MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – A US refuelling aircraft crashed in Kyrgyzstan, killing all three crew members. The aircraft had taken off from the US airbase outside Bishkek. Some media reports said the plane exploded in mid-air before crashing into the ground near the border with Kazakhstan in the north of the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey signed up to become a so-called dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group led by China and Russia that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Belarus and Sri Lanka already hold the same status with the SCO but Turkey is a NATO member and that makes its partnership more important. Analysts have often described the SCO as a potential Chinese and Russian-led military rival to NATO.
This analysis of the SCO, though, is too simplistic. The SCO is more than just a security group. It is also a financing organisation and a forum for inter-governmental conversation and debate.
Turkey, too, has deep economic, historical, cultural and linguistic ties with Central Asia, the focus of the SCO’s activities. Turkish senior governments ministers often visit the Central Asia capitals and it is only natural that Turkey should look to become a member in the region’s main security grouping.
Turkey’s interest in the SCO and its promotion as a dialogue partner should be welcomed by all, including NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev welcomed Kyrgyzstan’s drive to join the Russia-led Customs Union, which already includes Kazakhstan and Belarus, but said the Kyrgyz government still needed to sign a number of documents. Mr Medvedev was talking to press after meeting Kyrgyz economy minister Temir Sariyev in Moscow.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Snow covered the Almaty street, reflecting the light pouring from the restaurant’s windows.
Inside, vodka flowed, dancers twirled and laughter boomed.
This was a typical Chechen wedding party in Kazakhstan on a freezing evening in February.
The women wore their hair loose; the men strutted and joked as they tried to impress.
Across Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, a proud, flamboyant Chechen diaspora is acutely visible.
Worried that the unruly Chechens would rebel while the Red Army was fighting the Nazis, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin deported roughly 500,000 people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia in 1944. In 1957, four years after Stalin’s death, the Soviet authorities eased movement restrictions. Many Chechens opted to return home. Many others, though, stayed.
But despite the suspected Boston bombers’ Chechen ethnicity and upbringing in Kyrgyzstan, these communities do not hold particularly radical Islamic beliefs.
Radical Islam is a danger to Central Asia but the risk from Chechens already living within the region is low. The main danger lies in the flow of radical beliefs from places like Makhachkala — the teeming capital of Dagestan and apparently where the suspected Boston bombers lived after leaving Kyrgyzstan — to poor, vulnerable ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.
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(News report from Issue No. 132, published on April 22 2013)
APRIL 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Remittances to Kyrgyzstan from workers living mainly in Russia jumped by 23% in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2012, local media quoted the Kyrgyz Central Bank as saying. Like neighbouring Tajikistan, remittances are a vital part of Kyrgyzstan’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)
APRIL 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan started the sale of its second largest gold deposit, Jerooy, despite a $400m arbitration case levied by Kazakh investors
Visor Capital, Reuters reported. The Kyrgyz authorities tore up the previous sale of Jerooy after a revolution in 2010. Investors have become increasingly wary of Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)
APRIL 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kyrgyzstan arrested the Uzbek editor of a newspaper in the south of the country for alleged involvement in the murder of a man during ethnic fighting in 2010. The arrest of Muhammadsoli Ismoilov, editor of Ush Sadosi, triggered a protest by Uzbeks who have complained of police bias and maltreatment.
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(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)
MARCH 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced Maxim Bakiyev, the son of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to 29 years in jail in absentia for signing off millions of dollars in illegal deals. Bakiyev fled to London after a coup in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. He is currently on bail, facing a series of fraud charges in the US.
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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)
MARCH 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Bishkek court jailed three nationalist opposition MPs for between 12 and 18 months for calling for a revolution and trying to break into a Kyrgyz government office in October last year. The politicians — Kamchibek Tashiyev, Sadyr Zhaparov and Talant Mamytov — wanted the Kumtor gold mine to be nationalised.
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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)
MARCH 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s embassy in Bishkek issued a terse statement criticising a proposal to cut broadcasts of Russian-language programmes from its ORTK channel. The Kyrgyz government said it was spending too much money on broadcasting ORTK shows but a decision to halt programmes could damage relations with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)