OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US State Department said it was disturbed by reports that opposition TV channel Rustavi2 may be forced off the air after a court seized a stake in the company, cutting off access to funds that it said it needed to survive. The US has warned the Georgian Dream coalition government about eroding democracy and media freedom in Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Border guards at Baku’s airport blocked two Amnesty International researchers from entering the country and the Council of Europe said it was pulling out of human rights talks with Azerbaijan because of what it described as a deteriorating situation.
Both incidents highlight the worsening relations between the West and Azerbaijan.
The West has accused Azerbaijan of clamping down on human rights over the past couple of years. Azerbaijan, in retaliation, has said that the West has been trying to organise a coup.
The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental body that covers Europe and countries on its eastern fringe that used to lie inside the Soviet Union, has been meeting members of the Azerbaijani government since October last year to try and improve dialogue between it and various civic groups.
Now it has effectively said that the situation is hopeless.
“Despite this initiative, the overall situation of human rights defenders in the country has deteriorated dramatically,” the Council of Europe said in a statement. “An increasing number of human right defenders has recently been imprisoned, and the Council of Europe has received worrying reports about unacceptable detention conditions.”
Europe’s relationship with Azerbaijan is complicated. It has derided the government’s attitude towards human rights and free speech but it has also continued to woo Azerbaijan because it needs its gas. The risk for Europe is that the row over human rights will push Azerbaijan further towards Russia.
The same day as the Council of Europe said it was pulling out of talks with Azerbaijan, Amnesty International released a statement saying that two of its researchers were deported when they tried to enter the country through Baku airport.
“The deportation of our staff adds to a sad litany of journalists and human rights defenders being targeted, detained and jailed simply for carrying out their work,” an Amnesty International statement said.
The Azerbaijan government has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US started construction work on a new $266m embassy complex in Ashgabat that it said showed its commitment to Turkmenistan, which holds the world’s fourth largest gas reserves and shares a border with Iran.
The new ambassadorial compound will open in 2018 and will feature various energy saving devices and a school, a US embassy press release said.
Over the past decade, the US has invested heavily in its embassies, generally building them on fortress-like campuses with high-walls on the outskirts of capitals.
Critics of the new embassies say that it cuts US diplomats off from the countries they are trying to engage with and also looks defensive.
And this new embassy appears to fit the specs for these new designs. It is a giant campus hosting many of the facilities that embassy staff need.
The suspicion is, that with fighting along the Turkmen-Afghan border worsening, security may actually have been the major driver in rebuilding the US embassy in Ashgabat.
Still, during the groundbreaking ceremony US ambassador to Turkmenistan, Allan Mustard, was full of warm words about his hosts.
“Our decision to build a new, bigger embassy here is symbolic. The new embassy compound is an indication of our enduring commitment to Turkmenistan,” he said.
“This compound will welcome families and strengthen our partnership with the school, the broader community, and the people of Turkmenistan as a whole.”
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 4 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Tehran, the Iranian and Armenian energy ministers said they will increase the volume of their gas-for-electricity swap deal, deepening relations between the two neighbours.
Alireza Kameli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company, told local media that Iran is ready to supply as much as 2.3b cubic metres of natural gas yearly to Armenia through the existing 140km long pipeline. According to Armenian government figures, Armenia currently imports less than 400m cubic metres of gas every year from Iran. By comparison, Armenia imports roughly five times as much gas from Russia as it does from Iran every year.
“Armenia is currently unable to take full advantage of the capacity of the pipeline because of the lack of necessary infrastructure,” Mr Kameli said alluding to the lack of electricity infrastructure in Armenia.
Still the the two sides are working together on extending Armenia’s electricity transmission network. Armenia is building a third high-voltage transmission line, part-funded by Iran. According to the Armenian ministry of energy, the country currently exports 1.8b kWh of electricity to Iran every year, a volume that can be increased up to 6.9b kWh.
Electricity is one of their biggest exports for Armenia. It’s also become highly political. This year thousands of people protested in Yerevan against proposed price rises. The government eventually agreed to subsidise the price rises.
And this month, the government agreed the sale of the electricity distribution network by Russia’s Inter RAO to an Armenian billionaire.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 7/8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov paid an official visit to Uzbekistan where he discussed security and water scarcity issues with Uzbek President Islam Karimov. An increase in fighting in Afghanistan has become a major concern for the two leaders.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting the close relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey, the head of the Turkish General Staff, Hulusi Akar, visited Baku. In Baku, General Akar met his Azerbaijani counterpart and, as expected, emphasised Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh which it disputes with Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan said it has reopened its embassy in Minsk, three years after it broke off relations with Belarus. In 2012, Belarus refused to extradite former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had been sentenced to prison in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan joined the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union in August. Belarus is also a member.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 8/9 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — After an on-off build-up lasting months, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko visited Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana a meeting that could upset relations between Kazakhstan and Russia.
Mr Poroshenko’s visit to Astana is a diplomatic victory for Mr Nazarbayev who wants to be viewed as a potential peace broker between Kiev and Moscow over the civil war in eastern Ukraine. Mr Nazarbayev visited Kiev last December.
At a joint press conference, Mr Poroshenko thanked Mr Nazarbayev for his support “of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Kazakhstan has to tread a careful diplomatic tightrope as it needs to appease both its Western backers, who support Ukraine, and also Russia, with which it has close economic and political ties.
Kazakhstan has not recognised Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
During his visit, Mr Poroshenko also met with Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov to discuss trade opportunities that will emerge in 2016 with the establishment of a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union and with Kazakhstan’s accession to the World Trade Organisation.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 1 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s ministry of education ordered the Metkep publishing house to redraw a map used in one of its textbook which suggested Crimea was part of Russia.
Like most countries, Kazakhstan has not officially recognised Russia’s annexation of Crimea after a referendum last year in which the majority of people voted to leave Ukraine.
The Ukrainian embassy in Astana last week complained about the map in the school textbook, embarrassing the Kazakh government which needs to tread a fine diplomatic line between Russia and West.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said it would send an election monitoring team to Azerbaijan despite concerns over its human rights record.
There had been a growing expectation that PACE might follow its bigger European vote monitoring team at the OSCE’s ODHIR and cancel its planned mission to cover parliamentary elections on Nov. 1 in Azerbaijan.
But PACE has a softer reputation than ODIHR and has, in the past, been accused of turning a blind eye to Azerbaijan’s crackdowns on civil society. This year, though, it has vocally challenged the Azerbaijani president to improve human rights.
And Anne Brasseur, head of the Strasbourg-based assembly, confirmed that PACE would send a mission as part of its commitment to monitor democracy in the former Soviet Union.
“We decided to maintain the mission to Azerbaijan knowing that the human rights situation is not really good,” media quote Ms Brasseur as saying.
“We are going to observe several elections — elections in Ukraine, in Turkey, in Belarus, in Kyrgyzstan, and we are also going up observe the elections in Azerbaijan.”
Earlier this month ODIHR pulled out of covering Azerbaijan’s election after, it said, the government had halved its quota of observers. Its withdrawal pushed Europe-Azerbaijan relations — strained over the imprisonment of Azerbaijani activists and journalists — to a new low.
And without the ODHIR’s presence, Ms Brasseur said, Europe would not be able to make a full analysis on veracity of the Nov. 1 election. ODHIR had wanted to send 30 long- term monitors and 350 short-monitors to cover the election. By contrast, PACE’s deployment is far smaller.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
