Tag Archives: security

Editorial: Military conscription

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s decision to scrap conscription for its army comes as no surprise. It has been moving in this direction for some time. The Georgian army is a modern Western army that has fought battles in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside members of NATO, a club it longs to join.

What is more critical is the timing of the announcement and the way it was delivered. Tina Khidasheli, Georgia’s defence minister, took it upon herself to cancel conscription from 2017. She sidestepped a debate in parliament and also presidential permission. It was a unilateral decision.

Ms Khidasheli is a member of the Republican Party, part of the Georgian Dream coalition government. The Republican Party, though, has said that it will fight a parliamentary election in October outside the government coalition. The problem with this approach, though, is that while it sets the Republican party apart it has to improve its polling, hovering around 1%.

The decision to scrap conscription in the Georgian army is a historic first for Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The timing, though, should perhaps be seen against the backdrop of an unpredictable election.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

OSCE to monitor contact line between Azerbaijan and Armenia

JUNE 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in St Petersburg hosted by Russian president Vladimir Putin, Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbiajani leader Ilham Aliyev agreed to continue discussions reaching a permanent peace deal over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

They also said that an OSCE mission would be sent to the region to monitor the contact line between the two sides.

The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe is Europe’s democracy watchdog and conflict resolution group. Its involvement in the disputed region of Nagorno-Ka- Karabakh, which suffered its worst outbreak of fighting in April since a UN-brokered peace deal in 1994, is considered vital.

“The OSCE [will] monitor the line of engagement between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops near the village of Agdam in Azerbaijan’s Tovuz district on June 22,” Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said in a note following the meeting.

The fighting in April between Azerbaijan’s army and Armenia-backed forces killed several dozen people and looked at one time that it would drag in neighbouring countries and spread.

The two presidents had previously met in Vienna in mid-May. After the St. Petersburg meeting they are likely to schedule another summit to evaluate the progress made in Nagorno- Karabakh. Analysts have said that continued meetings between the two leaders is important.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

Kazakhstan links Aktobe attacks to Syrian imam

ALMATY, JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s interior minister, Kalmukhanbet Kassymov, said attacks earlier this month in Aktobe by two dozen armed men had been ordered from Syria, the strongest suggestion yet that the government linked the violence to the extremist group ISIS.

His comments appeared to clear up an inconsistency in the Kazakh authorities’ explanation on the motives behind the attacks.

After the initial attack on June 5 on two shops and a police outpost in Aktobe, the authorities had alluded to a link with ISIS but a few days later President Nursultan Nazarbayev then suggested they had been part of an attempted colour revolution sponsored by the West. Coloured revolution means, in the FSU, a pro-Western, foreign-funded movement.

Now, though, the government line appears settled.

Mr Kassymov said that up to 45 men had gathered in an apartment before the first attack.

“When they all gathered in an apartment, they listened to an address from a so-called imam, apparently from Syria, who said that they needed to carry out a sacred jihad,” Russian media quoted him as saying. “The investigation will prove this.”

He also said that the last few gunmen who had escaped the shoot- out on June 5 had now been captured or killed. He said that, in total, 18 gunmen had been killed and nine arrested.

Three security officers and four civilians were also killed in the attacks, in the most serious in Kazakhstan’s 25 years of independence.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders to talk N-K

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev will meet for talks on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in St Petersburg on June 20, a Kremlin spokesman said. Russian president Vladimir Putin will also host the talks. His presence increases the chances that a meaningful deal may be drawn up.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Russia strengthens base in Tajikistan

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Russian army ramped up its hardware at its base in Tajikistan by delivering 100 armed personnel carriers and tanks. Russian officials did not say why they were upgrading their military kit in Tajikistan. Russia has previously warned of the threat by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The military base in Tajikistan is Russia’s largest foreign military facility.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Extremists are increasing, says Kyrgyz police

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz police said in a statement that they have identified around 4,000 extremists in the country, more than double the previous census they had published in September 2015. Most of the individuals that the police classified as extremists belong to the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic party. A word of caution, though. Countries in Central Asia have a record of inflating the number of extremists and terrorists, which they use as a scapegoat to crackdown on opposition.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakh authorities accuse imprisoned businessman of coup attempt

SHYMKENT/Kazakhstan, JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan accused imprisoned Kazakh businessman Tokhtar Tuleshov of stirring protests across the country in April and May in an attempt to overthrow the government.

The protests morphed from a demonstration in Atyrau in the west of the country against proposed land reforms into country-wide demonstrations against the government and the worsening economic scenario.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has already sacked a couple of ministers over the handling of the land reform issue as well as two senior interior ministry officials but some analysts said that he is still looking to deflect blame for the protests away from his government.

The National Security Committee have now said that Mr Tuleshov, who was arrested in Shymkent in the south of the country, in January on various corruption and gun running charges has been plotting for the past year to overthrow the government.

Quoting a National Security Committee spokesperson, media said that Tuleshov’s “plan included destabilising the situation in the country by creating flash points, organising protests and mass unrest.”

Over the weekend, police also arrested a deputy prosecutor-general and two senior military officers for involvement in the plan.

It’s not clear, though, how Tuleshov would have organised this from prison and other analysts were quick to rubbish the theory.

Rasul Zhumaly, a former Kazakh diplomat and now a political analyst, said that Tuleshov was too well-connected to the establishment to risk attempting a coup.

“He had powerful patrons in Russia and Kazakhstan, even among military representatives, and his activity in pro-Kremlin propaganda,” he said.

“It’s more likely that these official charges are nothing but an attempt to find a fall guy and make him responsible for everything.”

Tuleshov was based in Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan. He was the representative of a Russia- linked military think tank in Kazakhstan and also the CEO of Shymkentpivo, one of the country’s biggest breweries.

In Shymkent, people said that Tuleshov had been targeted because officials coveted his business.

“Tokhtar had a big profitable busi- ness, his family had everything, so there was no need for him to go against current authorities,” said Galina, 38.

“It seems like his business was very attractive for someone.”

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Georgia expresses eagerness to join NATO

JUNE 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a conference in Washington, Georgian defence minister Tinatin Khidasheli said that NATO should be doing more to secure Georgia as a member of the Western military alliance. She said that by approving Georgia’s NATO membership, the group would be sending a message to Russia that it can’t be intimidated. Georgia is desperate to join NATO but some members are wary of upsetting Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Uzbek court jails ISIS sympathisers

JUNE 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An Uzbek court in Samarkand jailed six locals who had planned to join the radical group ISIS in Syria and had incited others to practice Sharia law. The court handed out sentences of six to nine years. All the accused, five men and one woman, pleaded guilty. Official reports say that dozens of Central Asians travel to Syria every month to ISIS.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Editorial: Kazakh coup charge

JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — If the Kazakh authorities are to be believed Tokhtar Tuleshov, a millionaire Kazakh who owns a major brewery in Shymkent, organised a series of protests across the country in April and May to try to incite a revolution.

He did this, apparently, while in jail. Mr Tuleshov has been in pre-trial detention since the end of January when he was arrested for alleged drug and gun running offences.

And he apparently picked Atyrau, a town hundreds of kilometres away near the Caspian Sea, to kick-start his coup attempt before organising protests in other cities.

These charges lack credibility. How could Mr Tuleshov have organised these demonstrations from his prison cell? Would Mr Tuleshov even have had the influence to organise a rally in Atyrau in mid-April? He has strong local support in Shymkent but this support is unlikely to spread to Atyrau.

It’s plausible that disgruntled members of the Kazakh elite may have organised the initial protests in Atyrau against land reforms that spread but the government needs to present more evidence to back this up.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)