Tag Archives: security

Turkmenistan reasserts neutrality

FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukahmedov wants to tinker with Turkmenistan’s constitution to strengthen its commitment to neutrality, official media reported. Last month, in a similar move, Mr Berdymukhamedov approved a new military doctrine which reasserted Turkmenistan’s neutrality. Turkmenistan’s neutrality has been challenged by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Georgian President walks about in Pankisi George

JAN. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a PR stunt aimed at knocking down Russian allegations that the radical group IS had set up a training camp in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili travelled to the region with the US and EU ambassadors for a walk-about and to talk to locals. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in January that the Pankisi Gorge was an IS recruiting ground.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Georgia-Armenia sign military deal

FEB. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Armenia signed a defence deal that ministers said should improve training and strategic planning between the two countries. The deal, signed in Yerevan, is probably most important for Armenia which is still officially at war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Azerbaijani soldier dies in N-K

FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials said that one of its soldiers had died during a shoot- out with Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. They also said that three Armenian soldiers had died in fighting, a claim that the Armenia backed government of the region denied. A cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed fighters around Nagorno-Karabakh is looking increasingly fragile.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Georgia investigates corruption allegations

FEB. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s ministry of defence said it was investigating allegations that some Georgian soldiers on assignment in the Central African Republic were part of a rouge group of peacekeepers who abused children and raped women. The UN said it had opened an investigation after allegations were levied at peacekeepers. Georgia sent 150 soldiers on an EU-led mission to the Central African Republic between Feb. 2014 and March 2015.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Soldier pleads guilty in Armenia

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Valery Permyakov, a Russian conscript soldier, pleaded guilty to assaulting and killing a family of seven in the Armenian town of Gyumri last year. The murders triggered anti-Russia protests outside Russia’s military base, its biggest in the South Caucasus, and threatened to damage bilateral relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

ICC investigates war crime in Georgia-Russia war

JAN. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) officially launched an investigation into alleged war crimes during an eight day war in August 2008 between Georgia and Russia. Georgia, a signatory of the treaty which set up the ICC, said it would comply with the investigation. The ICC’s investigation has the potential to damage recently improved Georgia- Russia relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Taliban attack Uzbek-Afghan power line

JAN. 26 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Taliban militants attacked and badly damaged a power line sending electricity to Afghanistan from Uzbekistan, a warning sign for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan who are hoping to develop a power-supply network to Pakistan across Afghan territory.

The attack in the northern Baghlan district cut power to Kabul and underlined the Taliban’s ability to attack targets, seemingly at will, in the north of the country. Last year it captured the town of Kunduz near the border with Tajikistan. Russia and Central Asian governments have warned that a powerful Taliban threatens to destabilise the region.

Afghanistan has become an increasingly important trade and diplomatic partner for Central Asia. It has developed a series of power supply deals with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Most ambitiously Afghanistan will also host an electricity power line running from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan, dubbed CASA-1000, and a gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to India, called TAPI.

Both projects need a stable Afghanistan to be successful. The attack on the power line running from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan has severely reduced electricity to Kabul in the short-run and will make policy makers in Central Asia the West nervous in the long-run.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Editorial: Taliban threat for Uzbekistan

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For policy makers involved in pushing the CASA-1000 and TAPI projects, reports from Afghanistan that the Taliban have attacked and badly damaged part of a power line sending electricity to Kabul from southern Uzbekistan is the stuff their nightmares are made of.

CASA-1000 is the World Bank-backed $1.1b project that will supply Pakistan with power from hydro-stations in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. TAPI is the name of a pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan to India.

Both projects will transit across Afghanistan and form part of a loose north-south Silk Road that US officials have been touting for the past decade. The rub is that they require a stable Afghanistan and that, it appears, is exactly what they don’t have.

If the Taliban are attacking power lines running from Uzbekistan to Kabul then what would stop them attacking a power line running to neighbouring Pakistan or a pipeline running to India?

For each project, the leaders now have to inspect their security systems once again. Costs and doubts about both projects will be rising.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Russia says IS have set up a training camp in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge

JAN. 27 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia said the radical Islamic group IS had set up a training centre in the Pankisi Gorge, prompting a quick and irritated denial from the Georgian government.

The spat has the potential to upset relations between Georgia and Russia at a delicate time. Over the past few years, since former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili lost power in 2013, relations between the two neighbours have improved. They fought a war in 2008 over the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian news agencies quoted Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, as saying at a press conference in Moscow: “We are getting reports IS militants use this remote area to train, rest and replenish their reserves. The terrorist threat from the Pankisi Gorge has not faded.”

The reference to the “terrorist threat” was to the Pankisi Gorge’s previous role as a hide-out for Chechen fighters battling Russian forces in the North Caucasus during the 1990s and the early 2000s.

The Pankisi Gorge is a predominantly Muslim area and Georgian security forces are increasingly concerned about IS recruitment from the region but Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili refuted Mr Lavrov’s allegations.

“The Georgian government carries out a full inspection of all the regions under its control. A few people from Pankisi Gorge have gone to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, though a strict control is imposed on their entry back to the country,” he said.

“I can say there is no terrorist threat in the Pankisi Gorge.”

Bidzina Lebanidze, political scientist at the Free University in Berlin said that he thought that Russia was trying to play mind games with Georgia by making the accusations to try to discredit it.

“It seems to be just another instrument in the Kremlin’s arsenal to put pressure on the pro-Western government in Tbilisi and to damage its international reputation,” he told The Conway Bulletin.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)