APRIL 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Special forces from Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan — all members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — began exercises in Kyrgyzstan, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Analysts say the SCO is a military alliance.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian defence minister Hossein Dehghan travelled to Baku for talks with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in a ground-breaking diplomatic initiative.
The neighbours have been fierce regional rivals over the past few years and at times it has looked as if the rhetoric was going to lead to war.
But since President Hassan Rouhani came to power in Iran in 2013, relations have soothed. Perhaps, also, the diplomatic push by the United States and Iran to patch up their differences has helped.
Iranian news agencies quoted Mr Dehqan as saying: “The two countries enjoy common geopolitics and their common interests and threats have increased the necessity for the expansion of multilateral cooperation more than ever.”
But it’s not all that straight forward. Azerbaijan supports Saudi Arabia-led efforts in Yemen where its forces are leading a counter- attack against rebels backed by Iran, and Baku has also improved relations with Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy.
Still, realpolitik may prevail and the rivals could patch up their differences.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a move designed to stop young Muslims heading off to Syria to fight for the radical group IS, Georgia plans to outlaw membership of any foreign group considered to be a terrorist organisation.
Current legislation does not deal with this issue and the authorities want more power to arrest both those people heading off to Syria to join IS and people who have returned to Georgia.
The focus in Georgia of IS recruitment is the Pankisi Gorge, on the border of Russia’s North Caucasus region.
Pankisi, which lies 2-1/2 hours drive from Tbilisi to the northeast, on the border with Chechnya, has a population of 10,000 and the majority of them are Kists, an Islamic ethnic group similar to Chechens.
Media reports have said that 20 to 80 men have headed out of the Pankisi Gorge to fight for IS in Syria.
Tbilisi rules with a light touch in the Pankisi Gorge which has a history of producing radical Muslim fighters dating back to the Chechen wars of the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Khaso Khangoshvili a member of the the Council of Elders, the 35-people body that de facto governs Pankisi, believes that the stricter laws will help.
“The new law will improve the situation, but the government should care more about the economy of our region,” he told the Bulletin.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An ex-Kazakh spy chief and a member of the presidential guard went on trial in Vienna accused of murdering two bankers in 2007 (April 14). The chief suspect in the case, Rakhat Aliyev, former son-in-law of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, was found hanged in his prison earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 227, published on April 15 2015)
APRIL 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defence ministers from Turkey and Azerbaijan flew to Tbilisi to discuss improving cooperation. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia agreed last year to set up trilateral meetings. Armenia has been cast aside from the group.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
APRIL 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – British and US soldiers have flown to Kazakhstan to take part in the Steppe Eagle annual military exercise. The exercise is routine but it is still a useful reminder that although Kazakhstan is close to Russia, it has also cultivated close ties with NATO forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
APRIL 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan is poised to receive $1.2b in military equipment and weapons from Russia to fight against the radical Islamic group IS.
An unnamed source in the Russian Defence Ministry told Russian newspaper Kommersant the aid will be spread across the next few years. What is clear is that the aid pulls Tajikistan further into the Kremlin’s orbit and strengthen its security driven regional focus.
It also intensifies the rhetoric. Previously Russia and Tajikistan had discussed the threat posed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. That has now morphed into the threat from IS. IS had previously only been associated with recruiting in Central Asia.
Some analysts are sceptical and have said that Russia and various Central Asia countries are using IS and the Taliban as a scare-mongering tactic.
Earlier this month, President Emomali Rakhmon criticised women for wearing “foreign, non traditional clothes,” while the state television channel insinuated that demand for prostitutes wearing black hijabs was increasing. This resonated as a subtle comparison between women wearing traditional Islamic head scarves and prostitutes wearing black hijabs (April 1).
Tajikistan has taken a strong stance against radical Islam. This means more control over society, less freedom of expression, and more options for arbitrary rule of law.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
APRIL 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uzbekistan sent 12 men to prison for belonging to a jihadist group, Russian news agencies reported. Prosecutors said the men were distributing pamphlets and videos promoting extremism. Central Asian governments are worried about the lure of the IS extremist group.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
APRIL 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Only a few months after agreeing a 35m euro/year deal to extend the lease on a German military base in south Uzbekistan, the Uzbek government wants to double the rent, the eurasianet.org website reported quoting German media. The German military base is now the only Western base in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
APRIL 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Argentinean news agency Telam removed from its website an article on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijani officials complained it was biased, media reported. Azerbaijan is very sensitive over how its dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh is portrayed.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)
