NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that he wanted to put forward Nur-Sultan as a potential site for a UN centre for Sustainable Development Goals. Mr Tokayev’s predecessor as Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, always wanted to garner the capital he built with international credibility and accolades.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
ALMATY/NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) –Kazakhstan wants to join a Russian project to increase gas supplies to China through a new pipeline, media reported by quoting Kazakh PM Askar Mamin.
China has become the biggest buyer of gas from Central Asia. It already buys most of Turkmenistan’s gas and Kazakhstan has been selling increasingly large volumes to China. Russia is due to start pumping gas through a new pipeline called The Power of Siberia to China on Dec. 2 and has already said that it is looking at options to build more gas pipelines running to China.
In comments to media, Mr Mamin said that Kazakhstan wanted The Power of Siberia-2 to run through its territory.
“Based on the environmental situation in the region, we are also considering the option of joining the future Power of Siberia-2 project,” he said. “Currently, gas prices are negotiated. We have offered Russia that (the pipeline) goes through Kazakhstan with an exit to the Chinese market.”
Gazprom signed a $400b deal in 2014 with China to supply 38b cubic metres of gas every year to China over the next 30 years.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 22 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan handed 10 more prisoners back to Iran, part of a swap system that has helped build trust between the two neighbours over the past decade. An official at the Iranian embassy in Baku said that this was the 26th prisoner swap. Relations have improved markedly from six or seven years ago when tension was so heightened that there was talk of war.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 22 (The Bulletin) — The Almaty-based Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), which is focused on the region covered by the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), wants to increase its operations in Armenia, one of its directors, Dmitry Ladikov-Roev, said on a visit to Yerevan. The EEU is seen as a Kremlin political project.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 11 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is losing $11m every month because of Russia’s ban on coal being sent to Ukraine across its territory, the Kazakh ministry of trade said. The Kazakh ministry said that it had approved a plan in July to send 103,500 tonnes of coal to Ukraine but that this had been downgraded by the Russian authorities to 60,200 tonnes. It said that subsequent coal supplies had also been reduced by the Russian authorities.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 3 (The Bulletin) — Iran wants Kyrgyz and Uzbek companies to transport goods across its territory to the Persian Gulf, Iranian First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri told reporters after meeting with Uzbek PM Abdulla Aripov on the sidelines at a meeting for heads of governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tashkent. Increasingly isolated, Iran has been trying to woo Central Asian countries by offering them access to global markets via the Persian Gulf.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 11 (The Bulletin) –The EU’s External Action Service which monitors the border near the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia said that tension was rising and criticised the South Ossetian authorities for making inflammatory statements. It said that both sides should show “maximum restraint”. Tension between South Ossetia, which i backed by Russia, and Georgia triggered a war in 2008.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin
NOV. 6 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Belarus refused an extradition request made by the Tajik government for opposition activist Farhod Odinaev because of potential torture concerns. The Belarussian authorities had arrested Mr Odinaev in September as he travelled from Russia to Poland for a conference. Mr Odinaev had been a member of the now-banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin
NOV. 8 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s military test fired a Chinese FD-2000 missile system that media said was based on Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air system. The missile test shows how China is making in-roads into every aspect of Central Asia’s government, economy and military. Previously, former Soviet states almost exclusively bought military kit from Russia.
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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin
YEREVAN/NOV. 11 (The Bulletin) — Armenia will soon allow Russia to inspect three US-linked biochemical laboratories near Yerevan, part of a network across the former Soviet Union that the Kremlin has said is being used to develop weapons.
Granting Russia access to the US-sponsored sites is an indication of just how close relations have become between the Kremlin and Yerevan since Nikol Pashinyan took over as Armenian PM after a revolution last year. He has sent Armenian deminers and doctors to support Russia’s operations in Syria and also made deals with Iran, all to the irritation of Washington.
At a joint press conference with Armenian foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Yerevan, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that a deal to visit the biochemical laboratories would be finalised “soon”.
“We see very close contacts between our countries’ economic departments; intergovernmental commissions are getting ready for work in Yerevan in the first half of next year. Yerevan will also host a Russian-Armenian inter-regional forum,” Mr Lavrov said.
The US government has always denied that the laboratories are developing weapons and has said it would be happy for the Russians to tour them. Instead, it has said that the labs are developing “disease response and reporting capabilities” and that, although part-funded by the US, they are under the full control of the Armenian government.
The biochemical laboratories have been a source of frustration for the Kremlin, alleging that the US is using them to develop biological weapons. Last year Mr Lavrov directly accused the Lugar laboratories in Tbilisi of being a front for a US weapons plant, a row that angered the US and damaged Georgia-Russia relations.
The warm relations between Russia and Armenia have taken analysts by surprise. Most had expected the Kremlin to disapprove of a revolution in Armenian in April and May 2018 that ushered Mr Pashinyan into power, previously an apparently pro-Western fringe politician. He, though, has proved keen to keep the Kremlin onside.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.