Tag Archives: international relations

Thousands of railway wagons stuck on Kazakhstan-China border

JAN. 6 2021 (The Bulletin) — China has tightened import criteria for goods entering from Central Asia, a move linked to the coronavirus pandemic, causing queues miles long at its border with Kazakhstan. Media reported that there are 8,400 railway wagons queuing on the border with China. Kazakhstan’s minister of trade, Bakhyt Sultanov, said that China was allowing through only a tenth of the traffic it allowed before the pandemic.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Georgia sends another infantry battalion to Afghanistan

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JAN. 6 2021 (The Bulletin) — Georgia sent another infantry battalion to Afghanistan in support of NATO soldiers who are fighting the Taliban. Georgia has had an infantry battalion on rotation in Afghanistan since 2004. It sees its support of US-led operations there as vital to its drive to joining NATO.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Russia pressures Azerbaijan on shooting down of helicopter

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JAN. 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — Russia pressured Azerbaijan into opening a criminal case into the shooting down of one of its military helicopters in November. The pressure will increase tension between Russia and Azerbaijan. The Kremlin has been irritated by Azerbaijan’s gloating over its victory against Armenia in a six-week war last year against Armenia for control of Nagorno-Karabakh and for its strong support from Turkey. Azerbaijani forces shot down the helicopter on Nov. 9. The Azerbaijani authorities had wanted to class the incident as an accident.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Iranian businesses to target Armenia

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JAN. 2 2021 (The Bulletin) — Government officials in Iran are encouraging businesses to target Armenia as a market for their goods after the Armenian government banned Turkish products from Jan. 1. Turkish military aid was an important factor in Azerbaijan’s defeat of Armenian forces in a six-week war for control of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kazatomprom sells stake in subsidiary to China

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ALMATY/DEC. 29 2020 (The Bulletin) — — Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom, the world’s biggest uranium miner, agreed to sell China’s CGN a 49% stake in one of its most important subsidiaries as part of a contract to boost bilateral cooperation in the sector.

Under the deal, signed between 2014 and 2016, China will commit to funding the construction of a nuclear fuel assembly plant in Kazakhstan and will guarantee orders for these fuel assemblies for the next 20 years.

Kazatomprom said that the coronavirus pandemic had slowed construction of the Ulba Fuel Assembly Plant in the east of the country but that the project was now back on track.

“Under the current ramp-up and product qualification plan, and assuming no further delays, the first production from the Ulba-FA plant is expected near the end of 2021, with first delivery of finished, certified fuel assemblies to the customer in 2022,” Kazatomprom said in a statement.

China is the world’s biggest growth market for nuclear power and a natural marketplace for Kazatomprom’s uranium. Fuel assemblies are enriched uranium rods grouped together to generate power for power stations.

The deal highlights the trade co-dependency of the two neighbours and also how China is continuing to increase its ownership of Kazakh industry.

China has been buying up many of Kazakhstan’s top industrial assets, especially in the oil and gas and the mineral and mining sectors, for the past 15 years or so.

The Kazatomprom subsidiary that CGN, which stands for China General Nuclear Power Group, has agreed to take a 49% in, as part of the fuel assembly supply deal, is called Ortalyk.

It owns two uranium deposits in Kazakhstan, the Central Mynkuduk Deposit and the Zhalpak Deposit. The deal is expected to be completed by the middle of 2021.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Comment: Human rights in the region are worsening

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JULY 31 (The Bulletin) — If there was doubt about the direction of travel for media and human rights in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the past fortnight has dispelled it.

First Tajikistan and Azerbaijan teamed up to block a second term for two highly thought-of senior officials at the Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Solrun Gisladottir, as head of its vote monitoring unit ODHIR, and Harlem Desir, the OSCE’s media representative. All 57 members of the OSCE have to agree on each of the key appointments and Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, with some support from Turkey, said that Desir and Gisladottir had been biased against them.

In truth, Desir and Gisladottir had just been clear on calling out Tajikistan and Azerbaijan for what they are. Serial abuses of democratic principles, media freedom and civil rights.

And then there is also the death in a Kyrgyz prison of Azimzhan Askarov. He was an ethnic Uzbek whose mistake was to irritate the Kyrgyz authorities in the south of the country in the years before inter-ethnic fighting broke out in 2010. The police in Kyrgyzstan are dominated by ethnic Kyrgyz and Askarov accused them of bias against Uzbeks, torture and abuse.

He was arrested in the aftermath of the fighting in 2010 and accused of murdering a policeman. Human rights groups and Western diplomats said that the charges were fabricated but their protests were ignored and Askarov was imprisoned for life.

