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Uzbekistan to open up regional airports to foreign airlines

TASHKENT/JUNE 18 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will allow foreign airlines to land at all its regional airports from Aug. 1, a move that it hopes will boost the country’s prospects as the preferred stopover for Europe-Asia air travel.

The route has become increasingly lucrative since China started to push its Belt and Road Initiative and is hotly contested between the Central Asian countries.

Uzbek officials said that they would trial the increased access to its airports for foreign airlines under what it dubbed its “Open Skies” policy.

“Open Skies at the regional airports of Uzbekistan will be introduced using the fifth air freedom, which allows unloading and taking on board passengers, mail and cargo from or to the third country on the territory of the partner country,” media quoted Uzbekistan’s aviation authorities as saying.

The UN’s Fifth Air Freedom referenced by Uzbek officials allows airlines to stop at airports in third countries to pick up and offload passengers and cargo. Uzbekistan introduced this freedom at its main international airport at Tashkent in 2018.

Like its neighbours, Uzbekistan has been trying to lure airlines to its airports. This year it also said that it would cut ground handling and refuelling fees.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Uzbek government sells Karimova’s Paris mansion for $10m

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JUNE 18 (The Bulletin) — The Uzbek government has sold a luxury house in Paris previously owned by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, for $10m, media reported. Ms Karimova has been in prison or under house arrest in Tashkent since 2014 when she was accused of financial crime. The state is trying to recover millions of dollars from her assets which it has said were stolen.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan ignores evidence of officials’ corruption

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JUNE 18 (The Bulletin) — Anti-corruption activists accused Kyrgyzstan of ignoring evidence of corruption after Parliament approved the findings of a parliamentary commission which said that despite a well-documented investigation, officials had not laundered millions of dollars. The commission said although Kyrgyz customs officials were implicated in the report, Kyrgyzstan’s reputation should not be blighted because the cash had come from private Kyrgyz and Uzbek businessmen.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz Parliament approves new PM

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JUNE 17 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament approved the appointment of Kubatbek Boronov as PM after the resignation earlier this month of Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev over a corruption investigation in the telecoms sector. Mr Boronov, 55, was formerly a deputy PM and emergencies minister.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

China wants to speed up BRI projects in Tajikistan post-Covid

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DUSHANBE/JUNE 17 (The Bulletin) — Tajikistan and China should speed up projects linked to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative to counter the impact of an anti-coronavirus lockdown, media reported Chinese President Xi Jinping as saying to his Tajik counterpart, Rustam Emomali, in a telephone conversation.

The reported conversation will concern analysts in the West who say that China already treats Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and, to a lesser extent, the other Central Asian states, as vassal countries which are tied into its expansive Belt and Road Initiative.

It has handed out billions of dollars in soft loans over the past decade in return for influence and business contracts.

In May, Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov asked China for debt relief to help it deal. Instead, Beijing stepped up consignments of protective equipment and aid, a strategy that some analysts described as “photogenic”.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Russia plot to kill journalist was foiled, says Georgian security services

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JUNE 16 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s security services said that it had foiled a Russia-backed plot to assassinate a Georgian journalist who mimicked Russian President Vladimir Putin last year. The journalist, Nika Gvamaria, swore on TV when referencing Mr Putin last year, a tirade that the authorities said encouraged violent anti-Russia protests.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Turkmenistan still reports no cases of the coronavirus

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — Like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan has not reported any cases of the coronavirus. Some unverified reports from Turkmenistan said that discussion of the coronavirus has been banned.

Quoting a foreign ministry document, Reuters reported that Turkmenistan had banned all freight shipments through its territory because of the spread of the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz president sacks deputy PM and health minister over coronavirus response

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — At least two people have now died with COVID-19 in Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz health workers said. They both died in a hospital in Nookat in the south of the country, the epicentre of the outbreak in Kyrgyzstan. Officials have said that pilgrims returning from the Hajj in Mecca to their homes in and around Osh and Jala-Abad spread the coronavirus.

Looking to deflect criticism pf the government’s response to the spread of the coronavirus, Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov sacked health minister Kosmosbek Cholponbayev and deputy PM Altynai Omurbekova (April 1). He said that they had been too slow to identify the source of the virus in the country and said that their work was “unsatisfactory”.

The state-of-emergency forced a court in Bishkek to postpone the trial of former president Almazbek Atambayev and 13 other defendants who are charged with inciting deadly clashes with the security forces in August 2019 (March 30).

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Thousands of Tajik workers return home

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DUSHANBE/April 5 (The Bulletin) — Thousands of Tajik workers have returned early from jobs in Russia because of a lockdown triggered by the spread of the coronavirus, threatening to undermine the Tajik economy which is one of the most remittance-reliant economies in the world.

An estimated 500,000 Tajiks work in Russia – labouring on building sites, selling roses at train stations, cleaning streets and other menial jobs – and they send home the equivalent of around a third of Tajikistan’s annual GDP. The numbers are similar for Kyrgyzstan.

Economists have said that the combined drag of the coronavirus pandemic and a crash in oil prices may tip Russia into a recession.

The last time the Russian economy contracted, in 2015, the knock-on effect to the Tajik economy was significant.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenia reports most cases of the coronavirus

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — Armenia has the most reported cases of the coronavirus in any country in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region. It has now said that there are 822 cases in Armenia and that seven people have died.

The Armenia-administered territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan also claims sovereignty over, held elections despite the spread of the coronavirus (March 31). Two candidates who back Mr Pashinyan will go into a final round of voting , set for for April 14.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin