Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Putin flies to Uzbekistan for talks

DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an effort to shore up support in the former Soviet Union, Russian president Vladimir Putin flew to Uzbekistan, where he will offer the carrot of improved economic ties and debt cancellation.

Russian media said that Mr Putin will write off Uzbekistan’s $890m debt and also look to increase both energy imports from Uzbekistan and the import of agriculture machinery.

Uzbekistan and Russia have a lukewarm relationship. Uzbek president Islam Karimov is famously coy about his dealings with other former Soviet states. He has kept Uzbekistan away from the Kremlin-led Customs Union, which will morph into the Eurasian Economic Union next year, but is a keen member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security-economy group that is led by Beijing and Moscow.

With NATO and the West withdrawing from Afghanistan and Central Asia, perhaps Mr Karimov has decided to ally himself closer to Russia. Russia, under pressure in the West, needs all the friends it can currently muster.

Another area that Russia and Uzbekistan have been working on is labour migrants.

In November, the two countries agreed to draft a bilateral agreement to regulate Uzbek labour migrants’ economic activities in Russia.

The Uzbek authorities have previously preferred to play down labour migration but the reality is that remittances and labour migration have become a major part of Uzbekistan’s economy. In 2013, estimates said that 3m Uzbeks worked in Russia, sending home a total of $6.5b.

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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan attacks media

DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Forum 18, a news agency based in Oslo focused on promoting religious freedom, reported that Uzbekistan has been using state media to publish articles against people who practise beliefs that it doesn’t agree with. Human rights organisations regularly criticise Uzbekistan for its poor human rights record.

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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan sells aircraft

DEC. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – As part of its modernisation scheme, Uzbekistan Airways has said it wants to sell three Airbus A-310 and three BAE Systems RJ-85 passenger aircrafts, media reported. The combined sale is worth nearly $50m. Uzbekistan Airways has been looking to upgrade its fleet throughout the year.

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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Turkmen sex workers in India

DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in India arrested three women, two from Turkmenistan and one from Uzbekistan, for being sex workers, the Times of India newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported that the number of women arrested from Central Asia who have been sex workers has increased over the past few years.

One of the Turkmen girls arrested said she had moved to Delhi four years ago to work as a translator but that sex work was far better paid. She said that she had been sent to work in different cities in India by middlemen.

India has become something of a magnet for women who end up either in the sex trade or adult slavery and Central Asia is a particularly strong recruiting ground.

“Experts estimate that millions of women and children are victims of sex trafficking in India,” a US State Department report this year said.

“A large number of Nepali, Afghan, and Bangladeshi females the majority of whom are children aged nine to 14 years old and women and girls from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, and Uganda are

also subjected to sex trafficking in India.”

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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan creates job scheme for migrants

NOV. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government is creating a job programme for migrants returning from Russia, official media reported. Uzbek media must be regarded with scepticism but, with news of its job-creation scheme, perhaps the government is acknowledging a downturn in Russia’s economy and its knock-on effects.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

OSCE snubs Uzbek election

DEC. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The OSCE said it does not expect the Uzbek parliamentary election on Dec. 21 to be either free or fair and that it will be sending only a small group to the vote.

In total the OSCE will send 20 observers to cover the election in Uzbekistan, a country with 30m people and 135 electoral districts.

The Uzbek government, though, had a slightly different way of interpreting the OSCE’s perceived snub. It said that the OSCE’s limited observation mission was because there had been large improvements in the process.

“There is a unanimous opinion that no problems are expected,” the Uzbek government said in a statement. The OSCE has never judged an election in post-Soviet Uzbekistan to be either free or fair.

Of course, in a way, the Uzbek government is correct. There are no problems expected in terms of the result.

The Uzbek government made sure that only four pro- president political parties were allowed to run for the 135 seats. The Uzbek Central Election Commission rejected the unofficial Erk opposition party’s registration application.

The importance of these parliamentary elections is not that they will, or even could, trigger a change in how Uzbekistan is run, instead they are an indicator ahead of presidential elections in 2015.

Signals from Uzbekistan have suggested that President Islam Karimov’s position has been weakened by a prolonged power struggle over the past year. If any strong contenders emerge out of the parliamentary elections, even from the pro-presidential parties, it could make for a more dynamic presidential vote.

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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

Uzbekistan bans drone flights

DEC. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has taken the unusual step of banning drones from its airspace, media reported. The official reason for the ban is to secure its airspace and improve civilian flight safety. The real reason could be Uzbek paranoia about spying by neighbouring countries.

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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

HRW urges pressure on Uzbekistan

NOV. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged a US delegation flying to Tashkent for bilateral talks to push for the release of political prisoners. HRW has criticised the US for relaxing its pressure on Uzbekistan’s human rights record because it needs to transport military kit from Afghanistan across Uzbek territory.

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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

Uzbek President travels to Astana

NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov made a rare trip to Astana where he met Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev to discuss plans by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to build extra hydropower capacity, an issue that has threatened to destabilise the region. Uzbekistan relies on water from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to feed its important cotton fields.

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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)

OSCE to limit team at Uzbek election

NOV. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The OSCE, Europe’s election monitoring watchdog, said it will send a limited observation mission to Uzbekistan’s parliamentary elections on Dec. 21. The OSCE has never judged an election in Uzbekistan to be free and fair and has said it is pointless sending a larger team to the vote.

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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)