Tag Archives: security

Georgia investigates corruption allegations

FEB. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s ministry of defence said it was investigating allegations that some Georgian soldiers on assignment in the Central African Republic were part of a rouge group of peacekeepers who abused children and raped women. The UN said it had opened an investigation after allegations were levied at peacekeepers. Georgia sent 150 soldiers on an EU-led mission to the Central African Republic between Feb. 2014 and March 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Soldier pleads guilty in Armenia

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Valery Permyakov, a Russian conscript soldier, pleaded guilty to assaulting and killing a family of seven in the Armenian town of Gyumri last year. The murders triggered anti-Russia protests outside Russia’s military base, its biggest in the South Caucasus, and threatened to damage bilateral relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

ICC investigates war crime in Georgia-Russia war

JAN. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) officially launched an investigation into alleged war crimes during an eight day war in August 2008 between Georgia and Russia. Georgia, a signatory of the treaty which set up the ICC, said it would comply with the investigation. The ICC’s investigation has the potential to damage recently improved Georgia- Russia relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Taliban attack Uzbek-Afghan power line

JAN. 26 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Taliban militants attacked and badly damaged a power line sending electricity to Afghanistan from Uzbekistan, a warning sign for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan who are hoping to develop a power-supply network to Pakistan across Afghan territory.

The attack in the northern Baghlan district cut power to Kabul and underlined the Taliban’s ability to attack targets, seemingly at will, in the north of the country. Last year it captured the town of Kunduz near the border with Tajikistan. Russia and Central Asian governments have warned that a powerful Taliban threatens to destabilise the region.

Afghanistan has become an increasingly important trade and diplomatic partner for Central Asia. It has developed a series of power supply deals with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Most ambitiously Afghanistan will also host an electricity power line running from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan, dubbed CASA-1000, and a gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to India, called TAPI.

Both projects need a stable Afghanistan to be successful. The attack on the power line running from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan has severely reduced electricity to Kabul in the short-run and will make policy makers in Central Asia the West nervous in the long-run.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Editorial: Taliban threat for Uzbekistan

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For policy makers involved in pushing the CASA-1000 and TAPI projects, reports from Afghanistan that the Taliban have attacked and badly damaged part of a power line sending electricity to Kabul from southern Uzbekistan is the stuff their nightmares are made of.

CASA-1000 is the World Bank-backed $1.1b project that will supply Pakistan with power from hydro-stations in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. TAPI is the name of a pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan to India.

Both projects will transit across Afghanistan and form part of a loose north-south Silk Road that US officials have been touting for the past decade. The rub is that they require a stable Afghanistan and that, it appears, is exactly what they don’t have.

If the Taliban are attacking power lines running from Uzbekistan to Kabul then what would stop them attacking a power line running to neighbouring Pakistan or a pipeline running to India?

For each project, the leaders now have to inspect their security systems once again. Costs and doubts about both projects will be rising.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Editorial: Russian visit to Turkmenistan

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The visit by Sergei Lavrov to Ashgabat could be dismissed as a pre-scheduled annual trip by Russia’s foreign minister to one of the former Soviet Union’s outlying countries.

But that would be a mistake. His meeting with Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was an important one, especially in the context of a more powerful, more determined Taliban resurgence in northern Afghanistan.

Russia-Turkmenistan relations have been worsening over the past few years, a deterioration mainly caused by rows over gas contracts and prices and also an argument over one of Russia’s mobile providers.

It’s important for Turkmenistan, and the wider Central Asia region, that Russia-Turkmenistan relations are mended.

Ashgabat may need the Kremlin’s help with organising its defences against the Taliban. If the Taliban show any real determination to break into Central Asia, the governments of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan may well need Russian backup to repel them.

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Editorial from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Russia says IS have set up a training camp in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge

JAN. 27 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia said the radical Islamic group IS had set up a training centre in the Pankisi Gorge, prompting a quick and irritated denial from the Georgian government.

The spat has the potential to upset relations between Georgia and Russia at a delicate time. Over the past few years, since former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili lost power in 2013, relations between the two neighbours have improved. They fought a war in 2008 over the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian news agencies quoted Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, as saying at a press conference in Moscow: “We are getting reports IS militants use this remote area to train, rest and replenish their reserves. The terrorist threat from the Pankisi Gorge has not faded.”

The reference to the “terrorist threat” was to the Pankisi Gorge’s previous role as a hide-out for Chechen fighters battling Russian forces in the North Caucasus during the 1990s and the early 2000s.

The Pankisi Gorge is a predominantly Muslim area and Georgian security forces are increasingly concerned about IS recruitment from the region but Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili refuted Mr Lavrov’s allegations.

“The Georgian government carries out a full inspection of all the regions under its control. A few people from Pankisi Gorge have gone to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, though a strict control is imposed on their entry back to the country,” he said.

“I can say there is no terrorist threat in the Pankisi Gorge.”

Bidzina Lebanidze, political scientist at the Free University in Berlin said that he thought that Russia was trying to play mind games with Georgia by making the accusations to try to discredit it.

“It seems to be just another instrument in the Kremlin’s arsenal to put pressure on the pro-Western government in Tbilisi and to damage its international reputation,” he told The Conway Bulletin.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Turkmen President signs new military doctrine

JAN. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov signed a new military doctrine that confirmed Turkmenistan’s neutral status. There had been speculation that, under a potential threat from the Tablian, Mr Berdymukhamedov would reduce the importance of Turkmenistan’s neutrality in its military doctrine. He didn’t but official media reported that he did want to boost Turkmenistan’s defence measures.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Azerbaijan cuts defence spending

JAN. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has cut its defence spending by 40%, IHS Jane’s Defence reported, part of its efforts to slash government costs as revenues falter in the worsening economic climate. Jane’s said that Azerbaijani government documents had shown that it had cut the so called Special Projects part of the defence budget which it estimated ran to 40% of its total budget.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Uzbek authorities urge anti-IS propaganda

JAN. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan are forcing parents of men and women who have fled Uzbekistan to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq apologise for their sons and daughters on state television, the eurasianet.org website reported. The footage of sobbing, elderly parents is supposed to encourage others to monitor their children more closely. Central Asian governments are increasingly worried about IS recruitment from the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)