Tag Archives: international relations

Georgia keeps 700 soldiers in Afghanistan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – So eager is Georgia to show off its impeccable NATO credentials that it has agreed to retain one battalion of roughly 700 soldiers in Afghanistan next year.

Irakli Alasania, Georgia’s defence minister, announced the news after meeting NATO officials in Europe. This will effectively halve Georgia’s commitments in Afghanistan. At its peak Georgia had over 1,600 soldiers in Afghanistan supporting NATO missions. Twenty-nine Georgian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.

The symbolism is all important. While most NATO member countries are rushing to extract their kit and soldiers from Afghanistan after a long, costly and frustrating campaign, Georgia has applied to remain with the final contingent of US forces.

Georgia is desperate to join NATO, partly as a bulwark against its former colonial overlord Russia with which it fought a brief war in 2008.

But NATO members are being cautious. Although they have shown support for Georgia’s NATO aspirations, and annual military exercises between Georgian and US forces started on June 9, they have also been wary of embracing it too warmly.

Both US President Barack Obama and Herman Chancellor Angela Merkel said that NATO would not offer Georgia membership at its annual conference in Cardiff in September.

ENDS

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

Austrian police detain Kazakh president’s former son-in law

JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is enjoying a good run of chasing down his enemies in their overseas hideouts.

Austrian police detained Mr Nazrbayev’s former son-in- law, Rakhat Aliyev, in Vienna, a year after the authorities in France captured Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former chairman of BTA Bank.

Like Ablyazov, Mr Aliyev has been a vocal opponent of Mr Nazarbayev since he fled Kazakhstan in 2007.

Mr Nazarbayev is notorious for allowing his subordinates to enrich themselves but forbidding any challenge to his political powers. Mr Aliyev, who had been married to Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, crossed this line and was forced into exile.

Reports said that he voluntarily turned himself in to the Austrian authorities. The question now is, will Austria extradite Aliyev to Kazakhstan this time?

It’s unlikely as reports have said that Austria has previously declined to act on an extradition request from Kazakhstan. This could be what Mr Aliyev wanted.

ENDS

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

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)

Kazakh embassy opened in Hanoi

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Continuing to expand its diplomatic reach, Kazakhstan opened its first embassy in Vietnam. Kazakhstan has been eager to spend some of its energy-generated wealth by boosting its presence overseas and has funded new embassies across the world. Asia and Africa have been priority embassy openings.

ENDS

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

Armenia’s parliament ratifies road loan

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament ratified a $100m loan from the Asian Development Bank that will be used to finance the construction of a road that will improve transport links between the north and the south of the country. The road, linking Talin and Lanjik, is considered an important part of the general infrastructure upgrade.

ENDS

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

Karimov criticises Eurasian Economic Union

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov has criticised the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union as a thinly disguised effort to create a broader political group.

Mr Karimov is, perhaps, the first leader from Central Asia to offer such brazen criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects.

Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg reported Mr Karimov saying that joining the Eurasian Economic Union would mean losing national independence.

“They say that they will only create an economic market and it won’t relinquish sovereignty and independence. Tell me, can political independence exist without economic independence?” Mr Karimov said according to 24.kg.

Of course, Uzbekistan is the most unilateral of the Central Asian countries and criticism from Tashkent of the Eurasian Economic Union is not unexpected but Mr Karimov’s comments are particularly barbed and the timing poignant.

Alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are also members of the Eurasian Economic Union which was signed into existence last month at a ceremony in Astana. But Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are all eager to join.

Many Western analysts have said that despite assurances from Mr Putin, the Eurasian Economic Union is little more than a thinly veiled effort by the Kremlin to extend its political power. Clearly Mr Karimov shares these views.

ENDS

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

Armenia to relax visa regime

MAY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is considering dropping visa requirements for US citizens, media quoted deputy foreign minister Sergey Manasarian as saying. Earlier this year Armenia allowed EU citizens to stay 90 days without a visa after the EU relaxed rules for Armenians.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on June 4 2014)

Turkmen FM travels to Kabul

MAY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rashid Meredov, Turkmenistan’s foreign minister, travelled to Kabul to meet with Afghan officials and discuss the second deadly attack on a Turkmen border post from Afghanistan this year. Mr Meredov’s visit was triggered by an attack that killed three Turkmen soldiers in May.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)

Armenia to relax visa regime

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)

Uzbekistan preens in Potemkin-style

TASHKENT/Uzbekistan, JUNE 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — An army of labourers clad in turquoise overalls swarmed over the Uzbek capital, intent on sprucing up the centre of this leafy city. The Latvian president was coming to town, and every blade of grass had to be in its right place.

Shielding their faces from a fierce sun, workers crouched on the grass, studiously weeding it by hand. More labourers were busy with the apparently fruitless task of hosing down the walls of the Ankhor Canal, which winds languidly through the capital behind the shiny civic buildings on Independence Square.

Heaven forbid that the visitor, Andris Berzins, should peer out of his motorcade and spot a flower out of place or a lingering spot of dust. It seemed that his host, Islam Karimov, could never live it down.

The grandiose Palace of Forums, the white marble monster that was due to be the venue for their summit, gleamed in the sunlight. There were no people strolling past the statue of the national hero, Tamurlane, in the park in front of the palace as the whole area had been closed off. Independence Square was also off limits. Hordes of green-uniformed police officers manned the perimeter, whistling officiously and shooing away any unsuspecting member of the public who dared approach.

In Uzbekistan, image is everything and when a European leader visits, its authoritarian ruler pulls out the stops to impress. It is a rare event. Few international leaders drop by since a photo call with Mr Karimov, vilified in the West as a dictator and serial human rights abuser, is tantamount to political suicide.

So the Latvian president’s arrival in Tashkent is important and yet dissenters mutter that all this Potemkin-style preening will do nothing to improve Uzbekistan’s pariah status.