OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US military started withdrawing from the Manas airbase outside Bishkek. It has leased the base from the Kyrgyz government since 2001 and turned it into one of the biggest transit centres for forces flying to Afghanistan. The US has to complete its withdrawal from Manas by July 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov made his first state visit to the EU in nearly three years when he landed in Riga on Oct. 16.
Mr Karimov was officially in the Latvian capital to discuss bilateral relations and trade with Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, as well as the withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO forces. Latvia is a member of NATO and has supplied the US-led military alliance in Afghanistan with soldiers.
For Mr Karimov, though, there were other important reasons to visit Latvia. Until relatively recently, the EU had considered Uzbekistan a pariah state for various human rights abuses. European leaders are still wary of hosting Mr Karimov and he hadn’t been on a state visit to the EU since flying to Brussels in January 2011 to meet the EU and NATO chiefs.
An invitation to visit Latvia, an EU member since 2004, therefore carries more significance than it might normally. The publicity of a state visit to an EU member country would play well in the Uzbek press and television networks.
Latvia also takes over the EU presidency in 2015, so courting it now may be a clever strategy for Mr Karimov.
And then, of course, there is the small matter of a corruption investigation involving Sweden-based mobile operator TeliaSonera and payments allegedly made to Gulnara Karimova, Mr Karimov’s daughter, for a 3G licence in Uzbekistan in 2007. Investigators are looking into the role that a Latvian bank may have played in these alleged deals.
A useful trip to Latvia, then, for Mr Karimov.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A train carrying 200 Tajik soldiers through Uzbekistan derailed, injuring dozens, media reported. The train had to pass through a sliver of Uzbek territory en route from Dushanbe to northern Tajikistan. Tajikistan blamed the Uzbek authorities for the accident, raising tension between the two neighbours.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — One of the features of Azerbaijan’s oil boom has been its parallel armaments boom. As Azerbaijan’s economy has grown, so has its expenditure on weapons.
And 2014, according to media reports, is not going to be an exception. The Azerbaijani state budget forecasts spending 1.6b manat ($2b) on weapons next year, a 7% increase on 2013.
Azerbaijan is still at war, officially anyway, with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is clearly winning the arms race with its neighbour and biggest enemy.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) has estimated that in real terms, taking out inflation and currency fluctuations, Azerbaijan’s military spending has increased ten-fold since 2000. Armenia has doubled defence spending in the same period.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s base in Tajikistan is essential for regional security Russian parliamentarian Sergei Naryshkin said on an official visit to Dushanbe. After a one year delay, Tajikistan’s parliament on Oct. 1 ratified a deal to extend by 30 years Russia’s lease on the base, its largest overseas operation.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan will increase spending on military kit again next year, media reported quoting the national budget. Since 2000, Azerbaijan, with its oil and gas fuelled economy, has increased spending on military equipment 10-fold.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
SEPT. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s oil wealth is masking major structural problems, a report by the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) said. Corruption, a lack of a succession plan, spreading Islamic extremism and inequalities are the main problems, the report said.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may look like a stable and prosperous nation, the influential Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in a new report, but this glossy facade hides serious structural problems.
The ICG report is a rare foray into Kazakhstan. The think tank normally concentrates on Kazakhstan’s more obviously problematic southern Central Asian neighbours.
And that’s really the point that the ICG makes. Kazakhstan may look different from the rest of Central Asia but its energy wealth is hiding very similar problems.
These are, the report said, an aging autocratic leader without a proper succession plan, official corruption, spreading Islamic extremism and a yawning inequality gap.
Kazakh officials point to the country’s rise through various global indexes but the ICG was unequivocal.
“Kazakhstan risks becoming just another Central Asian authoritarian regime that squandered the advantages bestowed on it by abundant natural resources,” it said.
Perhaps the least documented of these issues is the inequality gap. Astana and Almaty are booming. It doesn’t take long, though, for the landscape to change.
“Many rural residents learn only from state television that they live in a prosperous energy-rich country,” the ICG wrote. “Residents of a small village only 60km from Astana do not have a regular supply of drinking water in the winter and say the authorities have ignored their situation for years.”
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fresh unit of soldiers from Azerbaijan flew to Kabul for peacekeeping duties alongside a Turkish contingent. Media said there were 94 Azerbaijani soldiers in Afghanistan, part of the US-led coalition military fighting the Taliban. Their main roles are to guard the TV tower in Kabul and carrying out various patrols.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek soldiers are expected to withdraw from disputed territory on the border with Kyrgyzstan, media reported. Local Kyrgyz accused the Uzbek soldiers of occupying the land days earlier. Tension has been rising on the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan border for the past year.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
