OCT. 8 (The Conway Bulletin) – Myratniyaz Berdyev has been promoted to chairman of Dayhanbank State Commercial Bank of Turkmenistan, from deputy chairman, official Turkmen media reported by quoting a presidential press release. Dayhanbank focuses on supplying loans to agriculture businesses. Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov fired the bank’s previous chairman last month.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
ALMATY/Oct. 10/11 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev hosted the sixth edition of the Congress of World Religious and Traditional leaders in the Palace of Peace and Accord in Astana. Mr Nazarbayev’s decorators have said that he has concocted the Congress to try and burnish his self-styled image as a bringer of peace to the world. It was first held in 2003 and takes place every three years. Kazakhstan is officially a secular country although its population is predominantly Muslim.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
TBILISI/Oct. 4 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia accused Georgia of hosting a secret US laboratory that designs and tests biological weapons, an accusation immediately dismissed by Washington as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Specifically, Major-General Igor Kirilov, commander of specialist units within Russia’s military trained to counter radiological, chemical and biological attacks, said that illegal experiments had been carried out at the Lugar Center in Tbilisi between 2015 and 2016, killing 73 people.
He based his assessment on documents released in September at a little-reported on press briefing in Moscow by Igor Giorgadze, a pro-Russia fringe politician who was a Georgian government minister 23 years ago.
“The near simultaneous deaths of a large number of volunteers give reason to believe that the Lugar Center was researching a highly toxic and highly lethal chemical or biological agent,” Major-General Kirilov said. “It’s highly likely that the US is building up its military biological potential under the cover of studying protective means and conducting other peaceful research, flouting international agreements.”
Georgia and the US denied the accusations. A Pentagon spokesperson dismissed them as fake news, part of the “Russian disinformation campaign against the West”.
The Lugar Centre was opened in 2013 and is owned by the Georgian government. It is named after former US Senator Richard Lugar and the US embassy said its mission is to research potential biological threats against people and also animals.
Mr Giorgadze is a fringe figure in Georgia. He was made State Security Minister in 1993 but fled to Moscow in 1995 after a failed assassination attempt against the then-president Eduard Shevardnadze. Since then he has dabbled in Georgian politics, promoting a pro-Russia viewpoint. Mr Giorgadze’s detractors, and there are many in Georgia, say he is sponsored by the Russian security services.
Georgia-Russia relations are still mending after a brief war in 2008 over the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia wants to join NATO, a policy objective that Russia sees as a threat.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT. 15 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s nuclear agency Kazatomprom said that it was readying to list Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange. Kazakhstan has been talking up the prospect of listing a handful of its top state-owned companies on international stock markets this year although none have yet been confirmed.
>> See Comment on Page 2
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
DUSHANBE/ Oct. 15 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting of heads of governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states, Chinese PM Li Keqiang said that the group needed to build on the economic progress it has made to turn itself into a trading powerhouse.
Mr Li specifically said that six areas needed more cooperation within the Central Asia-focused group. These were trade, industrial capacity, connectivity, openness, cooperation and common development.“Past experience shows that development cannot be achieved behind closed doors, and opening up is the right way forward,” he said at the meeting in the Tajik capital.
China is the driving force of the SCO, which it co-founded in 2001 with Russia. The other original members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan and India joined last year.
China has used the SCO to bolster its resource base in the region and to fund infrastructure projects. Critics of Chinese policy in Central Asia have accused it of grabbing assets through the mechanics of the SCO and its Belt and Road Initiative.
While in Dushanbe, Mr Li also met with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon. Media reported that both men said that they wanted to intensify bilateral relations. China is Tajikistan biggest foreign investor.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT.15 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s state-owned KazTransKaz and China’s PetroChina signed a 5-year deal to double Kazakh gas imports into China to 10b cubic metres of gas per year from 2019. Kazakhstan has increased its gas production this year to 41.45b cubic metres in the first nine months of the year, up 6%. Of this it will export more than a quarter.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT. 4 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has allowed Tajik trucks to cross its territory after a month-long delay, media reported. No explanation was given for the delay but the row had threatened to damage Tajik-Turkmen relations. At one point, the Tajik ambassador in Ashgabat had said that his government would stop cooperating in a high-profile joint railway project linking the two countries to Afghanistan. The Tajik trucks had been carrying goods to and from Afghanistan.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT. 12 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is keen to build a high-speed train link between Beijing and Astana which will also connect China to Moscow and Berlin. Kazakh PM Bakytzhan Sagintayev suggested the infrastructure project at a meeting of heads of governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states in Dushanbe. He said that a high-speed train link was an obvious extension for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT. 11 (The Conway Bulletin) – French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders from French-speaking countries including Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, travelled to Yerevan for a summit. Even though Armenia is not a French-speaking country it maintains strong links through migration to France. The summit was a political boost for Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan. French President Macron also visited Azerbaijan on this trip to the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan has become increasingly important to Europe because it will pump gas to central Europe via the newly inaugurated Southern Gas Corridor In August, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also visited Baku for talks with President Ilham Aliyev.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
OCT. 7/9 (The Conway Bulletin) – Indian President Ram Nath Kovind visited Tajikistan for talks with his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon, underlining the interest that India has in the country. India is trying to make inroads into Central Asia, where its main rival China has become a dominant force. Last year India became a full member of the China and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which is focused on Central Asia.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018