Tag Archives: international relations

Armenia and Iran agree to 90-day visa-free regime

JULY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran’s government said it had abolished a visa regime with Armenia, giving a potential boost to relations and trade between the two neighbours.

Armenia and Iran had said they wanted to scrap visa requirements in June, when their foreign ministers met in Tehran. At a cabinet meeting headed by President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian government finally adopted the new visa-free regime.

Now, Iranians and Armenians will be able to travel visa-free between the two countries for stays of up to 90 days. This is particularly important for Armenia which is short of friends in the region. It has virtually no diplomatic and limited trade relations with two of its four neighbours — Azerbaijan and Turkey.

And Iran has said there is more room for cooperation with Armenia. After the lifting of international sanctions in January 2016, Iran said it wanted more integration with countries in the South Caucasus.

This week, Gazprom Armenia said that gas supplies via a pipeline across Georgia will stop for one month for scheduled repairs, a decision that will put Armenia’s power generation sector under stress.

Iranian officials immediately responded saying they were ready to pump more gas to Armenia to make up for the drop.

Iran sends gas to Armenia via a 140km pipeline completed in 2007.

For years, Iran and Armenia have said they want to increase the volumes of electricity and gas they exchange at the border and last month Armenian state-owned power distributor Electro Power Systems Operator said it will export around 1b kWh of electricity to Iran in 2016 from the Hradzan and Yerevan thermal power plants.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Poroshenko visits Azerbaijan’s capital

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko flew to Baku to meet his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and sign several cooperation agreements. This is Mr Poroshenko’s first visit to Azerbaijan since taking office in 2014. In the few past months, Ukraine and Azerbaijan have proposed to boost oil trade across the Black Sea.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kyrgyz President talks about Islamic extremism recruitment techniques

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Basking in the reflected glory of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first ever trip to Central Asia, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev seems to have seized his moment to boast of his country’s commitment — and his own personal efforts — in combating Islamic extremism.

During a 30-minute joint press conference with Ms Merkel, Mr Atambayev said he had ordered his office to pay for posters campaigning against Islamic extremism across Bishkek.

With the rise of the extremist group IS, Central Asian leaders have emphasised the role of external pressure on the radicalisation of their citizens and how their security forces respond to it.

These strategies have served the governments’ objectives of cracking down on opposition forces, shifting blame and establishing a constant ‘emergency mode’.

Some governments, like Turkmenistan, and to a lesser extent Uzbekistan, outright deny any radical Islamic presence within their borders. Even those countries that do, tend to blame foreign zealots for wiping up extremist sentiment.

Now, it seems, Mr Atambayev has changed the tone.

His decision to allocate public funds to posters that showed a correlation between the contamination of Kyrgyz traditional folklore and Islamic extremism is a bold one. The posters, plastered across motorways around the capital, showed a group of smiling girls in traditional white Kyrgyz dresses transitioning to a picture of a subjugated group of women wearing black hijabs that are alien to Central Asian cultures.

At the press conference, Mr Atambayev said that he supported the posters and wished there would be more across the city.

“[This] is where it all starts. We start with the adoption of foreign clothing, foreign words, and we end up with people who cut heads off,” Mr Atambayev said.

This is one of the first admissions from a Central Asian leader that radicalisation could be homegrown, albeit fuelled by adopting foreign custom.

It is still unclear whether Mr Atambayev was consciously trying to blaze a new trail in the fight against radical Islam or he was just trying to promote Kyrgyz people as traditionally peaceful.

Regardless, standing next to Ms Merkel he broke new ground in the radical Islam conversation in Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Merkel makes trip to Bishkek, praises Kyrgyz democracy

BISHKEK, JULY 13/14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Angela Merkel became the first German leader to visit Kyrgyzstan when she landed in Bishkek on her way to a conference in Mongolia, handing Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev a major PR coup and making him the envy of his neighbours.

Standing next to Mr Atambayev inside the Presidential Residence, Ms Merkel, who had never before visited Central Asia in her 11 years as Germany’s Chancellor, praised Kyrgyzstan’s democratic progress.

“I am very pleased that we’ve now met in Kyrgyzstan, you have twice visited Germany,” she said.

“We have great respect for the path chosen by Kyrgyzstan since 2010. Kyrgyzstan has chosen the path of parliamentary democracy, and needs, of course, to be supported.”

Kyrgyzstan shifted power to parliament from the president in 2010 after a revolution and has since held three national elections — two parliamentary and one presidential — that Western election observers praised as reasonably free and fair. No other country in Central Asia has ever held an election praised by Western observers and commentators suggested Ms Merkel’s stop-over in Kyrgyzstan was a reward of sorts.

