trying to leverage political capital out of the European Parliament vote by trying to persuade people living in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to move back to Georgia. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian president from 2004 until 2013, deployed similar sweetener tactics, by building public swimming pools next to South Ossetia and holding rock concerts within earshot of Tskhinvali, its capital.

The authorities in Abkhazia, on the Black Sea coast, released a statement.

“It is obvious that after a complete failure of the idea of the so-called neutral passports, the Georgian government decided to use another type of bait in the form of visa liberalization for citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia. It is clear that the Georgian government’s attempt will fail,” it said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Uzbekistan to receive funding from Kuwait

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Apparently looking to extend its influence in Uzbekistan and Central Asia, Kuwait said that it would funnel another $60m into various social projects, according to a notice on the Uzbek foreign ministry website. Last year Kuwait’s Fund for Arab Development pledged to give $24m to buy urology equipment for Uzbekistan’s health service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Cracks show in relations between Azerbaijan and EU

FEB. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tension between Azerbaijan and the European Union spilled out into the open at what was meant to be a friendly summit meeting, highlighting the complexity of a relationship essentially built on gas.

First the Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, said as he headed off to meet Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev that the “nice part of my day is over” and then, a few hours later, Azerbaijan cancelled a meeting with senior European Parliament members. The European parliament had, the day before, hosted an event to push for greater human rights in Azerbaijan.

Relations between the two sides have been strained for years. The EU recoils at Azerbaijan’s alleged crackdown on the media and opposition activists, while Azerbaijan accuses the EU of trying to interfere with its domestic politics.

But Azerbaijan-EU relations are also important. The EU desperately wants to reduce its dependency on Russia for its gas. And they have bet on Azerbaijan and its plan to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

It was to discuss plans to pump gas along the the so-called Southern Gas Pipeline Corridor across Georgia and Turkey, through southeast Europe and into Central Europe, that moved Mr Aliyev to travel to Brussels.

Things, though, got off to a bad start whenMr Juncker wrapped up a press conference prior to meeting Mr Aliyev with what appeared to be a derogative aside.

“Thank you, have a nice day,” he was quoted by media as saying to journalists at the end of press conference. “I will now see the president of Azerbaijan, so the nice part of my day is over.”

Although, Mr Aliyev and Mr Juncker did meet up, releasing a joint statement afterwards about strong relations, it was clear that the tone had been set. An Azerbaijani official declined to comment on Mr Juncker’s remarks.

Mr Aliyev also met with Federica Mogherini, the EU’s chief diplomat, and Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. After these meetings both sides released friendly statements.

Mr Tusk said both that he had raised human rights with Mr Aliyev and that he also wanted to improve Azerbaijan-EU relations.

“We want to upgrade our relationship and develop its full potential through a new bilateral agreement,” he said.

A few hours later, though, there was another set back when Azerbaijan cancelled a meeting with Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament. In the build-up to Mr Aliyev’s visit to Brussels, human rights groups had signed a petition calling for Europe to push harder for rights in Azerbaijan.

The European Parliament has been particularly vocal in its criticism of Azerbaijan’s crackdown on human rights activists and journalists who criticise the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)