NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A land transfer deal between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which was supposed to solve the neighbour’s long-running border dispute has been postponed, media reported. The row has flared into violence over the past couple of years and could even destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
OCT. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Senior officials from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan agreed to meet on Nov. 5 in Bishkek to try and resolve the long running issue of border demarcation. Border disputes have strained relations between the two countries since independence.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 20 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Triggering a furious reaction from Tbilisi, the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia said that it planned to hold a referendum on whether to join Russia.
South Ossetian leader Leonid Tibilov made the announcement after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a vote that commentators said would mimic a similar vote in Crimea last year which preceded Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region.
“The referendum, the positive outcome of which I have no doubt, will allow us to unite our people,” media quoted Mr Tibilov as saying after meeting Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Mr Putin.
He didn’t put a timeframe on the vote but did say that it would only go ahead with the express permission from Moscow.
And this appeared to have disappeared very quickly. The following day, the Kremlin released a statement which said that a referendum on South Ossetia joining Russia had not even been discussed at the meeting.
Georgia fought a war in 2008 against Russia over South Ossetia. After the war, Russia recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Georgia’s other breakaway region of Abkhazia.
Only a handful of other countries followed the Kremlin’s lead and recognised South Ossetia’s independence.
Any referendum in South Ossetia would strain relations between Russia and Georgia and predictably the Georgian government reacted strongly to Mr Tbililov’s statement.
“It just confirms the provocative policy which Russia is pursuing on South Ossetia. It is a continuation of Russia’s policy of ‘creeping occupation’,”Gigi Gigiadze, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, told media.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s government issued a rare statement denying a claim by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev that he was aware of what he described as “incidences” on the Turkmen-Afghan border. Turkmenistan said Mr Nazarbayev’s claim was “untrue” and “incomprehensible”. Taliban activity has been increasing along the border with Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct.16 2015)
OCT. 7 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — The Hague based International Criminal Court (ICC) said that it wanted to start investigating alleged war crimes committed during a 2008 conflict between Georgia and Russia.
One of the ICC’s prosecutors, Fatou Bensouda, has lodged a potential case with the court and is waiting for authorisation on whether to launch an official investigation. If a full investigation is initiated and charges brought against either Russian or Georgian officials, the case will likely worsen relations between the two neighbours.
“On the basis of the information available, Prosecutor Bensouda has concluded that there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court have been committed in Georgia in the context of the armed conflict of August 2008,” the ICC said in a statement.
“She will shortly submit a request to the Pre-Trial Chamber for authorisation to open an investigation into this Situation.”
During the five day war in August 2008 that focused on the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia, human rights groups alleged that both sides fired cluster bombs.
They also said that forces linked to Russia had burned houses belonging to Georgian farmers.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 6 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia said it will station attack helicopters at its base in Tajikistan, a strong sign the Kremlin believes the threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan to Central Asia is heightening.
A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman said Mi-24P gunships, heavily used during the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Mi-8 MTV transport-combat helicopters will be stationed at the Ayni airbase, 30km outside Dushanbe.
Over the past week, the Taliban and US-backed forces belonging to the Afghan central government have been fighting for control of Kunduz on the Tajik-Afghan border. And this has worried Central Asian governments throughout the year.
A Dushanbe-based analyst who wished not to be named said: “The occupation of Kunduz by the Taliban has shaken Dushanbe. Tajik authorities know that they cannot handle any threat, be it domestic or external, without the help of Russia. For Rakhmon, the Kremlin is the guarantee of stability in Tajikistan.”
Tajik President Emmomli Rakhmon had been in Moscow the day before the Kremlin said it would send attack helicopters to Tajikistan.
And most people in Dushanbe welcomed Moscow’s help. Olim Shirinov, a Dushanbe resident, said: “Every new unit of Russian military equipment on Tajik soil is one more brick in the wall that guarantees stability in the country.”
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting the close relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey, the head of the Turkish General Staff, Hulusi Akar, visited Baku. In Baku, General Akar met his Azerbaijani counterpart and, as expected, emphasised Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh which it disputes with Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 8/9 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — After an on-off build-up lasting months, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko visited Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana a meeting that could upset relations between Kazakhstan and Russia.
Mr Poroshenko’s visit to Astana is a diplomatic victory for Mr Nazarbayev who wants to be viewed as a potential peace broker between Kiev and Moscow over the civil war in eastern Ukraine. Mr Nazarbayev visited Kiev last December.
At a joint press conference, Mr Poroshenko thanked Mr Nazarbayev for his support “of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Kazakhstan has to tread a careful diplomatic tightrope as it needs to appease both its Western backers, who support Ukraine, and also Russia, with which it has close economic and political ties.
Kazakhstan has not recognised Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
During his visit, Mr Poroshenko also met with Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov to discuss trade opportunities that will emerge in 2016 with the establishment of a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union and with Kazakhstan’s accession to the World Trade Organisation.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s ministry of defence accused Armenian backed forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh of killing three Azerbaijani soldiers. The accusation marks another escalation in tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing civilians last week.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 25 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Ukraine’s embassy in Astana sent an official protest note to the Kazakh foreign ministry after a school text book published a map of Russia showing the annexed region of Crimea to be firmly within its borders.
The map touched off a row that not only threatens to derail relations between Ukraine and Kazakhstan but also highlights the sensitive diplomatic tightrope that former Soviet states have to walk. Russia is the main economic driver of growth in Central Asia but Kazakhstan, and others, also need to maintain good relations with the West which firmly backs the Ukrainian government against the Kremlin.
“The Ukrainian Embassy has sent a note of protest to Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry because school books issued by the Mektep publishing house say the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a federal subject of the Russian Federation,” Ukraine’s statement said.
“The distribution of this information contradicts the position of the international community and Kazakhstan that has repeatedly stated its support to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
Mektep is one of the biggest publishers of school textbooks in Kazakhstan. Its textbooks are used across the country and are based on the school curriculum.
The map, published in a geography textbook aimed at 16-year-olds earlier this year, showed Crimea as part of Russia.
Crimea quit Ukraine last year after a referendum overwhelmingly supported joining Russia. The referendum, though, has not been recognised by Kiev or its Western allies. Since then a civil war in the east of Ukraine has pushed relations between the West and Russia to a post-Cold War low.
Only a few countries, such as Syria, North Korea and Venezuela recognise Crimea as part of Russia. Kazakhstan, officially, has been careful not to recognise it as part of Russia.
When contacted by a Bulletin correspondent in Kazakhstan, the Mektep publishing house declined to comment. A couple of the book’s authors had previously spoken to RFE/RL, though.
They defended the map by saying that it wasn’t meant to be a political statement but instead to reflect the results of last year’s referendum.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
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