Tag Archives: international relations

Kyrgyz minister complains about “flood” of imports

BISHKEK, SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Alluding to concerns about the impact of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union, Kyrgyzstan’s deputy PM Vladimir Dil said cheap products from Russia and Kazakhstan have been flooding the market.

Many politicians and government officials in Kyrgyzstan were sceptical in August about the benefits of joining the trade block that includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia. Some said that the Kremlin views the Eurasian Economic Union as a political project and that it pressured Kyrgyzstan, which has become increasingly reliant on Russia for economic and military support, into joining.

Now Mr Dil has stepped out and seemingly openly criticised the Eurasian Economic Union.

“We are seeing a very large flow of goods from Kazakhstan and Russia to our side. The changes in the exchange rates of the rouble and the tenge has turned goods in markets of our allies far cheaper than ours,” Mr Dil said. He didn’t explicitly mention the Eurasian Economic Union but the inference was clear. Kazakhstan cut its peg to a US dollar towards the end of August. The Kazakh tenge immediately lost around a quarter of its value.

A large drop in the value of the tenge and entry to the Eurasian Economic Union, it appears, has exposed Kyrgyzstan to cheap imports.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Georgia’ energy minister meets with Gazprom

SEPT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia energy minister Kakhaber Kaladze met up with Gazprom chairman Alexei Miller in Brussels to discuss Georgia’s role as a client and transit country for Russian gas. Media didn’t give details of the meeting but it did speculate that Georgia may be looking for help from the Kremlin to fill its energy deficit.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Georgia joins Nato force

SEPT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Keen to further burnish its Western orientated credentials, Georgia said it would sign up to the NATO Response Force (NRF). Georgian PM Iraki Garibashvili said that Georgia would create a unit of 100 soldiers for the force which is designed to deploy rapidly to protect NATO members. Finland, Sweden and Ukraine are other non-NATO NRF members.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

FM highlights Azerbaijan’s global energy role

SEPT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting Azerbaijan’s enhanced role in the global energy system, foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov said in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York that the country had become a “crucial player” in the system. Europe wants to increase imports of gas from Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

OSCE complains to Kazakh government

OCT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The OSCE, Europe’s main election and media rights watchdog, sent a note to the Kazakh government asking it not to cut access to news website which have been critical of the authorities. The OSCE has previously criticised Kazakhstan for is media rights record.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Attacker targets US embassy in Uzbekistan

SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US embassy in Tashkent said that an unidentified man threw two homemade grenades over the wall of the compound.

One of the grenades exploded but didn’t injure anybody, the embassy said in a statement. No group has claimed responsibility. The embassy closed immediately after the attack although it reopened the following day.

“At approximately 7:30 am on Monday, September 28 an unidenti- fied assailant tossed two improvised incendiary devices onto embassy grounds,” the embassy said in a state- ment.

“One of the incendiary devices exploded. Immediately following the explosion the embassy went on lock- down. No one was injured in the blast.”

The attack will be a major concern for the US. Governments in Central Asia have spoken of the increased threat from radical Islam, although some of the evidence has been dis- puted. It’s still unclear if this attack was linked to radical Islam or to something else but it would have been unsettling.

In 2004, car bombs targeted both the US and Israeli embassies. Two security guards were killed outside the Israeli embassy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Blair to visit Georgia

SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili met with former British PM Tony Blair during his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, media reported. Mr Blair apparently accepted an invitation from Mr Garibashvili to visit Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Uzbekistan sends uranium to Russia

SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said a batch of highly enriched uranium had been flown out of Uzbekistan to a site in Russia. The IAEA oversaw the project to remove the highly enriched uranium from a Tashkent research lab.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

OSCE/ODHIR pressures Azerbaijan

SEPT. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has come under increased international pressure to allow more monitors from the OSCE’s ODHIR into the country to monitor a parliamentary election in November. The OSCE cancelled its monitoring mission because it said the authorities in Azerbaijan had permitted only half the requested monitors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Armenia wants to boost electricity sales to Iran

SEPT. 23 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia wants to increase by four-fold electricity exports to Iran, a senior government official said, highlighting the important regional economic position that the Iranian government will hold once international sanctions are lifted, as expected, later this year or next.

At a policy meeting in Yerevan, Areg Galstyan, the Armenian deputy minister for energy and natural resources said a third electricity transmission line to Iran was being built that would increase exports.

“Now in a year we export 1.8b kilowatt hours of energy to Iran and the capacity can be increased to 6.9b. kWh per year,” he said at a press conference. “We hope that the construction of a third Armenia-Iran high voltage electricity transmission line will be finished in 2018.”

The growing trade and diplomatic relationship between Armenia and Iran has become increasingly important for the government in Yerevan. It is short of regional allies. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh and its ties with Turkey have been broken over allegations of a genocide 100 years ago, meaning that it has turned to Iran as partner.

And with Iran on the brink of being accepted back into the international community after a deal with the United States and others over its nuclear weapons programme, relation – trade, diplomatic and cultural – are set to grow.

Armenia sees itself as a growing regional electricity exporter. As well as increasing exports to Iran it also wants to increase them to Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)