OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s president, Serzh Sargsyan, described talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh as “constructive, useful and sincere”, media reported.This is the most upbeat assessment of the talks hosted by French president Francois Hollande.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev has said inflation will increase in Kyrgyzstan when it joins the Customs Union, which is morphing into the Eurasian Economic Union next year. He also said the country no alternative to joining the Russia-led economic bloc, highlighting the Kremlin’s tightened grip over Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in France agreed to extradite the ex-chairman of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank Mukhtar Ablyazov to either Russia or Ukraine to face charges he stole billions of dollars.
Prosecutors in Russia have accused Ablyazov of a $5b fraud and Ukraine wants to try him for stealing $400m.
Human rights advocates had argued that Ablyazov wouldn’t face a fair trial if he was extradited and that he may also be sent on to Kazakhstan where he is wanted on various charges including trying to incite a revolution.
The court in Lyon effectively overturned a previous decision by the Supreme Court in Paris that rejected Ablyazov’s extradition. It did, though, specify that neither Ukraine nor Russia were allowed to send him on to Kazakhstan.
Even so, for Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Ablyazov’s extradition to either Ukraine or Russia is a major success and partially underlines his personal clout.
Relations between Kazakhstan and France have developed markedly over the past few years. Some have said that under former French President Nikolas Sarkozy the relationship became too cosy and a court in France is currently investigating allegations of bribes paid by French executives to secure a major helicopter deal.
Ablyazov had been a minister under Nazarbayev but increasingly positioned himself as an opposition leader. He fled to London in 2009 and fought the Kazakh government in a major legal case over funds. He was found guilty of contempt of court in London but absconded to the French Riviera where he was captured in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia has denied that it has given permission for a commercial flight between Yerevan and Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.
As reported by the Bulletin last week, Grozny Avia, a Chechen airline, has floated plans to fly between the two cities twice a week. If the flight route did materialise it would be the first air route into Crimea, other than from Russia, since Russian forces annexed the Ukrainian province earlier this year.
News of the planned flight angered the Ukrainian government. It has also been suggested that Armenia had been coaxed into allowing the flight to appease Russia. Armenia needs Russian economic support to keep its finances in order and Russian military support to balance the threat posed by Azerbaijan which wants to re-take the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia-back rebels.
But Armenia’s civil aviation authority has said that an earlier statement from Crimea’s transport minister about the planned flight was simply wrong.
“The Head Department of Civil Aviation did not receive, and therefore has not examine, a bid for operation of direct flights from Yerevan to Simferopol,” media quoted spokesman Ruben Grdzelyan as saying.
This is not a categorical no, then. It does suggest that this issue may have further to run.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz officials flew to Turkmenistan to try to buy more electricity. Kyrgyzstan’s reservoirs are about 25% below capacity and its government has said that it is likely to face a power shortage. Kyrgyzstan has already negotiated to increase power imports from Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Negotiations over the Tajik-Kyrgyz border have re-opened, media reported. This is important because this year there have been several skirmishes along the border. The issue of the Tajiki-Kyrgyz border is one of the most sensitive in Central Asia and has the potential to destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EU is strongly in favour of improved ties between Armenia and Turkey, media quoted a member of the EU delegation to Ankara, Bela Szombati, as saying. Armenia-Turkey ties are strained because of a row over the alleged genocide in eastern Turkey towards the end of the First World War.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eager to burnish its image in Washington DC, Azerbaijan has signed a $15,000/month deal with US lobbying firm Mair Strategies, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Azerbaijan is well-known for paying lobbyists in the United States and Europe to bolster its standards.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan announced plans to open an embassy in Baku, underlining its determination to increase cooperation with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is an attractive ally for Kyrgyzstan as it is growing rich from energy exports and has invested in Kyrgyzstan’s economy. Kyrgyzstan needs to increase energy imports.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Flights by Russian airline Aeroflot resumed between Moscow and Tbilisi for the first time since a brief war between the two neighbours in 2008. The resumption of Areoflot flights is another sign that Russia-Georgia relations have improved since Mikheil Saakashvili left the Georgian presidency last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
