JUNE 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz parliamentarians set Oct. 30 as the date for a presidential election, the first under a constitution which shifted power from the president to Parliament. Roza Otunbayeva has been interim president since a revolution in April last year but has said she will not stand in the election.
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(News report from Issue No. 47, published on July 6 2011)
JUNE 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz parliamentarians voted to ban the Moscow-based news website fergana.ru for inciting ethnic hatred, media reported, raising questions over free speech. Last month parliamentarians also banned the Finnish author of a report that criticised security forces in ethnic violence last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan hosted the 10th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Central Asian security organisation lead by Russia and China. Heads of states and senior officials from India, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan joined leaders from the SCO member states for the meeting.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan could join Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a Customs Union, local media quoted the country’s customs chief, Gurez Zaripov, as saying. The Customs Union, which analysts have said extends Moscow’s influence, is due to come into effect on July 1. The Kyrgyz PM has also said Kyrgyzstan may join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev as a guest at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Astana. China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are SCO members.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hoping to distance his government from the corruption of the past, Kyrgyz PM Almazbek Atambayev promised more transparency in mining tenders, Reuters reported. The fragile coalition government is looking to boost its support and brush off allegations of graft.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
MAY 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to ban from the country Kimmo Kiljunen, a Finnish former parliamentarian, who wrote a report on ethnic violence last year that killed more than 400 people. Mr Kiljunen’s report implicated Kyrgyz security forces. Parliament said Mr Kiljunen was a threat to national security.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a sign of Kyrgyzstan’s growing strategic importance and Turkmenistan’s increasing openness and clout as a global gas supplier, Britain said it will open an embassy in Bishkek by 2015 (May 10) and the US appointed a new ambassador to Ashgabat (May 16).
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(News report from Issue No. 40, published on May 17 2011)
MAY 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan cleared first deputy PM Omurbek Babanov of corruption, media reported, giving the fragile government coalition a boost. Mr Babanov had stepped down a month ago while the corruption charges were being investigated.
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(News report from Issue No. 40, published on May 17 2011)
MAY 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – An independent report headed by an ex-Finnish parliamentarian said Kyrgyz security forces attacked Uzbeks during ethnic violence in the south of the country last June and committed “crimes against humanity”. The Kyrgyz government rejected the report.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)