APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has banned sales of some pork products from Russia for health reasons, media reported, although some analysts said the real reason for the ban was worsening trade relations. Kazakh producers have complained of a flood of Russian goods. The devaluation of the Russian rouble has made Russian goods very cheap in Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials expelled a Georgian activist working for the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), media reported. The officials didn’t give any reason for expelling Georgi Gogia who had travelled to Baku to attend the trial of two activists. Relations between Azerbaijan and the West have worsened recently.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 312015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In his annual address to the nation, Georgian President Georgy Margvelashvili said Russia’s annexation of Crimea and alleged support for rebels in eastern Ukraine threatened to destabilise the region. These were some of the strongest comments yet from Georgia on Ukraine.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Looking for options to boost its energy supplies and reduce its reliance on Russia, Ukraine has said that it wants to restart importing gas from Turkmenistan.
At a meeting in Kiev, Turkmen foreign minister Rashid Meredov shook hands with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and smiled for the cameras. The two men appeared relaxed.
Media said that Mr Poroshenko had proposed re-starting gas supplies from Turkmenistan to Ukraine, stopped in 2006.
“Ukraine is ready and interested in resuming Turkmen gas imports as an alternative source,” Interfax quoted him as saying.
This will suit Turkmenistan’s agenda. It has been looking to increase its client base and has also hit an increasingly anti-Russia note in its public proclamations over the past few years. Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov blames the Kremlin for the recent regional economic downturn. Russia and Turkmenistan have also argued about gas supplies.
The problem with the plan is that to send gas to Ukraine, Turkmenistan will have to rely on pipelines in Kazakhstan and Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
BERLIN, MARCH 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – To celebrate Nauryz, a traditional festival to mark the start of spring, the Kazakh embassy in Berlin paid for a free concert at the city’s Philharmonic Theatre.
The performance was to be a celebration of Kazakh culture with two youth orchestras and several dancers flown in from Astana.
Culture, as well as politics and trade, have become an important part of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy, promoting its brand and pushing its image. Kazakhstan is bidding to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2022, it is hosting the international EXPO in 2017 and wants to win one of the rotating seats at the UN Security Council.
Free, or heavily subsidised performances in European capitals are one way of pushing its messages.
The Kazakh ambassador to Germany, Bolat Nussupov, opened the concert in Berlin, speaking briefly about Kazakhstan’s concept on interethnic harmony. Kazakhstan heralds this concept regularly and the symbolism was maintained during the concert with dances routines from various Kazakh ethnicities in traditional costumes.
The evening, and the Kazakh PR push, continued outside the hall with free traditional food, from plov to baursaki.
“It’s nice to have such events when we’re so far from home. I felt surrounded by my own people, my own heritage for a night,” said Aya, who moved to Berlin 16 years ago from Kazakhstan.
And as well as delighting Kazakh emigres in Germany, the performance seemed to have made an impact on Kazakhstan’s target audience — ordinary Germans.
“It’s good to learn about Kazakh folklore, the performance was remarkable, if slightly cheesy,” Daniel, a German designer said as he swallowed a mouthful of baursak, a popular Kazakh fried bread snack.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
ENDS
MARCH 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EU wants to revive a project to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Europe, Reuters reported quoting an EU diplomat based in Ashgabat. Since a civil war erupted in Ukraine last year, the EU has tried to work out how to dilute its reliance on Russia for gas supplies.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia will give Armenia $47m as a sweetener for joining the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), media reported. Armenia joined the EEU on Jan. 1 but has yet to fully embrace it. Armenia’s president, Serzh Saargsyan, ducked out of a meeting of EEU heads of state last week.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan increased its export of electricity to Afghanistan by 58% in January and February, Tajik media reported quoting the national statistics agency. Electricity is seen as an important commodity produced by Tajikistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Have we just witnessed Central Asia’s first inter-presidential bromance?
At the inauguration of a new school, Kyrgyzstan’s president Almazbek Atambayev shared some flattering, perhaps even flirtatious, remarks towards his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev.
“I’ve often thought that if instead of Akayev and Bakiyev we had had Nursultan Nazarbayev as our president, everything would have been different,” he said at the opening of a school funded by Kazakhstan.
Mr Atambayev was referencing Akayev and Bakiyev, two former presidents of Kyrgyzstan who were both overthrown in two different revolutions and who are labelled as corrupt and untrustworthy, a sharp contrast to the apparently benign and generous Mr Nazarbayev.
Mr Atambayev showered Mr Nazarbayev with more praise.
“Every time I meet with Nursultan Nazarbayev I am convinced that he is not only the elder of the people of Kazakhstan, but also the Kyrgyz,” he said.
Small and relatively impoverished compared to its northern neighbour, Kyrgyzstan needs to keep Kazakhstan sweet.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a public speech, President Ilham Aliyev blamed the international community for launching an anti-Azerbaijan campaign ahead of the European Games this summer.
This is important because analysts have been saying that Mr Aliyev has increasingly turned his back on the West. The United States and the EU have been increasingly vocal critics of his clampdown on civic society.
“This campaign, in fact, has never been stopped, but in the run-up to important international events this campaign becomes even uglier,” he said.
“We were faced with it three years ago in 2012, on the eve of the Eurovision contest. We are seeing it today, on the eve of the European Games. This is a well-coordinated anti-Azerbaijani campaign managed from one or several centres.”
The inaugural European Games, set to be staged in Baku in June, is a sensitive issue for Mr Aliyev.
He desperately wants to showcase Azerbaijan and to gloss over its more unsightly aspects such as a stalling economy and criticism over its human rights record.
According to the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Azerbaijan is spending $4b on the European Games.
In his speech Mr Aliyev stated that the main reason for the campaign is the current strength of the country. “
“It is also natural that the stronger Azerbaijan gets, the more pressure it comes under. Our independent policy is not to everyone’s liking though,” he said.
Erkin Gadirli of the ReAl oppositional movement said in an interview to Berlin-based Meydan TV that Mr Aliyev’s speech showed that he was increasingly paranoid about criticism in the international media.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
