NOV. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Islamabad, Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov agreed a deal with Pakistan for the price of gas for a proposed pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan and on to India, Turkmenistan’s state newspaper reported. The deal is seen as vital for pushing the so-called TAPI pipeline forward.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A row over Tajikistan’s imprisonment of two ethnic Russian pilots for smuggling has escalated and threatens to do long-term damage to Tajik-Russian relations.
As reported in the Conway Bulletin issue of Nov. 8, Russia reacted with indignant fury at the 8-1/2 year prison sentences handed out by a provincial Tajik court on Nov. 8 2011 to Vladimir Sadovnichy, a Russian citizen, and Alexei Rudenko, an Estonian citizen.
The Russian foreign ministry said the sentences would damage Tajikistan. Since then immigration officers in Russia have rounded up hundreds of Tajik workers.
Around 300 have already been expelled for not having the correct paperwork, according to Russian media. If many more are sent back home it will begin to hurt Tajikistan as almost half its national income derives from remittances.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says the immigration officials’ actions are a coincidence and not revenge for the prison sentences.
Most commentators, though, don’t see it that way.
Central to the row is what Sadvonichy and Rudenko were doing when they landed their two cargo planes in Tajikistan without permission on a routine Kabul-Moscow flight. They say they desperately needed fuel. Tajik officials say they were trying to smuggle in a jet engine.
Already strained by negotiations earlier this year over Russia’s lease of a military base in Tajikistan, Tajik-Russian relations are now taking another battering.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A presidential election in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia will go to a second round after the Kremlin-backed candidate, emergencies minister Anatoly Bibilov and former education minister Alla Dzhioyeva tied with 25% of the vote each. No other candidate polled over 10%.
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia needs more democratic reforms before it can join NATO, the organisation’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a meeting in Tbilisi. Under President Mikheil Saakashvili Georgia has pushed hard to join NATO. According to local media, Georgia has nearly 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan fighting with NATO forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, finally after months of on-off talks in Switzerland, Georgian and Russian negotiators agreed a deal that should allow Russia to join the WTO by the end of the year. Russia started negotiations to join the WTO in 1993, so it’s been a long journey.
As a member of the 153-nation WTO, Georgia had the right to veto Russia’s membership and, sensing an opportunity to extract concessions, it has played its cards heavily.
After the deal, Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was quick to highlight what he considered was a diplomatic victory.
“What we have achieved today is a very important acknowledgment of what Georgia’s customs borders are,” he said on national television.
But was it really such an outstanding victory?
In return for accepting Russia’s membership in the WTO, Georgia won a concession to allow a private company to position observers on the Russian border with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The observers will monitor trade in and out of both Georgia’s rebel regions.
This is more than the Russians originally offered but under pressure from the Europeans and the Americans who both want Russia to join the WTO, Georgia also had to make compromises.
The finer details of the deal haven’t been released yet but when they are it will be clearer whether Mr Saakashvili’s grand standing it justified.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
NOV. 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a conference in Ashgabat, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said he supported building a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe, media reported. Mr Berdymukhamedov’s statement is a boost for the EU-back Nabucco pipeline which wants to secure gas from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
NOV. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a another sign of improving relations between Armenia and Iran, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan held talks with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Yerevan. This year Armenia and Iran have strengthened energy and trade links.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
NOV. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Dushanbe jailed a Russian and an Estonian pilot for 8-1/2 years each for illegally landing in Tajikistan with a smuggled jet engine. The Russian foreign ministry said the case was politically motivated. Already strained, the sentence is likely to damage Tajikistan-Russia relations further.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
OCT. 31 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – After months of negotiations, diplomats said Georgia and Russia were nearing a deal which would allow Russia to join the WTO. Media reports said Georgia had accepted the Swiss compromise deal although Russia had requested more time. No details of the deal were available.
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(News report from Issue No. 63, published on Nov. 1 2011)
OCT. 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Quoting sources in Kazakhstan, the FT linked ex-British PM Tony Blair to a $13m deal to advise the Kazakh government. Mr Blair’s consultancy group, which includes staff from his Downing Street days, has agreed to advise Kazakhstan on its social and economic policies, the FT wrote.
Kazakh officials later confirmed the deal. Mr Blair’s press people said that although he had helped set up the group, he personally was no longer involved.
Since Mr Blair left government in 2007 he has been Special Envoy to the Middle East and built up a business as a high profile consultant and adviser through his company Tony Blair Associates.
Whatever the exact nature of his engagement with the Kazakh government, it would be one of his biggest clients as well as one of his most controversial.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled over Kazakhstan for all 20 years of its independence, international observers have never deemed an election to be free and fair and rights groups criticise its draconian approach to the media.
But Kazakhstan has recently developed a love for consultants. It is a country which has always had a slight air of insecurity about it, more so after the emergence in 2006 of the boorish fictional character Borat. Now, buoyed by its energy wealth, Kazakhstan is increasingly confident and wants to project a more serious image.
There are already plenty of Western advisers, consultants and PR gurus in Astana. Perhaps it was only ever a matter of time before Kazakhstan’s and Mr Blair’s interests converged.
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(News report from Issue No. 62, published on Oct. 25 2011)
