Tag Archives: international relations

Flights restart between Turkmenistan and Georgia

OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Turkmenistan will launch new direct flights in November, linking Tbilisi and Ashgabat. The flights will run twice weekly and will be operated by Turkmenistan Airlines. Since Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s visit to Turkmenistan in 2014, relations between the two countries have improved. Now, the governments want to boost trade beyond oil products which dominate.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Tajikistan increases trade with China

OCT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan increased its trade with China by 32% in the first nine months of the year, its statistics agency said, highlighting its increased dependency on its near neighbour. Data said that Tajikistan-China trade turnover in this period was $700m, compared to Tajikistan-Russia trade turnover of $764m, which was down by 9.3%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan sign bilateral deals

OCT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Tashkent, the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a deal to extend bilateral relations. Although vague in detail, the agreement is important because it underlines the improving ties between the two neighbours. For most of the year tension along the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border has been rising. Since the death of Uzbek president Islam Karimov in September, though, dialogue between the two sides has improved markedly.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

CSTO agree on crises centre in Armenian capital

OCT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Yerevan, leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) agreed to set up a new crisis response centre. The thinking behind the centre is to improve the exchange of information between CSTO members on terrorism. The CSTO includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Lukashenko mourns Uzbek President

SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko flew into Samarkand to visit the grave of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who died last month. Acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomed Mr Lukashenko and accompanied him to Karimov’s grave.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)

Kyrgyz President supports Georgians

OCT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – During an official trip to Tbilisi, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that he supported Georgia’s territorial integrity. By voicing support for Georgian rule over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which claimed independence after a brief war in 2008, Mr Atambayev was effectively condemning Russia’s support for the rebels.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan mend relations

BISHKEK, OCT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan reopened previously closed border crossings and pledged to improve relations after a friendly meeting in the Uzbek city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley.

The sudden improvement in Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan relations comes just a month after the death of Islam Karimov, Uzbek president since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. He was regarded as a belligerent leader who preferred to keep relations with his neighbours cool.

By contrast acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev has appeared eager to improve Uzbekistan’s relations and one of his first acts, at least according to many analysts, was to mend relations with Kyrgyzstan.

This year, both countries have strengthened their forces in a stand- off that has threatened to escalate into conflict. In August, Uzbekistan suspended rail links with Kyrgyzstan.

Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been tense for years due to border disputes, rows over gas

prices and interethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan after a revolution in 2010. The Uzbek-Kyrgyz meeting on Oct. 1 culminated in a photo-op at the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border where Uzbek deputy PM, Adkham Ikramov, and his Kyrgyz counterpart, Mukhammetkalyi Abulgaziyev, exchanged kind words.

“Today, we understand just how much Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan need such meetings,” Mr Ikramov said.

The unprompted thawing of relations caught many by surprise.

Ruziali, an Uzbek student living in Bishkek, said that economic gains were behind the move.

“If acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev wins the election, relations with Russia could improve and it is quite possible that we will enter the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Kyrgyzstan is already a member,” he said.

Uzbekistan holds a presidential election in December which is expected to confirm Mr Mirziyoyev as president.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Link with GM Uzbekistan threatens to dent Clinton’s presidential campaign

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US media sympathetic to the Republican party has hinted that a gift by car manufacturer GM to the Clinton Foundation in 2010 may have triggered a visit by Hillary Clinton to a factory GM part-owns in Uzbekistan in 2011 when she was Secretary of State.

This is not the first time that Ms Clinton has had to fight off allegations of poor judgement linked to her charitable foundation that she co- founded with her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, but it is the first time that Uzbekistan has fea- tured in the US presidential debate.

Fox News, which favours the Republican party, referenced a corruption scandal which has hit GM Uzbekistan this year over alleged bogus car sales to Russia.

“Clinton isn’t tied to any of the allegations,” it reported. “But it’s another example of how Clinton Foundation donations and subsequent State Department actions have put the Democratic presidential nominee in an awkward position.”

In 2010, GM gave the Clinton Foundation cars worth $685,000. A year later, Ms Clinton visited the GM Uzbekistan factory, a joint venture with the Uzbek government, in east

Uzbekistan, giving it a major publicity boost.

Business deals, and subsequent allegations of bribe paying, with Uzbekistan have proved damaging to Western companies before. Ms Clinton may also be tarnished by association.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Azerbaijan to initiate ties with the EU

SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s parliament voted to initiate a rapprochement with the EU, after relations were downgraded last year after the EU criticised Azerbaijan’s human rights record. The resolution follows an official visit by delegates from the EU parliament to Baku earlier in September. Azerbaijan quit the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Sept. 2015, after a row with the EU and the OSCE over restrictions on parliamentary election observers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Pope faces hostility on trip to Georgia

TBILISI, OCT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pope Francis endured a diplomatically tough trip to Tbilisi and Baku, his second to the South Caucasus this year.

In Tbilisi, hostile Orthodox Christian followers tried to unsettle the Pope by heckling him and waving banners with anti-Catholic slogans outside each of his various meetings.

“The Vatican is a spiritual aggressor” and “Pope, arch-heretic, you are not welcome in Orthodox Georgia,” their posters read according to media reports.

The Orthodox Church, suspicious that the Pope’s real reason for making the visit was not to improve relations but to recruit followers, also called for a boycott of a Papal mass planned for a football stadium.

“As long as there are dogmatic differences between our churches, Orthodox believers will not participate in their prayers,” the Georgian Orthodox Church said on its website.

Only a few thousand people turned up to the mass, leaving the stadium looking empty.

Earlier the Pope had met with both the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II and President Giorgi Margvelashvili.

The Pope then visited Azerbaijan, a country with a tiny Catholic community, where he held talks with President Ilham Aliyev aimed at improving diplomatic relations.

Pope Francis said that in both Yerevan, which he visited earlier this year, and Baku he had urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to hold peace talks.

“Armenia is a nation with open borders, it has problems with Azerbaijan and should go to an international tribunal if dialogue and negotiation is a no-go,” he was quoted as telling media.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which is controlled by Armenia-backed forces.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)