Tag Archives: border disputes

Armenia-Azerbaijan relations heat up

JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing two of its soldiers along the border of the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh, raising tension around one of the South Caucasus most delicately-balanced flash-points.

Shootouts are common between the two countries around Nagorno-Karabakh, where a barely discernible peace is held together by a fragile 1994 UN-negotiated cease-fire, but the heightened war-mongering rhetoric from Armenia alarmed international observers.

Azerbaijan denied the accusations.

Both sides are playing to their internal audience. The problem for Armenia is that the rhetoric has serious geopolitical implications.

It wants to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union which also counts Belarus and Kazakhstan as members. Armenia has the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Its dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has, though, caused some consternation. Media reported that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev raised objections to Armenia’s membership because of its dispute over Nagorno- Karabakh a the signing ceremony last month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Kyrgyz-Tajik border talks to resume

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Talks between Kyrgyz and Tajik officials over their border dispute will resume on June 16, media reported quoting a senior Kyrgyz official. This is important as altercations between villagers have intensified this year around the Tajik-Kyrgyz border. In May a mass brawl injured several people.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Russia’s Crimea grab impacts north Kazakhstan

PAVLODAR/Kazakhstan, MAY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vitaly couldn’t get his words out fast enough. His jowly cheeks seemed to wobble with enthusiasm.

“Yes, if Putin did say that he wanted northern Kazakhstan we would support it,” he said. Putin was a reference, of course, to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

His friend shot him a quick look and interjected.

“But we’re happy to be part of Kazakhstan too. This is our home,” he said, shoving his hands into his tracksuit trousers. “Pavlodar is a comfortable place to live.”

The men, who were in their mid-20s, were standing on a scruffy street near the centre of this city of 330,000 people in northern Kazakhstan. It was built by the Russian empire on the banks of the serene Irtysh River which flows more than 4,000km from western Kazakhstan, into Russia’s Siberia and the Ob river system that eventually disgorges into the Arctic Sea.

From Pavlodar, the Russian border is barely 100km away.

Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, attention in Kazakhstan has focused on its northern regions. Here ethnic Russians outnumber Kazakhs and Russian, not Kazakh, is the main language spoken. Firebrand Russian politicians have urged Putin to turn it into Russia.

Pavlodar feels harmonious but there is an underlying tension that is not hard to find. And it worries people.

Anara, an ethnic Kazakh lawyer, was walking home from work along one of Pavlodar’s wide, tree-lined streets.

“People have always lived well together but after Crimea people are talking about it. What happens if Putin decides he wants to take northern Kazakhstan?” she said. “In Pavlodar and Petropavlovsk the main language is Russian. He could do it.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)

South Ossetia releases Georgians

May 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Forces in the Georgian rebel state of South Ossetia released 17 people they had been holding after they strayed into their territory, media reported. Reports said the 17 Georgians had been picking herbs when they strayed into South Ossetia on May 10, triggering a standoff.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)

South Ossetia detains Georgians

MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia are detaining 13 Georgian citizens, media reported. Reports said five Georgians were released after paying a fine for apparently straying illegally into South Ossetia. In 2008, Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)

Kyrgyz – Tajik border row flares

MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An on-off border row between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has flared up again, according to media reports.

Around 60 people were injured in a fight between villagers on each side of the border. Various cargo and trucks were destroyed.

This is a potentially dangerous issue and could destabilise the restive southern edge of Kyrgyzstan and the wider Ferghana Valley region, the most densely populated area of Central Asia.

Talks between the two governments over the delimitation of the 300km-long disputed border have been moving, at a sluggish pace, through out the year.

In January, a shootout between opposing forces injured several soldiers. As with many parts of Central Asia, the borders around southern Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan appear to have been draw up to generate strife and problems. Communities of different nationalities intersect each other; enclaves generate flashpoints.

As well as adding to the daily inconveniences experienced by communities living close to the border, the clashes hurt big business. In March South-Kyrgyz-Cement reported that sales had fallen as a result of Kyrgyzstan’s closure of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border, which lasted over two months after the Jan. 11 shootout.

A Kyrgyz-owned gas station and containers carrying cement and coal were among the property burned during in the most recent conflict.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)

Azerbaijan’s pro-government party threatens novelist

FEB. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – A pro-government party offered a $13,000 reward to anybody who cuts off the ear of novelist Akram Aylisli. The threat was quickly retracted but the New York-based Human Rights Watch accused pro-government factions of intimidating Mr Aylisli because his new novel is sympathetic towards Armenia, which fought Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 124, published on Feb. 15 2013)

Azerbaijan and Armenia discuss N-K

JAN. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Paris to discuss a solution to their dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. While little substantial progress was made at the one-day meeting, foreign mediators consider getting Azerbaijan and Armenia to sit across a table as positive.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 122, published on Feb. 1 2013)

Kyrgyzstan’s south experiences food shortages

JAN. 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Villages in southern Kyrgyzstan are experiencing food shortages after Uzbekistan shut checkpoints running through its enclave of Sokh following rioting on Jan. 5/6, media reported. The checkpoints guard the only road linking villages in Kyrgyzstan’s impoverished Batken province to the rest of the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)

Azerbaijan protests refugees in N-K

JAN. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has issued an official protest note to Armenia after it emerged that dozens of ethnic Armenians who had fled a civil war in Syria were resettling in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, media reported. An estimated 6,000 ethnic Armenians who had been living mainly in Aleppo have fled to Yerevan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)