Category Archives: Uncategorised

Turkmen president calls for TAPI to speed up

APRIL 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It appears that Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is in a rush to start on the so-called TAPI pipeline that planners hope will carry gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to south Asia.

The pugnacious Mr Berdymukhamedov said that work should begin on the pipeline in 2015, an ambitious timeframe in anybody’s books.

TAPI has been talked about for a few years. The US and others see the pipeline as a way of locking in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Pakistan, into the global energy network.

Once the notoriously restless and fractious Afghanistan is a stakeholder in this system, the thinking goes, stability will be more appealing.

And Turkmenistan is the perfect gas supplier. Stable and with ample supplies, Turkmenistan is keen to exploit its reserves and increase its client list, as Mr Berdymukhamedov’s haste betrays.

The problem is that although Turkmenistan may be ready to begin this ambitious 1,735km project, Afghanistan and Pakistan are far less ready.

Afghanistan is currently midway through a complex presidential election and is facing the prospect of a security vacuum once NATO forces withdraw this year.

The $8b project has enough support from international donors and from Western nations to push it forward. Turkmenistan, which is looking to boost its client base, needs to be patient.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Landmine kills soldiers in Azerbaijan

APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A landmine killed three Azerbaijani soldiers on the border between Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region controlled by Armenia-backed separatists, and Azerbaijan, media reported. The deaths highlight the fragile cease-fire that covers Nagorno-Karabakh.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Hundreds protest in Kyrgyzstan

APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of Kyrgyz protested against the government in Bishkek and in Osh, marking the start of the now traditional spring demonstration season in Kyrgyzstan. Media reported that police detained a dozen protesters who wanted various concessions from the government. By Kyrgyz standards the protests were relatively light.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Uzbekistan boosts PM powers

APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament approved extending the powers of the PM, media reported, a move that some analysts have said shows President Islam Karimov’s influence is waning. It is still unclear what powers have been transferred to the PM although Radio Free Europe said that parliament would control the cabinet’s activities.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Georgia mulls opening a development bank

APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia is considering launching a state-run development bank to support large-scale infrastructure projects, media reported. Former Georgian PM and head of the Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili first voiced the idea of a Georgian Development Bank.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Kyrgyzstan slows Customs Union accession

APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — For Kyrgyzstan membership of the Customs Union, comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, is looking ever less appetising.

Negotiations between Bishkek and the Customs Union countries at the beginning of the month failed to finalise the roadmap for the country’s accession and Kyrgyz officials have now stopped talking about entry in 2015.

At a minimum the Union’s highly protective tariffs would curtail Kyrgyzstan’s trade in re-exports with fellow WTO member China, worth up to 15% of its GDP.

Kyrgyz officials had been hoping to offset this with concessions on Chinese imports and a vague CU-financed stabilisation fund to promote domestic industries but with western sanctions on the horizon, Moscow no longer looks a model guarantor of Kyrgyzstan’s economic security.

Depending on the damage the Ukraine crisis reaps on the Russian economy, Bishkek may also fear for a series of keystone infrastructure projects the Kremlin had committed to investing in such as the Hydroelectric Power facility Kambar-Ata 2 and the civilian airport, Manas.

Long-term, migrant remittances, worth around a fifth of GDP according to the World Bank could also take a hit. The government’s one-time target of entry in 2015 now looks overly optimistic.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Azerbaijan builds up its navy

APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said he wanted to prioritise upgrading the navy over the next year, media reported. Analysts have warned of the militarisation of the Caspian Sea, split between Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Mudslide kills 6 in Tajikistan

APRIL 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A mud slide hit a village 220km south of Dushanbe on April 12 killing at least six children, media reported. The deaths highlight the perilous state of many villages in Tajikistan. Poverty and poor infrastructure still mark much of the Tajik countryside.

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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Eurasian Union opponents meet in Kazakhstan

APRIL 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It was overcrowded and barely organised but a meeting in Almaty that opposed Kazakhstan’s move towards a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union was important.

Around 250 people, with an uneasy mix of different agendas from ultra-nationalists to human rights protesters, attended the meeting in a scruffy hotel.

The main complaints were a lack of transparency in the move and that Kazakhstan may lose its identity.

Speaking at the meeting, political commentator Dastan Kadyrzhanov said: “The Eurasian Economic Union is our Rubicon, a civilisational choice. If we pass it, there will be no way back.”

Opposition groups in Kazakhstan have a tough time. They have been hounded, detained, pushed off the streets. So for this meeting to pass off without protesters being detained was eye-catching.

(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

Russia sanction could hit Kazakhstan

APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The fallout from Ukraine’s revolution and the ensuing standoff between Russia and the West has created a headache for Kazakhstan.

If relations fray further the US and the EU may impose trade sanctions on Russia and these will impact Kazakhstan.

But the Kazakh energy sector is probably more robust than energy minister Uzakbai Karabalin made out last week.

Kazakhstan relies heavily on Russia as a transit country for its oil and it may have to find alternative export routes, but those routes do exist. This might include sending oil south, through Iran to the Persian Gulf.

Around a third of Kazakhstan’s oil exports flow through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) which owns the pipeline running from Atyrau in western Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk on Russia’s black Sea coast.

At first glance it looks as if any sanctions on Russia would hit CPC — the pipeline crosses Russia and feeds into a Russian mix of oil. But the CPC has international status and should, in theory, be exempt from sanctions.

Kazakhstan now also exports much of its oil to China, across the Caspian Sea and through the South Caucasus. Mr Karabalin’s concerns about the impact on Kazakhstan’s domestic oil-products market from a sanctions hit Russia also feels slightly overblown.

Kazakhstan has a shortage of refinery capacity and has to import oil products from China and Russia. This has been expensive and has threatened to push up prices.

If the West did impose sanctions on Russia and it did flood Kazakhstan with oil products, prices would drop.

Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia are exposed to Russia’s economy. If, under the weight of threatened sanctions, it stutters, so too does Central Asia. Kazakhstan’s energy sector, though, is more sheltered.

(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)