MARCH 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting hosted by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan discussed the ceasefire around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Analysts say the leaders’ meetings are important to avoid another war over the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
MARCH 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of Kyrgyz torched the house of an Uzbek they accused of organising the murder of a local official, media reported. The attack in a town near Osh in the south of Kyrgyzstan roused fears of a repeat of ethnic violence that killed 400 people in June 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 30, published on March 7 2011)
FEB. 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – German prosecutors said they had arrested two German nationals involved with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which is linked to al-Qaeda, media reported. The IMU is blamed for a number of attacks in Central Asia and Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 29, published on Feb. 28 2011)
FEB. 23/26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – As part of a three-day trip to the South Caucasus and the Balkans, US deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg visited Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Statements from the State Department said Mr Steinberg had expressed concern over war-like language from Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 29, published on Feb. 28 2011)
FEB. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States spent $28m in 2010 in Uzbekistan on supplies for NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said on an official trip to Tashkent. He also praised Uzbekistan’s role in the NATO supply chain.
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(News report from Issue No. 28, published on Feb. 21 2011)
FEB. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will increase its defence budget by 17% to $1.4b in 2011, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said. According to the World Bank’s latest data, in 2009 Kazakhstan spent 1.2% of its GDP on military spending.
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(News report from Issue No. 28, published on Feb. 21 2011)
FEB. 20 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – An Azeri solider shot and killed seven fellow soldiers at an army base, the fourth mass killing in Azerbaijan’s military in the last two years. The attacker was also killed in the incident. In June 2010, a soldier killed two colleagues before shooting himself.
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(News report from Issue No. 28, published on Feb. 21 2011)
FEB. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tough, war-like language from both Azerbaijani and Armenian officials over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh is not uncommon but the warning from Azerbaijan’s defence minister, Safar Abiyev, that his country is preparing to retake the region should not be ignored.
Over the last year tension has risen around Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked mountainous region. International peace negotiators appear to be making little progress and analysts say another war is not unimaginable.
Every week gunfire shatters a shaky ceasefire imposed over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994 after 22,000-25,000 people had died and 1m had fled fighting that started in 1992. Analysts say skirmishes killed around 30 soldiers last year.
Mutual distrust and animosity between Azerbaijan and Armenia have also triggered an arms race. Azerbaijan, in particular has boosted its defence spending by about 12 times since 2000.
And the implications of another seemingly localised war in Nagorno-Karabakh are likely to be far wider. The complex series of allegiances and alliances in the South Caucasus could drag neighbours Iran, Turkey and Russia into a conflict.
In a 20-page report published on Feb. 8, the influential Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group summed up what failing to prevent a war would mean. “The fighting would be intense and drawn out, affect large swathes of territory, endanger many civilians and destroy critical infrastructure,” it wrote.
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(News report from Issue No. 27, published on Feb. 14 2011)
FEB. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media reports quoted Azerbaijan’s defence minister Safar Abiyev as saying Azerbaijan is preparing to retake the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. Top Azerbaijani officials have previously threatened war against Armenia but tension around Nagorno-Karabakh has risen recently.
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(News report from Issue No. 27, published on Feb. 14 2011)
FEB. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States signed a fuel supply deal for its Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan which will split the lucrative contract 50:50 between a state company and the Gibraltar-registered Mina Corp. The company had been the sole supplier under the previous government, a deal criticised for its lack of transparency.
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(News report from Issue No. 27, published on Feb. 14 2011)