Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan accused of shelling Nagorno-Karabakh

JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia accused Azerbaijan of intensifying shelling of pro- Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Tension has been rising around Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s defence minister, Seyran Ohanyan, also rejected calls for the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to monitor the cease-fire around Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Azerbaijan reducing flaring

JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has reduced flaring off excess gas at oil producing plants by 50% over the last two years, Anita Georgia a World Bank official said in an interview with Bloomberg.The World Bank is pushing for countries to reduce flaring.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Russia weapons to Azerbaijan

JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The head of Russian arms manufacturer Rosoboronexport, Anatoliy Isaykin, flew to Baku to meet with Azerbaijani officials, media reported. Russia has increased sales of arms to Azerbaijan over the last couple of years despite being an ardent supporter of its arch foe Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Azerbaijani opposition protests

JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani opposition activists protested outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a speech by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The protesters wore red T-shirts with pictures of different people in Azerbaijani jails who they say have been jailed for political reasons.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Azerbaijan rejects juries in court cases

JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s parliament has, apparently, rejected the option of bringing in juries for some trials, media reported.

The authorities has been mulling over the idea but in the end decided against the notion because juries couldn’t be expected to understand the complexities of the law.

“Jurors are mainly people who do not have a law education and, therefore, often they cannot make legal judgments,” the eurasianet.orf website quoted Ali Huseynli, an MP for the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, as saying.

Opponents of the government said that it simply didn’t want to relax its iron grip on the law courts.

They said, with thinly disguised sarcasm, that the courts have served them so well recently. Many opposition activists accuse Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev of using the courts to lock up his enemies.

The former Soviet states are, generally, not keen on juries. The big regional exception is Georgia. They introduced jury service in 2011 but only on some murder cases and only when both the prosecution and the defence agreed to it.

Instead a judge decides on cases, opening the system up to corruption, campaigners have said. This may change but clearly not for some time to come.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Barroso meets with Azerbaijan’s President

JUNE 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso visited Baku in a strong show of support for strengthening relations with Azerbaijan.

Mr Barroso pledged not only the EU’s full support for the Southern Corridor, an energy transit route from the Caspian Sea, but also support for a pact to further push Azerbaijan towards Europe.

Europe’s main motivation for the Southern Corridor — hinged around a gas pipeline linking the Caspian Sea to central Europe — is to reduce its reliance on Russia for its gas supplies. Azerbaijan’s motivation is to link directly to a major client.

But talk of another deal moves EU-Azerbaijan relations on to another level. Potentially, at least.

“We held a very successful meeting with President Ilham Aliyev, and made important decisions, one of which was to hasten the completion of a new agreement between Azerbaijan and the EU,” media quoted Mr Barroso as saying.

Russia is likely to look poorly on any move by Azerbaijan to integrate more closely with Europe. Just as with Ukraine and Georgia, Russia considers Azerbaijan to be part of its patch.

Three days after Mr Barroso’s visit to Baku, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov flew into town for bilateral talks. He is sure to make this point to the Azerbaijani leadership.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

US criticises Azerbaijan rights

JUNE 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Civil liberties in Azerbaijan have worsened considerably in the past five years, US Deputy Secretary of State, Thomas Melia said. Mr Melia’s statement during a testimony before the US Helsinki Commission were particularly poignant from a US diplomat.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Azerbaijan to buy reminbi

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s sovereign wealth fund (Sofaz) will buy $1.8b of renminbi, China’s currency, this year, Shahmar Movsumov, Sofaz CEO, told the FT. Mr Movsumov’s statement underlines both the rise of the renminbi and the growing status of Sofaz as an investor.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Armenia’s government suggests pension reforms

JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The thorny issue of pension reform returned to centre stage in Armenia after the new government submitted a proposal that watered down unpopular reforms.

Earlier this year Armenia’s government resigned over the unpopularity of its changes to the pension system which came into effect on Jan. 1. The new law stated that people born after 1973 pay 5% of their salaries into a government scheme, a sum matched by the government.

Thousands of people demonstrated against this plan and the Constitutional Court eventually deemed it illegal and demanded that the new law was amended by Sept. 30.

Armenia was effectively plunged into a political crisis — and the issue of how to reform the out-of-date pension system was still unresolved.

Now the new government of Hovik Abrahamyan is trying to tackle the problem.

It has proposed that the scheme would only be obligatory for public servants who will also have their salaries raised from July 1. It’s a brave proposal and one that may gain traction. Like other states across the former Soviet Union, Armenia needs to reform its overly-generous state pension scheme and also avoid major public discontent.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Iran and Azerbaijan sign deal

JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Iran will sign a deal improving post and information technology connections, media reported, an important step for improving relations between the two neighbours. Azerbaijan-Iran relations have improved with the election last year of Hassan Rouhani as Iranian president.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)