APRIL 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two Azerbaijani banks secured multi-million dollar loans from foreign lenders, underlining confidence in Azerbaijan’s economy. AccessBank secured a $60m loan for microfinance deals and International Bank of Azerbaijan secured a $125m loan to lend to other companies.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — More and more foreign tourists are heading to Nukus in Karkalpakstan, western Uzbekistan, to visit the dried up Aral Sea, the Eurasianet website reported. The Aral Sea had been a major inland sea but Soviet water systems siphoned off water and it shrivelled to a fraction of its size.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev flew to Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, cementing a détente between the two neighbours.
At their meeting the two leaders signed four different agreements aimed at boosting cross-border cooperation. On energy matters, Azerbaijan and Iran agreed to work together to build a pair of hydropower stations
Photos of the two men showed them shaking hands and generally looking at ease with each other.
This is good news for the South Caucasus region which had been looking increasingly unstable during the worsening of Azerbaijan-Iran relations.
Since Mr Rouhani came to power in 2013 ties have improved.
But re-working relations with Iran is also clever regional politics by Mr Aliyev. He aims to build as much support as possible for Azerbaijan’s cause against Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mr Aliyev also met with Iran’s top Islamic cleric, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who made reference to Azerbaijan’s close relations with Israel.
“Of course, the Zionist regime (Israel), among some others, is not pleased with the strong ties between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, and constantly disrupts this process,” he said according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
“But, with seriousness and political will, obstructionism can be overcome.”
Ties between Iran and Azerbaijan are still finely balanced.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Ashgabat, government officials from Oman said they wanted to develop the previously muted concept of setting up an energy transit corridor. States in the Persian Gulf have been trying to formalise the concept of an energy corridor with Central Asia for some years.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan said that he would not stand for a third consecutive term. His announcement comes just as his government are at a low ebb. Mr Sargsyan is facing low opinion poll ratings and had to appoint a new PM after his ally of six years. Tigran Sargsyan resigned this month.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s government complained to Russia that one of its aircraft, a single propeller engine AN-2, intruded on its airspace. Although relations are much improved since the brief war the two neighbours fought in 2008, tension still exists. Georgian officials described the flight as a provocation.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — With the carrot of closer EU ties dangling before it, the Georgian government introduced a long delayed anti-discrimination bill to parliament.
The bill, whose passage is necessary to conclude a visa-free travel deal with the EU, is meant to provide protection against discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, colour, gender, religion and sexual orientation. In highly conservative, macho Georgia, discrimination still persists.
A first draft, prepared by the Justice Ministry together with civil society groups, was ready in January and it had envisaged financial penalties for state and private sector institutions that broke the law.
After consultation with various lawmaker, though, the new draft ditched these provisions.
Human Rights activist Tamta Mikeladze, who helped draft the original version, is disappointed. She said the Georgian Orthodox Church lobbied the government to water down the original version.
“I can’t say whether this will be enough for the EU to grant visa-free travel, but I can tell you that it’s not enough to protect minorities from discrimination,” she said.
The government wants to pursue EU integration and pander to the demands of the Church, a powerful group, which contains many anti-European elements. One of its major fears is that it will be forced to accept same-sex marriages.
It remains to be seen if this anti-discrimination bill will be enough to either persuade the EU that Georgia deserves visa-free travel and if it will improve the plight of minorities in the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan is watching the ongoing presidential election in Afghanistan with interest.
If ethnic Tajik former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah defeats his main Pashtun rival, the former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, genuinely closer relations between the two neighbours may flourish.
Alexander Sodiqov an analyst and author of the Tajikistan Monitor blog said aside from being an ethnic Tajik there are other reasons why Dushanbe thinks a victory for Mr Abdullah would boost Tajik-Afghan relations.
“Abdullah had been very close to Ahmad Shah Massoud at the time when Tajikistan provided military and material support for the Northern Alliance. Dushanbe expects that Abdullah has not forgotten that support,” he said referring to the main anti-Taliban commander who was assassinated in 2001.
There is another important security question at stake.
“Abdullah’s main constituency base is in northern Afghanistan, and he fought against Taliban for a long time,” said Mr Sodiqov. “Dushanbe sees Abdullah’s possible presidency as an additional guarantee that Taliban militants would not threaten its porous southern border.”
The Tajik government has complained for a while that the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014 will leave a security vacuum in Afghanistan. Trade has been growing between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, now worth over $100 million, but the West is hoping that relations grow closer still.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh businesses and consumers need to learn to re-pay loans, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in a rare foray into personal finance. Mr Nazarbayev’s frustration is understandable. Kazakhstan has one of the highest proportions of bad loans in the world, hindering its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Data from Kyrgyzstan’s state statistics committee showed that the country’s GDP grew by 5% in the 12 months to the end of March, media reported. GDP growth in Kyrgyzstan is fragile and over the past few years has depended on the level of output at the Kumtor gold mine and also the level of public discontent.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)