Tag Archives: international relations

Soft human rights diplomacy in Central Asia

BISHKEK/Kyrgyzstan, NOV.12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The human rights officer, a veteran who has done her time in several tense capitals, singled out with annoyance one major European country for its relative inaction on human rights matters in Central Asia — Germany.

“Germany’s approach is one of soft diplomacy, which has its strengths, but to what end in Central Asia?” she asked rhetorically. “All of my meetings with German officials have been worthless. It’s impossible to get Germany to take a stand on human rights in the region.”

This is, of course, a criticism that many Western governments have to contend with — that they look for strategic military or business deals over human rights.

The Bishkek-based human rights activist attributed Germany’s unwillingness to criticise human rights failures in Uzbekistan to the airbase it maintains in Termez. Last month it agreed an extension on this base.

But more generally — and against its otherwise strong international reputation on human rights matters — the German government has applied relatively little pressure on Central Asian governments on questions of human rights.

All this is a particular disappointment for human rights advocates in the EU and beyond.

Germany has a large business stake in each of the five former Soviet Central Asian countries. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have been especially lucrative for Germany. Today Germany is also home to hundreds of thousands of repatriated ethnic Germans, mostly from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

But whatever the explanation of Germany’s inaction — financial interest, concerns about remaining ethnic Germans in the region, or deference to the idea of a Russian sphere of influence — the lack of direction does no favours to those non-governmental organisations trying to raise the profiles of political prisoners and the lack of a free press in the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Inflation increases in Kyrgyzstan

NOV. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has predicted that inflation in Kyrgyzstan will hit 10% in 2015 after it joins the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. The biggest jump in prices, the ADB said, will be a 30% rise in petrol when prices are brought into line with Kazakhstan and Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia to set up new ministry

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia plans to re-establish its Interior Ministry ahead of joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

PM Hovik Abrahamian said that several ministries would be merged together to create an Interior Ministry, which was abandoned in 2002.

“Nineteen ministries is too many for Armenia,” the official Armenpress news agency quoted Mr Abrahamian as saying. “In the future we will turn the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Local Government into the Ministry of Internal Affairs as it is the case in many European countries.”

In the former Soviet space the Interior Ministry is one of the more powerful government institutions. It has its own army and is tasked with imposing internal security and order. In 2002, Armenia disbanded the Interior Ministry and handed these pseudo military powers to the police force. This will now revert back to the Interior Ministry.

Armenia is joining the Eurasian Economic Union in the New Year, a group that already includes Belarus and Kazakhstan alongside Russia. Kyrgyzstan is also intending to join.

All these countries have a strong Interior Ministry. It’s likely that joining the Eurasian Economic Union and re-establishing the Interior Ministry in Armenia are linked.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Tajikistan secures more China funding

NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On yet another trip to Beijing, Tajik President Emmomali Rakhmon agreed a deal with Chinese PM Li Keqiang to increase China’s investment in energy, transport and agriculture. Although no details of the deal were released it does underline China’s increasingly dominant investor position.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia to go to Baku Games

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a sign of improving Azerbaijani- Armenian relations, Armenia said that it would send a team to participate at the inaugural European Games in Baku next year. Armenia and Azerbaijan are arch enemies and have disputed the region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agree energy deal

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed a deal for Astana to meet most of Bishkek’s electricity deficit, albeit at a price greater than Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev would have wanted to pay.

The deal, finalised during a meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Mr Atambayev in Astana, means Kyrgyzstan must pay roughly three times more for the imported electricity than Kyrgyz citizens pay for domestically-produced electricity. Importantly, it also shows Kazakhstan’s political clout in Kyrgyzstan is growing.

An estimated deficit of 2b kilowatt hours (kWh) this year, caused by a shortage of water in its reservoirs, public reaction to shutoffs drove Bishkek and the potential to sign the deal.

Mr Atambayev will be relieved to have made the deal to import 1.4b kWh from Kazakhstan but here are still problems. He will have to make up the shortfall from somewhere else, possibly Turkmenistan, and he will have to finance the extra costs.

Currently the government has suggested modest tariff increases beginning Jan. 1. These are bound to irritate people in Kyrgyzstan.

Other agreements reached by Mr Atambayev and Mr Nazarbayev at the meeting are also indicative and suggested that Kazakhstan maintains significant leverage over its weaker neighbour.

Mr Nazarbayev promised that a fleet of Kyrgyzstan-bound fuel wagons, owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft and held by Kazakh customs officials without explanation since April, would be allowed to cross the two countries’ mutual border. He also pledged a $100 million grant to Kyrgyzstan as the country prepares to enter the Eurasian Economic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia opens embassy in Stockholm

NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to Sweden by Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandalian, Armenia opened an embassy in Stockholm. Armenia has been looking to open more embassies abroad to both boost its support base and lobby for allies to back it with its dispute with Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)

Kyrgyzstan becomes ideological battleground

OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an article for a policy website, the US ambassador in Bishkek, Pamela Spratlen, appeared to cement Kyrgyzstan’s place as an ideological sparring ground between Washington and the Kremlin.

In particular, Ms Spratlen, who has been the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan since April 2011 highlighted the differences between Washington and the Kremlin over Russia’s aim to pull Kyrgyzstan into the Eurasian Economic Union as well as their divergent views over gay rights.

“Another challenge to our efforts to support Kyrgyzstan’s democracy is its growing partnership with Russia,” she wrote on Council of American Ambassadors website, a website for essays written by senior US diplomats. “It remains an unanswered question how Kyrgyzstan can maintain its democratic trajectory while pursuing this partnership.”

Ms Spratlen specifically said the Customs Union, which will become the Eurasian Economic Union next year and grow to include Kyrgyzstan and Armenia alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, was as much about politics as economics.

Legislation passing through Kyrgyzstan’s parliament bears all the hallmarks of Russian political influence. A parliamentary bill forbidding “positive attitudes towards non-traditional sexual orientations” was overwhelmingly endorsed at its first reading last month, echoing a similar bill passed in 2013 in Russia.

Importantly, Ms Spratlen said Kyrgyzstan may be sleep walking into membership of the Eurasian Economic Union because it feels like it has no choice, especially as it is surrounded by more authoritarian countries in Central Asia.

“Both officials and business leaders appear unenthused, but resigned to this choice, seeing a lack of better options,” she wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Russia may block food transport

OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia may block trucks and trains carrying food from the EU and Norway to Kazakhstan from travelling across it territory because of an import ban. Russia has banned produce from the EU and Norway in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the West.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Turkmenistan ponders security

OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan may officially be neutral but it is still discussing regional security issues with NATO.

NATO’s liaison officer for Central Asia Alexander Vinnikov met with Turkmen officials to discuss various bilateral security options, media reported. This was the second major security meeting held by Turkmenistan in October. Earlier in the month President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov to discuss cooperation.

The main worry for Turkmenistan is the growing Taliban threat along its border with Afghanistan. The Taliban has increased their activities, triggering the Turkmen military to bolster its defences.

It’s also concerned about a re-galvanised Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The IMU emerged in the 1990s and had targeted Uzbekistan. In the 2000s it joined the Taliban fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan and this year claimed responsibility for an attack on Karachi airport. More recently, the IMU has publicly declared its support for the so-called Islamic State extremist group which is fighting in Syria and Iraq.

If the IMU did become a major threat to Central Asian states once again, Turkmenistan, with all its gas riches and long border with Afghanistan, could well be in its sights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)