Tag Archives: international relations

Turkish police arrests CEO of Azerbaijan’s state energy company for links to Gulen movement

AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish authorities have arrested Sadettin Korkut, former CEO of Petkim, an Azerbaijan-owned refinery on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, in what media said was part of a purge of people linked to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen (July 28).

Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR dismissed the claim, saying that the arrest was linked to a spat with another employee of SOCAR Turkey Enerji, its Turkish subsidiary.

Mr Korkut had resigned as CEO, a position he had held for four years, the day before he was arrested. Twenty-seven other employees of SOCAR’s Turkish subsidiary, which operates the Petkim refinery, were also sacked at the same time.

Turkish media immediately linked the arrest and the sackings to the Gulenist movement, which they dub a terrorist network.

“Around 200 workers from Petkim and related companies were sacked due to their alleged ties to the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO),” the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Around 60,000 public sector employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen were arrested in Turkey in the aftermath of an attempted military coup on July 15. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Mr Gulen of masterminding the coup from his exile in the US.

Azerbaijan is one of Turkey’s strongest allies. It backed the arrest.

“SOCAR’s management believes that Turkey will become stronger after these difficult days. We will continue to operate and invest in Turkey with all of our energy,” Vagif Aliyev, CEO of SOCAR Turkey Enerji said in a statement.

SOCAR Turkey Enerji and SOCAR Turkey Petrokimiya own a majority stake in Petkim.

Anar Mammadov, head of SOCAR’s Greek subsidiary, has been appointed new CEO of Petkim.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Briefing: Gulenist links in Central Asia & S.Caucasus

AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >>So, we know that the Gulen movement was big in Turkey but in Central Asia? Really? How deep is it and what does it do?

>> The movement, created by cleric Fethullah Gulen, is a social and religious group that has said it wants to integrate moderate Islam into the secular Turkish state and to replicate the model in other Muslim countries. The movement counts millions of followers. As it puts great emphasis on education and upward social mobility, the movement established a network of schools around the world, including in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

>>OK, but who is Gulen? Wasn’t he an ally of Erdogan?

>> Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan found in Gulen a strong ally when he came to power in 2003, a bulwark against a possible military backlash, something that had dogged Turkish leaders for half a century. Gulen and Erdogan, though, fell out in 2013, when a corruption scandal targeting members of Mr Erdogan’s ruling AKP party emerged. Mr Erdogan and others in his party alleged that the Gulenist members of the judiciary had orchestrated the scandal. Since then the government has cracked down on Gulenists in Turkey. Mr Gulen has lived in the United States since 1999 in a self-imposed exile. Now, after a failed coup in Turkey last month blamed on Gulen, Turkey has said it could ask the US government for the extradition of Gulen. Since the coup, Turkish police have detained over 60,000 state employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen allegedly linked to the Gulen movement.

>>Quiete a full-on assault. Will Turkey now force a crackdown on Gulen- linked institutions in Central Asia and South Caucasus?

>> In short, this bureau and the analysts we contacted all agree that Turkey will not go as far as to sever relations with countries that don’t respond to the request to shut down Gulen-linked schools. Apart from Azerbaijan, all other countries are loosely linked with Turkey. Plus, as shown in our story on page 3, these schools are a relative island of quality and reliability in the South Caucasus and Central Asia’s messy educational system. Both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have shrugged off Turkey’s requests to shut down Gulen- linked schools. Georgia appears also to have pretty much ignored Turkey’s request. Only Azerbaijan, Turkey’s super-tight ally, has gone along with Turkey’s request and closed down a TV station that had planned to run an interview with Gulen and brought under government control a university linked to the Gulen movement.

>>OK, but what about the businesses linked to Gulen?

>> The closest business link between Gulenists and the South Caucasus seems to have been uprooted immediately, with the sacking of Sadettin Korkut, chief of Petkim, a petrochemical complex in Izmir, owned by Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR (See the front page of the Business News). It appears that SOCAR was also keeping a list of Gulen-linked people among its ranks. Together with Korkut, who was later arrested, around 200 other employees of SOCAR-linked companies were sacked. This, however, appears to be a one-off act of loyalty from Azerbaijan’s government to Ankara.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan turns down Kyrgyz request for extra power

DUSHANBE, JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s minister of energy, Usmonali Usmonzoda, said he had turned down a request from Kyrgyzstan for extra electricity because the Tajik power generating system did not have any spare capacity.

The inability of Tajikistan to send power to Kyrgyzstan shows just how interdependent countries in Central Asia are. It also comes at a time when extra scrutiny is being placed on the power generation systems in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as they build up to powering the World Bank-backed $1.2b CASA-1000 power system to Pakistan.

At a press conference in Dushanbe, Mr Usmonzoda said that, due to rising industrial activity, Tajikistan does not have spare capacity.

“Kyrgyzstan asked for 2.5b kWh of electricity at 2.5 cents/kWh,” he told reporters. “This is a large volume and, because of the emergence of new domestic energy consumers, we decided to refrain from the supply.”

Last year, Tajikistan signed a short term supply agreement with Kyrgyzstan to export 146m kWh over the winter for 2.5 cent/kWh.

Now, though, Tajikistan may be looking for a better price.

Independent Bishkek-based energy expert Rasul Umbetaliyev told the KyrTAG news agency: “The minister diplomatically avoided answering directly, but the price for electricity exports from Tajikistan is currently 3.5 – 7 cents/kWh.”

Tajikistan is investing heavily in its power generating systems. It has approved a $3.9b project to build the Rogun hydropower system.

But with its economy stalling and industrial production lying stagnant rather than rising, production problems and not excessive demand could be holding back Tajikistan’s power exports.

