SEPT. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia plans to increase its defence budget by 25% to 307b dram ($625m), media reported quoting the government’s draft 2019 budget. This increase in defence spending comes after a 17.6% increase in 2018. Armenia is still officially at war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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>>This story was published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
SEPT. 25/28 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia-backed forces in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh staged fighter-jet exercises that the Azerbaijani defence ministry immediately condemned as ‘provocative’. Observers have warned that tension over the disputed region is running at a near all-time high. A UN ceasefire organised in 1994 keeps a shaky peace over Nagorno-Karabakh, although fighting broke out in 2016.
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>>This story was published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
–Turkmen subsidy cuts will irritate ordinary people but are unlikely to trigger massive anti-government protests, writes James Kilner
OCT. 1 — Successive former Soviet states have had to bite the bullet on reforming their various subsidy systems. This year, the most high-profile reforms have been to Russian and Kazakh pensions. The age of retirement has slowly been increased with the realisation that the state just can’t afford to pay for so many people in their 60s not to work.
Now news has broken that Turkmenistan has finally decided to do away with its previously excessively generous subsidies. The Turkmen government has been chipping away at subsidy levels for a few years but from January there won’t be any at all.
This is a big leap and there is genuine concern among analysts that Turkmen officials may face the ire of ordinary people. Some analysts have even talked up the possibility of anti-government protests.
Anti-government protests over subsidy cut-backs have happened before in the region. In 2015, protests across Yerevan forced the government to climb down over proposed electricity price rises.
Of course, Armenia is different from most other countries in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region. Street-level politics is an accepted part of the power spectrum in Armenia, as shown by a revolution in April and May that propelled Nikol Pashinyan into the premiership. Georgia too has a reputation for protests as a part of its political spectrum. The Rose revolution of 2003 turned Mikheil Saakashvili into a president. In Tbilisi, the full range of protests — pro-government, anti-government; pro-gay rights, anti-gay rights; pro-drug use, anti-drug use and so on — are relatively common. This year a march by workers of a mothballed regional sugar factory forced the government to reopen it.
In Central Asia, protests are treated with much less tolerance by the authorities and are a rare form of political expression. The main exception, of course, being Kyrgyzstan which has been through two revolutions since 2005.
News from Turkmenistan shows that its economy is doing poorly and points to a population having to deal with various deprivations. There is a lack of basic foodstuffs, money transfers out of the country are limited and people leaving the country are heavily monitored.
Subsidy cuts on basic utilities will hurt and there will be pockets of protests in Turkmenistan. There have been previously when cuts were announced and there will be now. But this is one of the most controlled police states in the world. Small-scale protests are one thing but what is more difficult to envisage are wide-scale protests that genuinely threaten the government.
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>>This story was first published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
SEPT. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkish and Azerbaijani shipyards are teaming up to jointly build four warships, the Trend newspaper reported. The deal is yet another indication of the strength of Azerbaijan-Turkey relations. From pictures, the naval ships appeared to be a new class of patrol boats.
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>>This story was published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
SEPT. 25/28 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia and Kyrgyzstan held joint counter-terrorism drills in eastern Kyrgyzstan, part of large series of wargames by CIS member states. Ahead of the exercise, which involved 400 pieces of military hardware, 30 Russian aircraft and a missile defence system, Russian officials said that they were important because of the increased terrorist threat from Afghanistan.
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>>This story was published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
ALMATY, JAN. 31 2018 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government is pushing a new bill through parliament that it says will strengthen the security forces ability to crackdown on what it describes as “religious extremists”.
The bill, which has passed a first reading, tightens rules on people travelling abroad for religious studies and makes it harder for children to attend churches or mosques.
Nurlan Yermekbaev, the religious affairs minister, seemed to go further and said that police would also target people wearing long beards and short trousers, both associated with devout Muslims. He said that there would be no blanket ban on long beards or particular clothing but that police would be allowed to issue on-the-spot fines if they thought that the beards and clothing were “promoting extremism”.
The European Evangelical Alliance also said it was worried the new laws would stop groups meeting up in private for bible study sessions.
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— This story was first published on Feb. 6 2018 in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin
TASHKENT, JAN. 31 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev sacked the once all-powerful head of the National Security Services (SNB) Rustam Inoyatov, a move that confirms his supremacy in the struggle for power in Uzbekistan since the death in 2016 of Islam Karimov.
Mr Inoyatov, closely associated with the authoritarian Karimov and once seen as his natural successor, was made a senator, giving him immunity from any potential future prosecutions, and a presidential adviser.
Human rights activists accuse the 73-year-old Mr Inoyatov, a cold much-hated figure who had run Uzbekistan’s legion of spies, informants and security agents since 1995, of using torture against opponents of the government.
Rafael Sattarov, an Uzbek analyst, told The Conway Bulletin that Mr Inoyatov’s demise had been likely since December when Mirziyoyev made a speech about cutting the power of the security services.
“It is clear that Inoyatov has been a redundant political figure in the country’s changing period,” he said.
“Inoyatov is 73-years-old, he has never been a public figure and is in poor health. The people, no matter how politically passive they are, would unequivocally choose the side of Mirziyoyev as he has managed to create the image of a passionate reformer.”
Mirziyoyev promoted 51-year-old Ikhtiyor Abdullayev, formerly the prosecutor-general, as the new head of the Uzbek security services. Analysts said that as an outsider to the security services, Mr Abdullayev may be able to push through the reforms that Mr Mirziyoyev has called for.
As President, Mirziyoyev has been winning rave reviews from Western businesses for his reforms which have included simplifying exchange rates and enticing corporates back to Uzbekistan with various pro-business policies.
Mr Sattarov, the analyst, said: “Officials and siloviks [officials who used to work for the security services] who used to be sceptical about the initiatives of the President, have received a clear signal that Mirziyoyev will not stop his reforms and will not tolerate sabotage.”
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— This story was first published on Feb. 6 2018 in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin
TBILISI, JAN. 27 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia made a formal complaint to Russia over the opening of customs points with the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Jan. 27). Georgian officials said the customs points were another way for Russia to try to absorb South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia refuted the accusation.
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— This story was first published on Feb. 6 2018 in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin
JAN 1 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan began a 1-month chairmanship of the UN Security Council for the first time. It is sitting at the Security Council as one of two representatives for the Asia-Pacific region. Its 2-year term as a UN Security Council member finishes at the end of 2017. Pres. Nazarbayev had set serious precedent on Kazakhstan becoming the first Central Asian member of the Security Council.
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— This story was first published on Jan. 5 2018 in issue 356 of The Conway Bulletin
TBILISI, DEC. 26/27 (The Conway Bulletin) — — Police in Georgia arrested five men in Tbilisi and the Pankisi Gorge who, they said, were linked to the IS extremist network and had helped arm a group of militants who fought police for several hours during a raid in Tbilisi in November.
In November, three militants were killed and one security service agent died in a raid on a flat on the outskirts of Tbilisi.
Separately, the Turkish authorities said that they had also arrested a Georgian national on suspicion of being linked to IS.
The Pankisi Gorge in the north of Georgia is renowned as a hideout for Islamic fighters. It was considered a safe place for Chechen fighters battling Russian forces in the early 2000s. More recently it has proved a fairly fertile recruitment ground for IS.
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— This story was first published on Jan. 5 2018 in issue 356 of The Conway Bulletin