But as well as praising Kyrgyzstan for its relative democracy, Ms Merkel also warned Kyrgyz officials to respect the rule of law and human rights.

The day before her arrival, Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial of Azimzhan Askarov, a prominent human rights activist jailed in 2010.

Mr Atambayev said that the two leaders had discussed a variety of subjects, including international terrorism and improving relations between Kyrgyzstan and the EU.

Posters welcoming Ms Merkel adorned Bishkek and most residents were excited about her visit.

Tamara, 59, a Bishkek resident said: “It is such an honour for Kyrgyzstan to host Angela Merkel because she is a great woman-politician, who promoted the idea of hosting Muslim refugees in Europe.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Uzbek ministers meet in Astana

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — With the exception of Turkmenistan, foreign ministers of the Caspian Sea littoral states met in Astana to continue drafting a resolution which should resolve ongoing disputes over the legal status of the Caspian. Kazakh PM Karim Massimov also attended. The ministers said the convention will be signed at a heads of state meeting next year in Astana.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Azerbaijan’s capital to host trilateral meet

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iranian officials said that a trilateral meeting between Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan will take place in Baku next month. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will host talks with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on August 8. The countries have said they want to build a new format of regional cooperation, along a north-south corridor.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Turkmenistan and Georgia establish airline

JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan and Georgia signed a deal to establish a direct flight between Tbilisi and Ashgabat from September. If the deal is realised, this will be the first direct flight route between the two countries. Last year, state-owned Turkmenistan Airlines said it aimed to open a direct route to Tbilisi.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Georgia enters Association Agreement with the EU

TBILISI, JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After two years of preparations, Georgia formally entered into an Association Agreement with the EU, a deal touted by its political leaders as another step towards EU membership and one which should also make it easier for Georgian companies to sell products to Europe.

Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili hailed the adoption of the Association Agreement as one of the most important days in the government’s stated mission of easing Georgia’s visa arrangements with the EU and even becoming an EU member state.

“It cements Georgia’s relations with a partner which, for years, has been our model and end destination”, he said in a press conference.

In a statement, the European Commission’s foreign affairs representative, Federica Mogherini, said the agreement will bring Georgia benefits but reforms were needed before more EU integration was possible.

“The EU is looking forward to further strengthening its cooperation with a country that is still working on crucial reforms in areas such as the rule of law, the accountability rules for public decision-makers and transparency,” she said.

At its core, the EU Association Agreement improves Georgian companies’ access to European markets in exchange for a commitment to improve the rule of law, health and safety standards and democracy.

The EU said that the benefits to Georgia are already being felt. It said that Georgian kiwis, blueberries, nuts, garlic and wine are more readily available in Europe.

On the streets of Tbilisi, most people welcomed further integration with the EU but were unaware of the details of the deal. Even those who had studied it said that it would take time for Georgian companies to get the most out of the agreement.

“The majority of Georgian companies are not ready to start exporting to the EU countries in terms of qualities and certificates,” said Ioseb Kobakhidze, managing director of Georgian Herbs, a dried fruit producer.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Border police stops Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan bound trucks

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Russian border police stopped 43 goods trucks travelling from Ukraine to Central Asia at the border with Belarus. The trucks were bound for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but were stopped because of new Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) regulation that appears designed as a retaliation forWestern imposed sanctions on Russia. The EEU is a Russia-led economic bloc that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Belarus.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Manchester United signs Armenian striker

JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Manchester United finalised the £26m ($33.7m) signing of Armenia’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan, a deal that puts Armenian football at the forefront of the planned renaissance of one of England’s most famous and most successful clubs.

Mkhitaryan, 27, will be the first Armenian player to play in the English Premier League, widely credited with being the most competitive football league in the world, and only the second player from the South Caucasus. Georgi Kinkladze, a Georgian midfielder whose dribbling skills left opposition players flat-footed, played for Manchester City in the Premier League in the 1995/6 season.

Unveiling Mkhitaryan at Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground, manager Jose Mourinho said that his new attacking midfielder will make an immediate impact.

“Henrikh is a real team player with great skill, vision and also has a good eye for goal,” he said.

Mourinho, who took over as the Manchester United manager in the summer, has been given the task of rebuilding the team after they finished fifth last season, missing out on a place in the UEFA Champions League, Europe’s top club football competition.

Mkhitaryan, who had played in Germany for Borussia Dortmund, said it was a dream come true.

“I am excited to play for a club with such an illustrious history and hope to be part of it for a long time,” he said.

Mkhitaryan was born in Yerevan in 1989. His father was Hamlet Mkhi taryan, one of the most prolific Armenian strikers in the 1980s. Mkhitaryan is now considered one of the best Armenian players and has won international 59 caps, the first when he was 17-years-old, and scored 19 goals.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)