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20 gunmen in Armenian capital surrender

JULY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Twenty gunmen who had captured a police station in Yerevan surrendered, ending a standoff that had lasted two weeks and triggered clashes between anti-government protesters and police.

The surrender ends what had become seen as a major test of the current government’s resolve.

Armenia’s National Security Service said in a statement: “The anti- terrorist operation is over. Twenty terrorists have been taken prisoner.”

It is still not clear why the gunmen, who had been calling for the release of the radical opposition leader Zhirayr Sefilyan from prison, had surrendered. Over the weekend they had appeared determined to continue their stand-off despite a deadline passing, briefly taking a doctor prisoner and being accused of shooting dead a policeman. The gunmen have denied that they killed the policeman.

A policeman also died during the initial assault on the police station two weeks ago.

Television footage of the gunmen surrendering showed burley Armenian security forces wearing balaclavas frisking the tired looking gunmen. The gunmen looked thin and drawn. Many were old men.

Shortly before surrendering Varuzhan Avetisyan, the group’s leader, said that the gunmen had fulfilled their mission of inciting popular protests against the government.

“Popular protest will continue. We feel that our victory is close and call on Armenian people to continue the fight,” he was quoted by local media as saying.

Clashes had erupted throughout the week between Armenian police and demonstrators supporting the armed group outside the police station.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Poverty increases in Kazakhstan

JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a new country report, the World Bank said that Kazakhstan has been unable to reduce poverty in the past few years, as the percentage of the population living off under $5/day continues to measure around 14%. In absolute numbers, poverty has increased and the number of people living under the World Bank threshold is nearing 3m. The World Bank said that the depreciation of the tenge since August 2015 and a stagnant job market have impacted living standards.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Briefing: Gulenist links in Central Asia & S.Caucasus

AUG 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >>So, we know that the Gulen movement was big in Turkey but in Central Asia? Really? How deep is it and what does it do?

>> The movement, created by cleric Fethullah Gulen, is a social and religious group that has said it wants to integrate moderate Islam into the secular Turkish state and to replicate the model in other Muslim countries. The movement counts millions of followers. As it puts great emphasis on education and upward social mobility, the movement established a network of schools around the world, including in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

>>OK, but who is Gulen? Wasn’t he an ally of Erdogan?

>> Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan found in Gulen a strong ally when he came to power in 2003, a bulwark against a possible military backlash, something that had dogged Turkish leaders for half a century. Gulen and Erdogan, though, fell out in 2013, when a corruption scandal targeting members of Mr Erdogan’s ruling AKP party emerged. Mr Erdogan and others in his party alleged that the Gulenist members of the judiciary had orchestrated the scandal. Since then the government has cracked down on Gulenists in Turkey. Mr Gulen has lived in the United States since 1999 in a self-imposed exile. Now, after a failed coup in Turkey last month blamed on Gulen, Turkey has said it could ask the US government for the extradition of Gulen. Since the coup, Turkish police have detained over 60,000 state employees and dozens of journalists and businessmen allegedly linked to the Gulen movement.

>>Quiete a full-on assault. Will Turkey now force a crackdown on Gulen- linked institutions in Central Asia and South Caucasus?

>> In short, this bureau and the analysts we contacted all agree that Turkey will not go as far as to sever relations with countries that don’t respond to the request to shut down Gulen-linked schools. Apart from Azerbaijan, all other countries are loosely linked with Turkey. Plus, as shown in our story on page 3, these schools are a relative island of quality and reliability in the South Caucasus and Central Asia’s messy educational system. Both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have shrugged off Turkey’s requests to shut down Gulen- linked schools. Georgia appears also to have pretty much ignored Turkey’s request. Only Azerbaijan, Turkey’s super-tight ally, has gone along with Turkey’s request and closed down a TV station that had planned to run an interview with Gulen and brought under government control a university linked to the Gulen movement.

>>OK, but what about the businesses linked to Gulen?

