DEC. 12/13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon travelled to India and Sri Lanka to drum up political and economic support. India has redeveloped the Ayni airbase near Dushanbe and there has been on-off talk of the Indian air force taking over running of the base.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f
DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> Why is Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon in India? Is this just another meet and greet trip or something more significant?
>> It’s a five day trip starting on Dec. 14, so the length gives away some of the importance. He’s timed it nicely if he wanted to watch the final cricket test match between India and England down in Chennai, but I don’t think that’s why he’s there. Instead Rakhmon and Indian PM Narendra Modi will hold talks aimed at boosting bilateral relations. For India, Tajikistan has been groomed to be something of a springboard into Central Asia. For Tajikistan, India is a potential major investor.
>> I can understand why Tajikistan wants India as an investor, it must need a counterbalance to China’s growing influence and also to Russia, but why does India need to be in Central Asia?
>> India has been late getting in on the act in Central Asia. Whereas China, its great Asian rival, has developed now fairly substantial political and business ties, India has appeared flat-footed. Central Asia is an energy and mineral rich region virtually on its door- step but India simply hasn’t been able to develop any major footholds. Take the energy sector. India needs more energy supplies, so this is important to Delhi. When ConocoPhillips wanted to sell its 8.4% stake in the Kashagan oil project in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea in 2012, it negotiated a deal with India’s state-owned ONGC. This was to be ONGC’s chance to buy into one of the most highly prized pieces of energy real estate in the world. It didn’t work out, though, as Kazakhstan exercised an option that it had on the field and pushed the stake towards China. China’s CNPC ended up buying it for $5b in 2013. India was left looking impotent.
>> That’s certainly a major snub, especially if India has already agreed the deal. What has India done since then to get back into the Central Asian region?
>> It’s been busy. Modi toured all five Central Asian states in 2015. It was a whirlwind tour to each of the region’s capitals and was generally considered a diplomatic success. And India has develop some major projects since losing out on the Kashagan stake. The biggest of these is the TAPI gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. It’s an ambitious multi-billion-dollar project that will change the dynamic of the region. Suddenly a major infrastructure project is flowing north-south rather than west-east.
>> So where does Tajikistan fit into all this?
>> India’s interest in Tajikistan is more strategic than obviously economic. In 2003, India upgraded the Ayni airbase outside Dushanbe. The theory was, back then, than it was going to station its air force at the airbase but this never came about. When Modi was in Tajikistan last year he visited the base but no deals were agreed, at least publicly. Earlier this year, the members of the influential China and Russia led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation voted in India and Pakistan as members. Tajikistan has been an important ally for India in helping it secure this.
>> Right. What else is likely to come out of Rakhmon’s visit to India this week?
>> It’s difficult to say for sure. This is Rakhmon’s sixth trip to India but his first since 2012. Indian media have speculated that there will be an upgrade of Indian-Tajik relations and that there could be some movement over the Ayni airbase but a pre-visit statement from the Indian ministry for external affairs was tight-lipped.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan is due to relax a rule introduced last month that had required foreign tourists to register at a local OVIR, an interior ministry unit, if they planned to stay in the country for more than five days, the Eurasianet website reported. It said that the Kyrgyz government would publish on Dec. 19 a list of 90 countries whose citizens needed to register within 30 days of arriving in the country. Tourist companies had complained that the rules introduced in November would be unworkable.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a telephone conversation with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, US President-elect Donald Trump described Kazakhstan as a “fantastic success” and a “miracle”.
A briefing of the telephone conversation released by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s press service said that the two leaders had also agreed to meet up shortly.
“D.Trump stressed that under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev our country over the years of Independence had achieved fantastic success that can be called a ‘miracle’,” the Akorda press release said.
US media later reported that Mr Nazarbayev was the 44th national leader that Mr Trump had spoken to since winning the US election in November. He is also the only leader in the South Caucasus/Central Asia region that he has spoken to.
Importantly for the region, the Akorda press service quoted Mr Trump as saying that he was confident that US-Russia relations can be improved.
“US President-elect underscored that taking into account the results of a telephone conversation with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, he is very optimistic about the prospects of developing cooperation between Washington and Moscow,” the press release said.
Russia is the main economic driver for the region and poor US- Russia relations have been one of the factors that has stumped low regional economic growth, pushing Kazakhstan towards a recession.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Reuters, Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili said that he expected Georgia’s relations with the US under President-elect Donald Trump to be strong. In the wide-ranging interview Mr Margvelashvili said that he still expected to push for Georgian entry into NATO when Mr Trump becomes president in January. On the issue of visa liberalisation with the EU, Mr Margvelashvili said that he was disappointed more progress hadn’t been made but that once the current nationalistic mood in Europe had lifted the visa issue would be resolved.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 28/29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko visited Azerbaijan for two days of talks with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev framed around improving bilateral relations and business links. This year, Azerbaijan has started supplying Belarus with oil and Mr Lukashenko appeared to hint that the Belarussian government was interested in increasing the flow of oil from Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
DEC. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shavkat Mirziyoyev will be confirmed as Uzbekistan’s president at an election on Dec. 4, a move that bodes well for ordinary Uzbeks, for the country’s neighbours and for investors. Potentially at least.
