Tag Archives: international relations

Kazakhstan wins UN Security Council seat

ALMATY, JUNE 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The UN General Assembly elected Kazakhstan to hold a non- permanent seat at the UN Security Council, with 138 votes in favour out of 193, a major PR coup for President Nursultan Nazarbayev who coveted the position and ordered a sustained campaign to win it.

And Mr Nazarbayev quickly hailed the news as a success.

“Kazakhstan’s election as a non- permanent member of the UN Security Council is a historic achievement. This is not only our country’s success but that of the entire sub-region of Central Asia,” he said.

Kazakhstan will hold the seat at the 15-member Security Council for two years, from Jan. 1 2017. It is the first country in Central Asia to hold the position. Azerbaijan held anon- permanent seat at the UN Security Council in 2012/13.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Pope Francis prepares to visit Armenia

JUNE 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pope Francis is set to visit Armenia on June 24, a trip that will further strain relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The Vatican has already had to modify the trip, originally planned to include both Armenia and Azerbaijan, after the most serious violence in the disputed of Nagorno-Karabakh region for 20 years broke out in April. The Pope will now only visit Armenia, where he will deliver a liturgy on June 25.

Last year, Pope Francis labelled the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, a diplomatic victory for Armenian lobby groups. The declaration damaged Turkish-Vatican relations. Turkey has denied the genocide.

In the past few years, the Roman Catholic Church has tried to boost ties with Armenian Apostolic Christians.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

SCO leaders gather in Uzbekistan for summit

JUNE 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan gathered in Tashkent to kick-start the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), together with their colleagues from Russia and China and Uzbek host, President Islam Karimov. The members are set to vote on June 24 to begin the membership process for India and Pakistan, currently observer countries.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

Armenia to export electricity to Iran

JUNE 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s state-owned power distributor Electro Power Systems Operator said it will export around 1b kWh of electricity to Iran in 2016 from itsHradzan and Yerevan thermal power plants. Armenia and Iran have signed an agreement on the exchange of Iranian gas for Armenia’s electricity.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

OSCE to monitor contact line between Azerbaijan and Armenia

JUNE 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in St Petersburg hosted by Russian president Vladimir Putin, Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbiajani leader Ilham Aliyev agreed to continue discussions reaching a permanent peace deal over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

They also said that an OSCE mission would be sent to the region to monitor the contact line between the two sides.

The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe is Europe’s democracy watchdog and conflict resolution group. Its involvement in the disputed region of Nagorno-Ka- Karabakh, which suffered its worst outbreak of fighting in April since a UN-brokered peace deal in 1994, is considered vital.

“The OSCE [will] monitor the line of engagement between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops near the village of Agdam in Azerbaijan’s Tovuz district on June 22,” Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said in a note following the meeting.

The fighting in April between Azerbaijan’s army and Armenia-backed forces killed several dozen people and looked at one time that it would drag in neighbouring countries and spread.

The two presidents had previously met in Vienna in mid-May. After the St. Petersburg meeting they are likely to schedule another summit to evaluate the progress made in Nagorno- Karabakh. Analysts have said that continued meetings between the two leaders is important.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

Uzbekistan closes borders for SCO summit

JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government ordered the closure of land borders for ten days to try to insulate the country from potential Islamic militant attacks ahead of a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) heads of states, scheduled for next week.

Leaders from Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan will join Uzbek President Islam Karimov at the annual SCO summit in Tashkent on June 23/24.

Uzbekistan has emphasised its efforts in combating terrorism, one of the pillars of the SCO, and wants to demonstrate its ability to become a safe haven of peace in Central Asia.

Analysts said that closing its border crossing checkpoints is a way of demonstrating control over its territory and its capacity to fence off potential terrorists from abroad.

The authorities dismissed earlier rumours that Tashkent would be closed off during the summit.

“There will be enhanced security checks, but the city will operate in normal mode,” the Uzbek ministry of interior said in a statement.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, the Tashkent city administration ordered a clean-up of the capital. Reports said that hundreds of satellite dishes were removed from houses on Prospekt Kosmonavtov,a main road in Tashkent which runs down to Mr Karimov’s official residence.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

EEU plans single electricity market, say energy ministers after meeting in Tajikistan

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Eurasian Economic Union, a trade bloc led by Russia but also involving Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia plans to set up a unified electricity market by 2019, EEU members’ energy ministers said after a meeting in Dushanbe. Tajikistan aspires to be part of the EEU, which critics have said is a Kremlin project to extend its control.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Tajikistan responds to EU

DUSHANBE, JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Tajik academics launched a staunch defence of the government’s crackdown on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) after the European Parliament passed a resolution criticising it.

The authorities in Tajikistan outlawed the IRPT last year. Last month a court handed the IRPT leaders several years in prison for attempting to organise a coup. In response to the prison sentences, the European Parliament said it was concerned about freedom of expression in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan’s foreign ministry responded by criticising Europe for double standards over terrorism and a group of academics released a statement blaming the IRPT for a civil war in the 1990s and saying that it controlled the European Parliament.

A Dushanbe-based analyst, though, said that like student protests which sprung up this year to promote the government, the authorities were influencing the academics.

“These letters of support are aimed at pleasing the authorities and promoting careers,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Turkmenistan becomes deputy chairman of UN General Assembly

JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UN General Assembly unanimously voted to give Turkmenistan one of the 19 vice-chairs for its 71st session, due to start next September, a PR coup for Turkmenistan’s neutrality policy.

Turkmenistan had already served as vice-chair of the General Assembly in 2007, 2009, and 2013 and it was quick to laud the move as an accolade.

“This is a testament to the international prestige of the Turkmen state, the effectiveness of its foreign policy based on the principles of positive neutrality,” it said on one of its official news websites.

The country’s official neutral policy, though, may be weakening. Security worries in Afghanistan have pushed Turkmenistan. Its army organised a massive military exercise in March, the largest in Turkmenistan’s history.

A representative of Armenia was also elected to serve a deputy chair of the General Assembly.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Merkel links Georgia visa- free access to Ukraine

TBILISI, JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed visa-free access to the EU’s Schengen area for Georgia but linked it to a similar deal for Ukraine.

Ms Merkel’s statement during a meeting with Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili in Berlin could be seen as a boost to Georgia’s aim of gaining visa-free access to the European Union this year but the link to Ukraine is a complication.

It also comes a week after German politicians said they would block Georgia’s application for visa-free access because of links to organised crime.

“I expect that we can agree swiftly on the issue of visa liberalisation for citizens of Georgia,” media quoted Ms Merkel as saying.

One of Georgia’s main foreign policy objectives is to join the EU. Whether or not this is achievable is of secondary importance to most Georgian politicians to just making progress and visa-free Schengen access is considered a major prize.

But, significantly, Ms Merkel also underlined that she linked Georgia’s application to Ukraine’s

“For me, it is significant that Association Agreements between the EU and Georgia and also with Ukraine were signed at the same time,” Reuters quoted Ms Merkel as saying in reference to agreements signed in June 2014. “It is not very easy to explain to one country how things are with another.”

The problem for Georgia is that the European Commission is less likely to grant Ukraine visa-free access. Ukraine has a population of 45m, compared to Georgia’s 4.5m. It is also the focus of a geopolitical struggle with Russia.

Analysts have said that Ms Merkel may deliberately be trying to slow the process.

The flow of migrants from Syria into Germany and Turkey’s drive for visa-free Schengen access have made migration a politically sensitive issue forMs Merkel.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)