JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Muhiddin Kabiri, leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party, is moving into self-imposed exile over fears that he will be targeted and imprisoned in a government clampdown in Tajikistan, he told Eurasinet.org in an interview. The Islamic Renaissance Party is Tajikistan’s main opposition party but has been increasingly marginalised.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At the fourth EU-Tajikistan Cooperation Committee in Brussels, the European delegation confirmed it had earmarked 251m euro for Tajikistan over the next five years to improve rural areas. The EU said the aid was more necessary now because of the drop in remittances.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia would be prepared to send a rapid reaction force to defend Tajikistan’s southern border from Taliban incursions, Russian media quoted General Nikolai Bordyuzha as saying. General Bordyuzha is head of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), an FSU intergovernmental military group.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Tajikistan lifted a ban on Facebook and YouTube imposed after a police chief defected to the radical group IS in Syria last month, the AFP news agency reported.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif flew to Dushanbe for talks with Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon, his first visit to Tajikistan since the neighbours agreed an electricity supply deal earlier this year.
At this meeting the two leaders agreed to speed up building the infrastructure needed for Tajikistan to send electricity generated from its hydropower stations to Pakistan under the CASA-1000 deal.
Importantly they agreed to improve communication and links.
This is important. International organisations as well as Western states have supported the CASA-1000 deal. They want electricity sent to Pakistan improved as well as cash flowing into Tajikistan’s economy.
They also want to encourage deeper relations between countries, including between Tajikistan and Pakistan.
JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US embassy in Dushanbe issued a statement criticising the Tajik government for block- ing access to various websites. It said that Tajikistan should lift restrictions on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Facebook websites. These have been inaccessible since May 28.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s prosecutor-general issued an arrest warrant for Gulmurod Khalimov, the paramilitary police chief who defected to IS in Syria.
Mr Khalimov was also formally stripped of his military title. He had been a colonel.
He appeared at the end of May in a video from Syria in which he cradled a sniper rifle and pledged to ferment revolution in Tajikistan.
Mr Khalimov had left his home in April, telling his wife that he was going away on a business trip for a few days.
Instead he became IS’ most high-profile recruit from Central Asia.
Central Asian countries are increasingly worried about the ability of IS to recruit disenfranchised and poor young men from the region. With his glamour and seniority, Mr Khalimov’s recruitment has added extra weight to the IS propaganda programme.
Mr Khalimov had led Tajikistan’s paramilitary OMON unit and had been trained by special forces in the United States and in Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defence minister from CSTO member states flew into Dushanbe for their annual meeting, set to begin on June 4. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s parliament unanimously approved a Tajik-China extradition law. China is increasing its influence across Central Asia, a region it considers to be its backyard.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a new report, the World Bank said remittances from Tajik migrant workers to their relatives might drop by 40% this year.
Remittances in 2014 from Tajiks working in Russia made up over 42% of Tajikistan’s GDP keeping the country at the top of the world’s most remittance- dependent ranking.
The World Bank’s forecast, therefore, makes for grim reading.
According to the World Bank the Tajik economy will experience a much slower growth than in the past few years. The country’s GDP in 2015 will grow at 3.2%, less than half its 2014 figure of 6.7%.
The World Bank forecasts the growth to return above 5% only in 2017. It also said that inflation would rise steadily over the next two years to around 10%.
The data presented by the World Bank paints a dark picture for Tajikistan’s short term future.
The World Bank has given similar pessimistic forecasts for Kyrgyzstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