>> The closest business link between Gulenists and the South Caucasus seems to have been uprooted immediately, with the sacking of Sadettin Korkut, chief of Petkim, a petrochemical complex in Izmir, owned by Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR (See the front page of the Business News). It appears that SOCAR was also keeping a list of Gulen-linked people among its ranks. Together with Korkut, who was later arrested, around 200 other employees of SOCAR-linked companies were sacked. This, however, appears to be a one-off act of loyalty from Azerbaijan’s government to Ankara.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum drops in H1

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil & Gas posted a 41% drop in revenues in H1 2016, compared to last year because of continued low oil prices. Production in H1 fell by 12% to an average of 38,993 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The company said that the full-year production forecast remained at an average of 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Oil output falls in Kazakhstan

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Due to sustained low oil prices, Kazakhstan’s oil production could shrink further this year, according to Asset Magauov, deputy energy minister. Mr Magauov said that a majority of the companies operating in the country reported a decline in production in 2015. The official forecast for 2016 is 75.5m tonnes, a 5% reduction compared to last year. In March, then-energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik had projected a production target of 77m tonnes for 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan turns down Kyrgyz request for extra power

DUSHANBE, JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s minister of energy, Usmonali Usmonzoda, said he had turned down a request from Kyrgyzstan for extra electricity because the Tajik power generating system did not have any spare capacity.

The inability of Tajikistan to send power to Kyrgyzstan shows just how interdependent countries in Central Asia are. It also comes at a time when extra scrutiny is being placed on the power generation systems in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as they build up to powering the World Bank-backed $1.2b CASA-1000 power system to Pakistan.

At a press conference in Dushanbe, Mr Usmonzoda said that, due to rising industrial activity, Tajikistan does not have spare capacity.

“Kyrgyzstan asked for 2.5b kWh of electricity at 2.5 cents/kWh,” he told reporters. “This is a large volume and, because of the emergence of new domestic energy consumers, we decided to refrain from the supply.”

Last year, Tajikistan signed a short term supply agreement with Kyrgyzstan to export 146m kWh over the winter for 2.5 cent/kWh.

Now, though, Tajikistan may be looking for a better price.

Independent Bishkek-based energy expert Rasul Umbetaliyev told the KyrTAG news agency: “The minister diplomatically avoided answering directly, but the price for electricity exports from Tajikistan is currently 3.5 – 7 cents/kWh.”

Tajikistan is investing heavily in its power generating systems. It has approved a $3.9b project to build the Rogun hydropower system.

But with its economy stalling and industrial production lying stagnant rather than rising, production problems and not excessive demand could be holding back Tajikistan’s power exports.

Its electricity distributor, Barqi Tojik, has piled up $1.5b in debt. It hasn’t paid for the electricity it bought from power stations and it is still waiting to be paid by its largest customers.

The government is planning to split Barqi Tojik and bail it out.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

EBRD considers Azerbaijani gas

JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is negotiating financing TAP, a trans-Adriatic gas pipeline which forms part of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor network that will pump Azerbaijani gas to Europe. In an interview with AP, the EBRD said it is looking to invest €500m ($550m) in the project. Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR (20%), BP (20%), Italy’s Snam (20%), Belgium’s Fluxys (19%), Spain’s Enagas (16%), and Switzerland’s Axpo (5%) own TAP.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Gunman in Kazakhstan states his motives

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ruslan Kulekbayev, who shot and killed six people and injured six others in Almaty in a shooting spree that triggered a major terrorism alert earlier this month, said that there were no religious motives involved in his rampage. The newspaper Vremya published extracts of Kulekbayev’s deposition, where the shooter dismissed any ties with religious organisations. Instead he said that he was protesting against what he said was unfair treatment from the authorities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Kazakh tenge slides to five-month low

ALMATY, JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said it will not intervene to prop up the tenge currency after it lost 3.5% of its value over the past week, hitting a five-month low of 354/$1 on Thursday.

This is the sharpest drop since February, the tail-end of a two year fall for the tenge during which it has lost half its value against the US dollar.

Even so, Adil Mukhamedzhanov, deputy director for monetary operations at the Central Bank, told Kazakh media that interventions would be light.

“Several factors impacted the exchange rate, chiefly low oil prices and worsening exchange rates of our trading partners,” he was quoted as saying.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Georgia’s Central Bank to cut interest rate

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank said on Wednesday it cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.75%. The decision is in line with the Bank’s policy of containing inflation while reducing the rate to within a 5% – 6% corridor in the short term. Since April, the Bank has cut interest rates three times from the previous level of 8%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)