JUNE 22 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned 66 prisoners, including nine arrested during anti-government demonstrations last year, media reported. Earlier this month, during a visit to Baku, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the release of opposition prisoners in Azerbaijan.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)
JUNE 22 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani police arrested Khilal Mamedov a prominent local journalist and human rights activists for possessing heroin, media reported. Supporters of Mr Mamedov, who edits the popular Tolishi Sado newspaper in the southern region of Talysh, said his arrest was politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)
JUNE 26 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Istanbul, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan signed a deal to finally complete a gas pipeline route from the Caspian Sea to western Turkey.
The $7b deal paves the way for the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (dubbed TANAP) to be built across Turkey, bringing gas ever closer to Europe.
For years the EU has been trying to put together a plan for a new energy route through the South Caucasus and on to central Europe.
Its preferred option had been to build a new gas pipeline called Nabucco from eastern Turkey straight to central Europe. This though has proved complicated and momentum has slowed.
That’s why TANAP is important. It will provide the link and should be built within six years. The plan is for TANAP to carry 16bcm (billion cubic metres) of gas a year, half the capacity that Nabucco ambitiously aimed for. Still, of that 16 bcm, 6bcm is designated to Turkey and 10bcm to Europe through a proposed branch pipeline, media reported.
And TANAP — Azerbaijan owns an 80% stake, Turkey 20% — has said that capacity can be boosted. By delivering gas to western Turkey, TANAP will also secure gas for Europe.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)
JUNE 22 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran sent its ambassador to Azerbaijan back to Baku after a month-long protest absence triggered by the Eurovision song contest which Tehran described as un-Islamic. Azerbaijan-Iran relations have been strained over the past year, so the ambassador’s return is an important step towards normalising ties.
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(News report from Issue No. 094, published on June 29 2012)
JUNE 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s clampdown on media and access to information continued when parliament passed a law that will restrict journalists’ ability to obtain corporate records, media reported. The new law states that information will only be granted with the consent of the companies and individuals being investigated.
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(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)
JUNE 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan traded diplomatic barbs after an Azerbaijani patrol boat stopped a Turkmen research ship exploring a disputed Caspian Sea oil field. The row highlights tension between the Caspian Sea littoral states over its disputed hydrocarbon resources.
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(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)
JUNE 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Matt Bryza, the US’s former special envoy to the South Caucasus, has joined Turcas, a Turkish oil firm with close links to Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR, media reported. Last year US Senators declined to sanction Mr Bryza’s appointment as permanent US ambassador to Azerbaijan over worries he was too close to the Azerbaijani authorities.
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(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)
JUNE 6 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Coinciding with a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the South Caucasus, fighting flared between Azerbaijani forces and Armenian- backed rebels around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Media reported that nine soldiers from both sides had been killed in shootouts over the past few days.
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(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)
MAY 30 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An explosion damaged a major pipeline pumping gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast to Erzurum in eastern Turkey, knocking it out of action for 10 days, news agencies quoted sources as saying. It is unclear what triggered the explosion on the pipeline, an important export route for Azerbaijan’s gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)
MAY 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hours after hearing that its bid to host the 2020 summer Olympic Games had been rejected, Azerbaijan announced that it would prepare a joint bid with Georgia to host the 2020 European soccer championship. The soccer tournament is one of the biggest in the world and would involve major investment in infrastructure.
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(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)