Even when it was clear that Askarov was gravely ill, the authorities in Kyrgyzstan refused to grant him any clemency. Human Rights Watch accused the Kyrgyz authorities of wanting Askarov to die in prison.

So, there we have it. Tajikistan and Azerbaijan undermine one of the more effective on-the-ground peace-making organisations and Kyrgyzstan targets an annoying Uzbek human rights activist to die in one of its prisons.

Myopic, narcissistic and nihilist, their true colours have been visible for all to see over the past fortnight.

The region is less stable without an effective OSCE and less equitable without Askarov.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Turkey sends soldiers to Azerbaijan for war games

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JULY 30 (The Bulletin) — Turkey sent soldiers to Azerbaijan for a high-profile joint military exercise with the Azerbaijani military. The military exercise was deliberately high-profile as Turkey wanted to send a message to Armenia that it was supporting Azerbaijan, one of its closest allies, in the neighbours’ dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier in July at least 15 soldiers were killed when fighting broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the worst in four years.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Tajikistan acting as route for Turkey to send Uighurs to China -media

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DUSHANBE/JULY 26 (The Bulletin) — Tajikistan is acting as a secret channel for Turkey to deport Uighurs to China where they are interned in so-called re-education camps, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The newspaper quoted lawyers in Turkey and family members of deported Uighurs who said that China was making hundreds of demands on Turkish authorities to deport Uighurs and that they were now using third countries, such as Tajikistan, to deport them.

The Telegraph documented how 59-year-old Uighur widow Aimuzi Kuwanhan, who had fled China for Turkey, had disappeared suddenly.

“A lawyer hired by her family subsequently discovered that she had been extradited to Tajikistan, despite having never lived there or having held Tajik citizenship. Sources who knew Kuwanhan say from there she was sent to China,” the Telegraph reported.

Turkey has denied the reports and Tajikistan has not commented but there has been an increase in the number of media and online reports from Istanbul of Turkish police and authorities detaining known Uighur activists this year.

Turkey, like Tajikistan’s neighbours — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — has a sizeable ethnic Uighur population and it would have been politically impossible to deport them directly to China. Tajikistan, though, has close connections with China but no ethnic Uighur population. The plight of the Uighurs, and other Muslim minorities, in China’s Xinjiang province is not a major discussion point in Tajikistan.

This means that while Turkey has a policy of not sending Uighurs back to China, under pressure from various bilateral agreements that it has signed with Beijing, it could send them to Tajikistan. The authorities there would be able to send them on to China.

Over the past decade, Tajikistan has developed close relations with China relying on cheap loans from Beijing to upgrade its Soviet-era infrastructure and give its towns and cities facelifts. These loans have come with major political influence too and Tajikistan can now be relied upon by China to act as a loyal ally.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Feted Kyrgyz human rights activist dies in prison

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BISHKEK/JULY 25 (The Bulletin) — Azimzhan Askarov, one of Kyrgyzstan’s most high-profile prisoners, died in his cell aged 69.

The death of Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek human rights activist considered by the West to be a political prisoner but by most Kyrgyz to be a troublemaker, will damage Kyrgyzstan’s already battered reputation for minority rights.

Announcing Askarov’s death, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Kyrgyz authorities had wanted him to die.

“They had every opportunity to end his wrongful imprisonment, but each time they flouted their obligations,” said Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at HRW. “They intended for him to die in prison, and so he has.”

The US and Western human rights groups had been calling on Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov from prison on humanitarian grounds. He had been ill for several years and had been given only a few months to live earlier this year.

But the Kyrgyz Supreme Court said that Askarov was a dangerous agitator who helped to whip up inter-ethnic tension in 2010 that led to fighting around Osh and Jala-Abad that killed several hundred people. He was imprisoned in 2010 for murdering an ethnic Kyrgyz policeman during the violence after a trial that human rights activists said was riddled with violations. They also said that Askarov had been tortured in prison.

In 2016, the UN asked Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov and re-run his trial and the US gave Askarov a prestigious human rights prize.

A Bulletin correspondent based in Jala-Abad, south Kyrgyzstan, said that while the death of Askarov had sparked some interest, there had been no protests. Most Kyrgyz agree that he was a troublemaker and ethnic Uzbeks don’t want to rock fragile ethnic relations.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Putin says Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting is “very sensitive”

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JULY 24 (The Bulletin) — Russian President Vladimir Putin described fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh earlier in July that killed at least 15 soldiers as “very sensitive”. Analysts had been looking for official reaction from Mr Putin on the fighting, the worst for four years. They have said that he was likely to have applied pressure to both sides to stop the fighting escalating.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.