JULY 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia will upgrade its military base in Armenia and help modernise the Armenian army, local media reported. The move was probably designed to balance out increased Russian arms exports to Azerbaijan, Armenia’s main enemy. Armenia and Azerbaijan are officially at war over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)
JUNE 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may host another round of nuclear talks between Iran and a US-led bloc this year, Iranian media reported. Almaty has already hosted two rounds of talks between Iran and the US-led bloc this year. A third round would further increase the kudos it has earned for holding the meetings relatively seamlessly.
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia will start sending military aid and kit to Kyrgyzstan from 2014, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported quoting Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister. Accepting Russian military aid highlights a shift in Kyrgyzstan’s allegiance from the US. The US is closing its air base outside Bishkek next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces extradited to Kazakhstan a Kazakh national wanted in connection with a series of explosions in the town of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea coast in 2011, media reported. Kazakhstan is trying to stem attacks liked to militant Islam. This extradition will be viewed as a success.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to close a US airbase outside Bishkek by July 2014. Kyrgyzstan has threatened to close the airbase for years but the decision will still irritate the US ahead of a planned military withdrawal from Afghanistan through Central Asia in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Irakli Alasania, Georgia’ defence minister, said the two military bases in Afghanistan where suicide bombers have killed 10 Georgian soldiers in the past month would close. He said the closures would improve security but none of the 1,500 Georgian soldiers would be withdrawn.
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(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
JUNE 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurtai Abykayev, the 76-year-old head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence agencies, is experienced, calculating and a close confident of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
He would have weighed up the implications of telling a group of journalists on the sidelines of a meeting in Kazan, Russia, of intelligence chiefs from across the former Soviet Union that there were an estimated 100 Kazakhs training in militant camps in southern Afghanistan.
What he wanted to gain by releasing this figure is still unclear. Does he consider this a small or large number? Certainly global attention on defeating radical Islam has re-focused on Central Asia since a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers with links to Kyrgyzstan bombed the Boston marathon in April.
Since 2011 Kazakhstan has been trying to quell its own Islamic militant insurgency. It has blamed a series of bomb attacks on radical Islamists and locked up several dozen young men with apparent links to these militant groups.
Mr Abykayev may also have been trying to warn of the perils that Central Asia faces from 2014 when NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the Taliban are able to roam north.
Russia has been constantly voicing concern about the threat from militants once the NATO soldiers leave. Mr Abykayev may be adding Kazakhstan’s voice to these concerns.
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
JUNE 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has made joining NATO, the US-led military alliance, one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy.
Mr Saakashvili has vigorously supported NATO’s war in Afghanistan. There was no internal threat to Georgia from Islamic radicals trained by the Taliban, the initial reason for Western armies to march into Afghanistan. Mr Saakashvili’s motive was purely geo-political.
Georgia has 1,600 soldiers in Afghanistan, the highest number of all non-NATO members, stationed mainly in Helmand province, one of the more restless areas. Considering the commitment, Georgian casualties had been relatively light. That, though, has changed.
On June 6, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Georgian military base, killing seven soldiers. This was the largest single loss of life to NATO forces this year. Last month three Georgian soldiers died in a similar attack. Since 2010, 27 Georgian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, according to the website icasualties.org.
The official reaction was one of defiance and Georgia’s defence minister Irakli Alasania broke off a trip to Brussels to visit soldiers in Afghanistan. On the streets of Tbilisi support for the war is still strong too but this may be beginning to change.
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Atyrau, west Kazakhstan, sentenced eight men to jail for terrorism related offences and links to radical Islamic groups, media reported. Seven of the men received prison sentences of 18 – 23 years. One received a one-year suspended sentence.
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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
MAY 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Over the past couple of years, NATO has slowly been building relations with Uzbekistan. The Western military alliance needs Uzbekistan’s help to pull kit and equipment out of neighbouring Afghanistan.
Deals have been made ahead of the military pull-out, scheduled for 2013 and 2014, and promises of friendships pledged.
Now NATO plans to open an office in Tashkent, media reported. NATO said the move was planned as part of a rotational policy and the office was simply moving from Astana to Tashkent. Maybe, but the timing is also good for NATO. They have to coordinate pulling out hundreds of military vehicles across Uzbekistan to Russia over the next couple of years. They also have to work out what kit to leave behind in Uzbekistan.
Dealing with Uzbekistan is tricky. It was only a few years ago, when the West didnít need its support for their war in Afghanistan, that Uzbekistan was considered a pariah state with a distasteful human rights record.
Eurasianet quoted a NATO spokesperson as saying that the office in Tashkent would open up in either June or July and that it would have diplomatic status.
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(News report from Issue No. 137, published on June 3 2013)