Mirziyoyev will govern with a core team of ministers that includes Rustam Inoyatov, the Uzbek intelligence chief, and finance minister Rustam Azimov. They take over from Islam Karimov, a difficult, cantankerous man who died from a stroke on Sept. 2 after ruling for 25 years.
Uzbekistan is one of the most secretive and closed-off regimes in the world but if the early signs are borne out, and there needs to be plenty of caveats, the tantalising prospect of a more open Uzbekistan is in sight.
Uzbeks need permission to leave, a deeply entrenched network of informants keeps tabs on people’s activities, forced labour is used each year to pick the massive cotton harvest, opposition journalists and politicians are locked up, corruption is beyond rife and foreign investors have found it all but impossible to keep their assets from being grabbed by the state.
Now Mirziyoyev has appeared to want to move Uzbekistan onto a new trajectory. He has talked up the prospect of investing in large infrastructure projects which will create jobs. He has also promised to strengthen the independence of the Uzbek courts and said that police will now no longer be able to raid businesses and shops on the pretext of various transgressions, an issue which had stifled private business.
Of course, talk and signing documents is cheap but importantly, also, Mirziyoyev has looked to improve relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours, in particular with Kyrgyzstan.
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have for years argued over their shared border around the Ferghana Valley and at times this year, conflict has appeared likely. Now, since Karimov’s death, Mirziyoyev has ordered his officials to mend relations with Kyrgyzstan. Officials from both sides have posed for photo-ops shaking hands and documents have been signed agreeing deals on the border disputes.
Under Karimov, this detente had never seemed likely. Under Mirziyoyev Uzbek-Kyrgyz relations have suddenly never been better.
These are early days, and we are not about to witness a tectonic shift towards full-scale liberalism but increments are important and Uzbekistan under its new leadership may be headed in a more benign direction.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 17/18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Uzbekistan to meet acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev and lay flowers at the grave of former Uzbek president Islam Karimov who died in September.
The death of Karimov has given Uzbekistan the chance to repair damaged international relations, including with Turkey.
Turkey had been the first country to recognise Uzbekistan’s independence in 1991 but relations shortly soured and have been terse for the past 20 years.
Mr Erdogan’s visit was one of his most high-profile visits to Uzbekistan, he brought with him most of his top ministers, and came at a crucial time.
As well as repairing relations with Uzbekistan, he is looking to build support for his crackdown on civil society since a coup attempt earlier this year.
Relations between Turkey and the European Union have collapsed and Mr Erdogan now says that he wants Turkey to join the Russia and China- led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
Mr Erdogan and Mr Miriziyoyez didn’t announce any major policy changes after their meeting, although they did pledge closer cooperation and various small business deals.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — John McCain, a senior US Republican Senator, will visit Georgia, as well as Estonia and Ukraine, in January to warn about Russian aggression, part of a foreign policy push designed to try and set the agenda before president-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House. Mr McCain is one of the most high-profile US Senators. He has been a strong advocate of Georgia’s westward leaning foreign policy.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
BISHKEK, NOV. 17 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz MPS blamed the Eurasian Economic Union for unfair restrictions which have slowed meat exports.
The criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, and the implied bias towards the bigger member states, is just the latest attacked on the Kremlin-led economic bloc from Kyrgyz politicians and businesses who have always been sceptical of the benefits of joining.
Earlier this year, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev said that the Eurasian Economic Union had actually resulted in a drop in exports and also created mountains of extra red tape for businesses to deal with.
In parliament, Kyrgyz PM Sooronbai Jeenbekov said that meat producers have not been able to export to Eurasian Economic Union states since it joined the bloc because of alleged sanitary infractions.
“Kyrgyzstan fulfils all terms of the Eurasian economic union,” he said. “But protection of individual interests does not contribute to the deepening and strengthening of integration as a whole.”
A few weeks ago, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev accused Kazakhstan, also a Eurasian Economic Union member, of reneging on a promise to build a new site on the border that would have allowed Kyrgyz producers to receive the necessary paperwork needed to export meat. He alleged that Kazakhstan was trying to prevent Kyrgyz meat imports to stamp out competition.
Like the rest of the Central Asia and South Caucasus region, Kyrgyzstan has been dealing with an economic downturn since 2014 linked to a fall in oil prices that triggered a recession in the Russian economy. Kyrgyz timing in joining the Eurasian Economic Union in August 2015 means that it has become even more tightly bound to Russia.
The Eurasian Economic Union includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
