May 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A landslide in Georgia damaged a pipeline, temporarily cutting off gas supplies to Armenia, media reported. It’s unclear how serious the damage caused by the landslide is or when gas supplies through the pipeline will resume. Gazprom Armenia said it had enough reserves to cover the shortfall from the pipeline
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – KazMunaiGas, the Kazakh state energy company, said it had found oil at an onshore site, media reported. The discovery was part of the Rozhkovskoye field near the north-western city of Uralsk. It’s currently unclear how large the discovery is.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French president Francois Hollande started his tour of the South Caucasus in Baku. He discussed strengthening business and political ties. Human Rights Watch said Mr Hollande should have pressed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hard on rights abuses.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iranian government-linked North Drilling Company is in talks with Turkmen officials to establish an oil well in Turkmenistan, media reported quoting a company director. Iran and Turkmenistan have generated increasingly close ties over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has started work on a thermal power plant that will provide power to the south of the country as well as exporting electricity to neighbouring Afghanistan, media reported. The West has been urging Turkmenistan, which is relatively stable and wealthy, to play an increased role in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan said that Uzbekistan was still restricting gas supplies to its southern city of Osh. Osh has reportedly been without gas for a few weeks, generating some social tension. Uzbekistan’s Soviet era gas system supplies southern Kyrgyzstan with gas. Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are strained.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip around the South Caucasus, French President Francois Hollande visited Yerevan where he met Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. He visited the construction site of the long-delayed Carrefour supermarket and called on the EU to engage with Armenia despite its proposed accession to the Russia-led Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has temporarily banned alcohol imports from Italy, France, Scotland, Belarus and Russia because some of the labelling does not meet requirements laid out by the Customs Union, media reported. It’s unclear exactly what guidelines the alcohol importers have failed to hit.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Tajik media outlet Asia Plus, Jorg Frieden, executive director at the World Bank in charge of its projects in Central Asia, underscored the eggshells the Bank and other international organisations must tread over when dealing with large scale energy projects in the region.
The Bank’s endorsement of hydroelectric projects, whether from a technical or financial point of view, is particularly important for Tajikistan, a country full of hydro potential, but with a track record of failing to attract foreign investment.
Dushanbe is also locked in a perennial conflict over its hydropower ambitions with downstream Uzbekistan. Uzbek President Islam Karimov has said that upstream dams in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan could trigger water wars if constructed.
The World Bank has already pledged $526m towards CASA-1000, a project that aims to deliver power from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to electricity-deficient Afghanistan and Pakistan further south.
Mr Frieden reiterated the bank’s support for CASA-1000 while acknowledging that Uzbekistan strongly opposed it.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
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.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)