JUNE 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament approved a $150m loan from the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) to build a north-south motorway across the country. The EBD is headquartered in Almaty and is bankrolled mainly by Russia and Kazakhstan. It concentrates on member states of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Congress said that its ethics committee was investigating whether SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, paid for a 2013 trip to Baku for 10 congressmen and 32 staff members.
Congress’ rules ban foreign governments paying for overseas trips. All the Congressmen implicated in the investigation deny any wrong-doing and have said that they were unaware that SOCAR had paid for their trips to a conference in Baku.
The Houston Chronicle reported that the focus of the investigation are hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out by SOCAR to two Texas-based non-profit organisations which then paid for trips to Baku.
Azerbaijan’s lobbying techniques have attracted more and more criticism over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After 19 years of negotiations, Kazakhstan will join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year after officially agreeing terms with the economic group.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quick to appear on TV to laud the success of the WTO entry .
“The WTO membership opens up new horizons for our econ- omy,” Mr Nazarbayev said on national TV.
Commodities make up most of Kazakhstan’s foreign trade, already carried at very low tariffs.
Tariffs are at the centre of the debate on Kazakhstan’s WTO membership.
It is also part of the Russia-led Customs Union, which morphed into the Eurasian Economic Union this year. This is, essentially, an old-school trade bloc which promotes free trade between members but puts up barriers to non-members. The other members of the Eurasian
Economic Union are Russia, Belarus and Armenia. Kyrgyzstan is on the brink of joining.
Even so, the WTO and Kaza- khstan appear to have found a way around this potential stumbling block, although the details are scant.
Kazakh industrials have also been reticent about joining the WTO.
“Our community is concerned that the accession into the WTO would seriously reduce the protection levels and cause the flooding of cheap goods into our markets, which would kill our production,” Rakhim Oshak- bayev, deputy chairman of the National Chamber of Entrepre- neurs, told Kazakh media.
The terms of the accession remain classified and analysts have questioned this secrecy. When it first applied to join the organisation in 1996, Kazakhstan was a poor country which had just emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union. Now, the scenario is different.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran plans to export more refined gas products to Tajikistan and Armenia, Iranian media quoted a senior official at the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company as saying.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Foreign Minister Tamar Beruchashvili started a tour of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, media reported, the first of its kind by a Georgian minister. Ms Beruchashvili said the main aim of the trip was to boost awareness of Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the European Union will set up a working group to look at the best way to deliver Turkmen gas to European consumers, media reported quoting the European Commission. This is, probably, an important step forward for Turkmenistan which wants to send its gas across the Caspian Sea to Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili met British PM David Cameron in Bratislava on the sidelines of a global security conference. Georgia wants to join NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is paying former senior German politicians large salaries to whitewash its reputation in Europe, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported quoting emails it has seen from an Austria-based law firm. The magazine named former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former president Horst Koehler and former interior minister Otto Schily.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia launched military exercises involving 1,500 soldiers in South Ossetia, angering Georgia. In 2008, Russia and Georgia fought a war over the region. Russia defeated Georgia and S.Ossetia declared independence although this was only recognised by the Kremlin and a handful of other states.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia-France missile deal Georgia signed a deal with France to buy an air defence missile system, framed as a much needed modernisation. The deal has been in the making for several months. Finalising the details had been delayed because of a change of Georgian defence minister last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