Its electricity distributor, Barqi Tojik, has piled up $1.5b in debt. It hasn’t paid for the electricity it bought from power stations and it is still waiting to be paid by its largest customers.

The government is planning to split Barqi Tojik and bail it out.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Kyrgyzstan resists pressure to close Gulen-linked schools

BISHKEK, JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s foreign minister Yerlan Abdyldayev shrugged off Turkey’s request to shut down Gulen-linked schools and told Ankara not to interfere in domestic Kyrgyz affairs, in what could spiral into a diplomatic spat between the two allies.

Last week, Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, sent a note to Kyrgyzstan asking to close 30 high schools and one university in Kyrgyzstan financed by the Gulenist movement, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of masterminding a failed coup in mid- July.

The Kyrgyz side sent a strong reply, that, while stressing the importance of bilateral relations, rejected Turkey’s demands.

“We believe it is wrong that a minister of foreign affairs of one country instructs another country to take certain steps, especially using a language of ultimatums and blackmail,” Mr Abdyldayev said in his official reply.

The view was reflected on the streets of Bishkek.

“Turkey has no right to interfere in our internal affairs, Mr Erdogan’s issues with the opposition are Turkey’s own problems,” Alexander, 34, told The Conway Bulletin.

Kazakhstan gave a similar response to a similar request from Turkey over the weekend.

The Kyrgyz and Kazakh responses suggest a reduced role for Turkey in Central Asia. Turkey’s influence in Central Asia peaked soon after the break up of the Soviet Union in the mid 1990s. Since the turn of the century, though, it has ceded ground to a resurgent Russia and an ambitious China which has been looking to boost influence over what it sees as its near abroad.

Analysts also said Kyrgyzstan may be unwilling to shut down the Gulen- linked institutions because they were considered relatively high quality.

“Gulen’s education system showed how education can look, and there are many excellent graduates who work in state and private sectors,” said political analyst Mars Sariyev.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Hollande to visit Kyrgyzstan

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — French President Francois Hollande told the new Kyrgyz ambassador to France that he is considering a visit to the Central Asian country in the near term, official media reported. Earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Bishkek, her first to Central Asia. Her stopover in Bishkek en route to a conference in Mongolia was seen as a reward for Kyrgyzstan’s relative democracy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Angolan soldiers get injured in Kazakhstan

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ten Angolan soldiers were injured in an explosion during an exercise in Kazakhstan, media reported. The injured soldiers were part of the Angolan team that was scheduled to participate in the International Army Games competition in Kazakhstan next week. It is unclear what caused the explosion.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan confiscates Iranian products

DUSHANBE, JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Tajikistan have banned the import of dozens of Iranian products, an apparent retaliation for a visit made by Tajik opposition leader Muhiddin Kabiri to Tehran last year.

Mr Kabiri is the exiled leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan which had once been the biggest opposition party in the country. It was hounded and broken up last year with most of its leadership imprisoned.

Tajk President Emomali Rakhmon has said that that he wants Mr Kabiri extradited from Europe, where he now lives. Instead, Iran’s leadership invited him to a theology conference last year in Tehran where he met with Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ali Homanai.

Now, in a possible retaliation, Tajikistan’s government standards agency has said that many Iranian imports do not meet their health standards and don’t carry product descriptions in Tajik. They have been banned.

In Dushanbe, the Tajik Agency for standardisation, metrology, and certification said it had seized 664 tonnes of good from Iran this year.

Ibodullo Kubodiyon, the head of the agency, said at a news briefing that some Iranian companies have stopped importing products to Tajikistan.

“Food products imported by these companies did not meet the established TajikStandart requirements, the products also did not have proper labelling. In particular, there was no description of the goods in Tajik language,” he said.

Tajikistan and Iran have generally made awkward allies. They share cultural and linguistic similarities but their approach to religion differs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Iran boosts gas for Armenia

JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran increased gas supplies to Armenia to make up for a drop in Armenian imports from Russia, imposed by repairs to a pipeline crossing Georgia.

The deal highlights the rivalry between Moscow and Tehran for gas supply contracts to Armenia and, more widely, the South Caucasus.

For one month from July 10, repair work will halt gas flows along the Russia-Georgia-Armenia pipeline, Kazak-Saguramo.

Analysts have said the maintenance work on the pipeline from Russia has given Iran a chance to position itself as a reliable alternative supplier of gas.

Armenia imported 818m cubic metres of gas in the first half of 2016 from Russia, a drop of 7.7% from 2015. This is around five times more than Iran currently exports to Armenia.

Levon Yolyan, Armenia’s minister of energy, was due to visit Iran on July 25, to negotiate the gas supplies.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kyrgyz President signs CASA-1000 deals

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev signed a range of laws that ratify domestic and international agreements on CASA-1000, an electricity transmission project that will send power from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Loans from international lenders, including the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank, will make up 70% of Kyrgyzstan’s total funding for the project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Uzbek PM warns Tajikistan on dangers of Rogun

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev complained to his Tajik counterpart over the signing of a $3.9b contract with Italy’s Salini Impregilo to build the Rogun dam and hydropower station on the Vakhsh river.

Uzbekistan has always opposed the project, which it has said will reduce essential water flow from the Pamir mountains to the Amu Darya river which irrigates Uzbek cotton fields.

For Tajikistan, Rogun carries symbolic value, it will be the world’s tallest dam, and is also economically important.

Mr Mirziyoyev said Tajikistan’s stance will trigger a reaction.

“The persistence with which the Government of Tajikistan seeks at all costs to continue construction of the Rogun hydroelectric power station, cannot but cause anxiety for the possible dangerous and irreparable consequences of such risky steps taken by the Tajik side,” he wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)