FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tajikistan has sentenced 13 members of a group linked to the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) to jail for 9-12 years for trying to recruit young men to travel to Syria to fight for the extremist organisation IS, media reported.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Peace accords had been in front of parliament>>
FEB. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan withdrew a series of peace accords relating to the country’s long-running dispute with Turkey.
The move is a major setback for the region as the Armenia-Turkey spat is a hindrance to improved ties and trade with Europe. The two countries’ argue about the alleged mass killings by Turkish Ottoman soldiers of Armenians who were fleeing their land around Lake Van in the east of Turkey.
Mr Sargsyan blamed Turkey for the cancellation.
“We were ready for a fully-fledged settlement in our relations with Turkey by ratifying these protocols, but we were also ready for failure,” media quoted him as saying.
The two countries signed declarations in 2009 to establish diplomatic relations and open a land border.
The problem is that neither the Turkish nor the Armenian parliaments have approved the deals. Nationalists on both sides have instead slowed progress and frustrated efforts.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has pardoned 10 Iranian prisoners, Iran’s media reported. This is significant as the state-controlled Tehran Times described the release as part of a move by Turkmenistan to improve ties.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian interior ministry said it arrested Jokia Bodokia, a senior official in the Tbilisi city government, for taking a bribe. PM Irakli Garibashvili has said that he wants to make wiping out corruption a priority. Opposition said he is using the purge to attack his enemies.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Website says officers have been sent to training camps>>
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Increasingly worried by the threat from the Taliban over the border in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan is calling up more and more of its young men for military training.
The chrono-tm.org website reported that officers who form part of the reverse army have been sent on three month long training camps.
This is important because it is more incremental evidence from Turkmenistan, notoriously closed to outsiders, that it is worried about the Taliban. Last year Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered his army to build defence positions inside Afghanistan after a series of attacks on Turkmenistan’s border posts killed several soldiers.
Since then, he has also tried to coordinate a joint strategy to defend Central Asia’s border with Uzbek president Islam Karimov. This sort of bilateral military alliance is virtually unheard of in Central Asia’s fractious neighbourhood.
“These actions on the urgent increase in size and readiness of the Turkmen army demonstrate serious concern the authorities hold on the potential threat from neighbouring Afghanistan and the tension on the Turkmen-Afghan border,” the website reported.
The problem for Central Asian governments is that NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has created a security void. They have said that they worry the Taliban will look to expand into Central Asia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan jailed two men for spying for Iran, media reported, potentially ramping up tension with its neighbour. Investigators said the two men worked with Iranian intelligence offices in 2013. Relations between the two countries had been dire but have improved over the past year.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three more people — an Armenian civilian, an Armenian solider and an Azerbaijani soldier — have died in sporadic fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, media reported quoting the Armenian defence ministry. Observers have urged calm but tension has increased.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
>>Clashes breakout after Tajik is accused of murder>>
FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Kazakhs attacked Tajik homes in a village near Kazakhstan’s border with Uzbekistan.
The police had earlier accused Navmidin Narmetov, a Tajik, of killing Bakytzhan Artykov, a Kazakh in the village of Bostandyk, 150km south of the regional capital, Shymkent.
Friends and family members of the victim converged on the Tajiks’ homes, burning cars, attacking the Tajik-language school and shouting: “Go home!”.
A state of emergency was briefly proclaimed by the ministry of interior. In the southern region, internet connections and cell phone reception were frozen for days after the attacks. Online news reports, both in Russian and in English were censored across the country.
The alleged murderer was caught in Uzbekistan.
Inter-ethnic harmony is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has often spoken on the topic and in 2011, rioting oil workers in west Kazakhstan clashed with police. Several people died triggering the most serious crisis of Mr Nazarbayev’s presidency.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will buy several Russian-made Sukhoi SU-30SM fighter jets to rebuild its Soviet-era air force, media reported quoting the commander of the Kazakh Air Force Major General Nurlan Ormanbetov. The order highlights Kazakhstan close links with Russia and also its determination to re-build its military.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Despite an antagonistic stand-off between Washington and the Kremlin over the civil war in Ukraine, media reported that Kazakhstan has organised a military exercise with the US. The US has held military exercises with Kazakhstan for several years. Kazakhstan is also a close ally of Russia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
