AUG. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP, Total and Socar, the Azerbaijani state energy company, agreed to fund a pipeline that will link with an energy transit route in the South Caucasus and pump gas across Albania and Greece to Italy. The pipeline, dubbed TAP, is part of an alternative gas route to the EU-backed Nabucco project.
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(News report from Issue No. 100, published on Aug. 10 2012)
AUG. 30 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Opposition groups in Azerbaijan have promised to increase protests next year ahead of presidential election planned for October, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. The election is almost certain to re-instate Ilham Aliyev as Azerbaijan’s president.
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(News report from Issue No. 099, published on Aug. 3 2012)
JULY 20 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an election unrecognised by the international community, Bako Sahakian won a second term as president of the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh. The election increased tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Media reported sporadic gunfire and casualties along the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 098, published on July 27 2012)
JULY 23 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state oil fund plans to start investing cash in global equities, media quoted Shakhmar Movsumov, its executive director, as saying. From September, the fund will invest $600m in shares listed on the MSCI Index. UBS and State Street will advise the fund.
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(News report from Issue No. 098, published on July 27 2012)
JULY 12/13 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has agreed to help finance and build Tajikistan’s first oil refinery, media reported after talks between Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in Baku. Tajikistan imports all its oil products, 90% of them from Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 097, published on July 20 2012)
JULY 12 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The deputy head of Azerbaijan’s banned Islamist Party, Vagif Abdullayev, has died in prison from a heart attack, his colleagues said. In January 2011 police arrested Mr Abdullayev and six other members of the Islamist Party for possessing weapons and plotting revolution. In October, a court sentenced him to 11 years in jail.
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(News report from Issue No. 097, published on July 20 2012)
JULY 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ayaz Mutalibov, Azerbaijan’s first post-Soviet president, returned to Baku after a 20 year exile. Mr Mutalibov was the Communist chief in Baku in Jan. 1990 when soldiers shot dead dozens of protesters. He became president of independent Azerbaijan in 1991 but fled in 1992. A new law gives ex-presidents immunity.
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(News report from Issue No. 096, published on July 13 2012)
JULY 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Voters in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan, voted in a presidential election, a vote unrecognised by the international community. Since a war in the 1990s, ethnic Armenians have predominantly populated Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has called the election a “provocation” and analysts have warned the vote may destabilise the area.
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(News report from Issue No. 097, published on July 20 2012)
JULY 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – French energy company Total confirmed huge gas reserves at the Absheron field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Socar, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, and GDP Suez, another French company, are also shareholders in Absheron. Total said the field holds up to 300b cubic metres of gas, seven times larger than France’s annual gas consumption.
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(News report from Issue No. 095, published on July 6 2012)
JULY 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials charged Hilal Mammadov, editor of an ethnic minority newspaper in the south, with spying for Iran. Police arrested him last month for possessing heroin. In Tehran, Iranian prosecutors charged two Azerbaijani nationals with spying. Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have worsened considerably this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 095, published on July 6 2012)