MARCH 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Berlin, Uzbek officials agreed business deals worth $2.8b, Uzbekistan’s trade ministry said. The statement said most of the deals were related to various infrastructure projects. Relations between Germany and Uzbekistan are relatively close. Germany maintains a military base in south Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
FEB. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a boost to Turkmenistan’s aspirations to expand its client base for gas deliveries, the EU said it was stepping up efforts to diversify its energy suppliers away from Russia.
The Financial Times reported that a long-term energy blueprint drawn up by the EU will emphasis building relations with countries such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Algeria.
Russia currently supplies around 27% of the EU’s gas needs, an excessive over-reliance, according to EU diplomats.
Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s vice-president for energy affairs, said it was sensible to diversify.
“As much as we want to diversify our energy sources, I think the countries around the Caspian equally want to diversify their [export] routes,” he told the FT.
This will please Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. He has said that he wants to increase the number of clients Turkmenistan has for its gas.
China dominates Turkmenistan’s order books. Iran and other neighbours also buy gas but in smaller quantities.
It has previously floated the idea of a pipeline underneath the Caspian Sea linking Turkmenistan directly to pipelines pumping gas from Baku across the South Caucasus, Turkey and into Europe. The problem is that building the pipeline requires serious investment.
Turkmenistan holds the world’s fourth largest gas reserves in the world and its officials want to supply Europe.
“A huge resource base of hydrocarbons onshore and offshore allows Turkmenistan to increase the exports of natural gas to the world markets, to develop the new routes of its exports in the eastern and the European directions,” the Turkmen energy ministry said after the FT story.
A global drop in energy prices is pressuring Turkmenistan’s economy, forcing the Central Bank to devalue its currency. Part of the problem is Western sanctions on Russia imposed in retaliation for its support to separatists in Ukraine.
But there may be an upside for Turkmenistan, as the row speeds up Europe’s energy diversification.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
MARCH 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian media confirmed that Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, would make a two-day visit to Ashgabat from March 10. Last week Iranian media had said Mr Rouhani would visit Turkmenistan, although it did not say when or for how long. Turkmenistan-Iran relations are important for the region.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
ZGUBIR/Georgia, FEB. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) —- Vera, a 70-year old widow, lives with her jobless, unmarried son in the small mountain hamlet of Zgubir, ten miles north of Tskhinvali, the capital of the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia.
In 2008 South Ossetia was the poster-boy of rebel regions of the former Soviet Union. With the help of Russian forces it had just defeated Georgia in a war and declared independence.
The future for South Ossetia was, back then, bright. Now, though, nearly seven years later and with the world’s gaze fixed on separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine it looks different.
“Nationalism brought us only war and destruction and this hard-won independence condemned this land to isolation,” Vera said.
South Ossetia may have won its independence but it has lost its people. According to Russian data, 52,000 people live in South Ossetia, compared to 100,000 in Soviet times and 70,000 in 2007.
Most of the people living in Tshkinvali have fled to Russia to escape the war and search for a new life. Those who stayed were unable to emigrate. Apart from bored Russian soldiers, local militiamen and a few government officials, most inhabitants appeared to be lonely elders and alcoholic single men.
Vera is one among those who stayed.
“I grew up all my life in a country where it didn’t matter whether you were Ossetian, Georgian, Russian, or Jewish. We were all Soviets and we knew only one flag, only one army,” she said.
The unemployment rate, the demographic outflow and the almost complete lack of public investments are bleak for South Ossetia, leaving Vera and others with ever more romanticised, glorious memories of the Soviet era.
By Gianluca Pardelli
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Nov. 22 2010)
>>Former son-in-law alleged to have committed suicide>>
FEB. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rakhat Aliyev, an opponent and former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, died in prison days before the end of a pre-trial hearing linked to the 2007 murders of two Kazakh bankers.
He was found hanged in the toilet, the only corner of his solitary cell without constant surveillance. The prison administration described his death as a suicide but Aliyev’s lawyer, Klaus Ainedter, cast immediate doubt on this explanation.
“I have significant doubts about this without wanting to blame anyone. I visited him yesterday. There could be no talk whatsoever of danger of suicide,” Mr Ainedter told the local press.
Aliyev had at one time been viewed as a potential successor to Mr Nazarbayev but he fell from grace in 2007 and was forced to flee Kazakhstan before the authorities could arrest him for the murder of the two bankers.
In exile, Aliyev, who had been married to Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, set himself up as a vocal opponent of his former father-in-law from his bases in Malta and Vienna. He always denied any link to the bankers’ murders.
Last year, Aliyev turned himself in to the authorities in Vienna days before police planned to arrest him. The Austrian authorities had declined to deport Aliyev back to Kazakhstan but they had agreed to try him in Vienna for the murders.
Aliyev’s death rids Mr Nazarbayev of another major opponent. In 2013, French police arrested Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former Kazakh banker and minister, who was also a high profile opponent of Mr Nazarbayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and the US have signed an agreement that will smooth law enforcement issues between the two countries, the US State Department said. In particular the deal, which the US State Department described as an “important step forward”, will help the transfer of evidence between the two countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s military will equip its Kant airbase in Kyrgyzstan with up-to-date fighter-jets, media quoted Colonel Jaroslav Roschupkin, a Russian army spokesman, as saying. Russia has, generally, been looking to beef up its military deployments in Central Asia, especially at the Kant airbase.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia has agreed to allow Iraq Airways to fly a direct flight from Baghdad to Yerevan and also to grant Iraqis visa-free access, Iraqi media reported. If confirmed by Armenia the move will open it up to tourism and business from Iraq. Neighbouring Georgia already hosts thousands of Iraqi businessmen and tourists.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Forced to look for alternative markets because of sanctions on Russia and war in Ukraine, Uzbekistan has become a major target for Lithuania’s dairy exports.
In December, dairy exports from Lithuania to Uzbekistan recorded a 19-fold increase compared to the same month in 2013, according to Russia’s Soyuzmoloko, a milk industry group.
Uzbekistan now represents over 12% of the Lithuanian dairy export market, becoming a key target for Lithuanian cheese and butter. Only Poland and Italy now import more dairy products from Lithuania.
Soyuzmoloko said there may be an alternative motive for sending products to Uzbekistan.
“Dairy products exported from Lithuania to Uzbekistan are then sent from Uzbekistan to Russia directly or via Kazakhstan, which is part of the Customs Union,” the Soyuzmoloko said in a note on its website.
The reference to the Customs Union is to an old Kremlin-led economic group. It is now called the Eurasian Economic Union.
While relations between Uzbekistan and the EU have been strained over the past few years because of rows over human rights abuses, Uzbekistan–Lithuania bilateral relations have been improving.
Last year, Lithuania’s foreign minister travelled to Tashkent for direct talks with his Uzbek counterpart.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
FEB. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s president Giorgi Margvelashvili invited his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to visit Tbilisi, a show of support for Ukraine’s pro-West government in their battle with Russia-backed rebels. Georgia has been trying to mend damaged relations with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
