JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Almaty-based Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) will loan $300m to Armenia to weather tough economic conditions, media reported quoting Russia’s deputy economy minister Sergei Storchak. The ADB was set up by Russia and Kazakhstan. It supports members of the Eurasian Economic Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state- owned oil and gas company, resumed oil exports to Russia after a break of several weeks, Rovnag Abdullayev, the SOCAR chairman, was quoted by media as saying. No reason was given on why exports were resumed.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan downgraded bilateral relations with the US because of an award the State Department gave to an imprisoned ethnic Uzbek human rights defender last week, media reported.
Relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan have been worsening since the US military withdrew from an air base outside Bishkek last year. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has drifted towards Russia, joining its Eurasian Economic Union and adopting laws on foreign-funded NGOs and homosexuals which the US has said infringes civil liberties.
The award was given by the US State Department to Azimzhan Askarov. He was imprisoned in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh. His supporters said that the charges, inciting violence, had been fabricated.
After Askarov’s son travelled to Washington to pick up the award, Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev signed a decree denouncing relations, which will come into effect on Aug. 20. The move will mean tax breaks awarded to US companies will be cancelled.
On the streets of Bishkek, reaction was mixed. Some people welcomed the tough stance by Mr Sariyev, others were cautious.
“In a couple of years, we will become a colony of Russia,” said a 30-year-old resident of Bishkek. “It is indeed bad that we are losing such assistance because Kyrgyzstan is a poor country.”
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s foreign minister Rashid Meredov will travel to Afghanistan for talks with his Uzbek counterpart, media reported. Turkmenistan has become increasingly worried about the build up of Taliban forces on its borders. It also has an interest in stability in Afghanistan because of the proposed TAPI pipeline that will pump gas to Pakistan and India.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of Chinese migrants working in Kazakhstan doubled this year, according to the Kazakh ministry of labour. More than 12,000 Chinese labourers work in Kazakhstan, a third of the total foreign workforce. The increase shows how important Kazakhstan has become for China.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliamentary speaker Davit Usupashvili travelled to NATO HQ in Brussels to urge for its membership of the Western military alliance to be sped up. “I told our partners very clearly, unequivocally that Georgia is ready for more,” he told Georgian media.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A photo released by Uzbek officials of President Islam Karimov’s trip to Russia earlier this month for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) appears to have been doctored to shrink Chinese president Xi Jinping, a tall man, to the same height as Mr Karimov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Opposition groups have previously accused official Uzbek media of doctoring images of Mr Karimov, 77, to make him look younger and fitter.
The Uzbek government has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Ufa, Russia, Uzbek leader Islam Karimov spoke unusually warmly about relations with Russia.
Mr Karimov veers from near- hostility towards Russia to extreme warmth.
Russian television showed Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting Mr Karimov.
“You haven’t been here on a state visit for a long time,” he said.
Mr Karimov shook his hand and replied: “Whatever disputes we may have, nobody can make Russia and Uzbekistan quarrel as we have common interests.”
Mr Karimov’s last state visit to Russia was in April 2013. Most Central Asia and South Caucasus leaders, other than those from Georgia and Turkmenistan, are semi-regular visitors to Moscow.
The Uzbek head of state’s manoeuvres are understandable.
Uzbekistan may be improving its relations with the West, especially with regards to allowing NATO countries to ship their military kit out of Afghanistan, but Russia is still the regional superpower and Mr Karimov needs its help economically as well as to bolster security along its porous southern border where he says the Taliban are massing.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
Indian PM Narendra Modi travelled to Turkmenistan as part of this grand tour of Central Asia and urged for progress on a gas pipeline that will pump Turkmen gas to India to be accelerated.
TAPI, the name of the pipeline, is due to select its consortium leader on Sept. 1 and Mr Modi told Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov that he wanted the construction phase to begin soon.
“The most significant initiative in our relationship is the TAPI Gas Pipeline,” he said in a statement released to the media. “This could transform regional economic cooperation and bring prosperity along the route. We welcomed the agreements between the four countries for the pipeline. We underlined the need to implement the project quickly.”
The TAPI project is ambitious. It envisions a route across Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.
And Mr Modi appeared aware of the potential problems this route could encounter.
He also suggested that, if there were problems, a land-sea route via Iran could be used to ship gas to India from Turkmenistan.
TAPI is slated to cost around $10b and to run for 1,800km.
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov travelled to Uzbekistan from Vienna where he had been attending a summit on Iran. Besides the usual talk of cooperation, Kommersant newspaper reported that Uzbek sources reassured Mr Lavrov that cooperation with the US will not develop at the expense of relations with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
