NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Egypt have charged four Tajik men with recruiting for the extremist group Islamic State (IS), the US-fund Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting officials at the Tajik embassy in Cairo. Central Asian states are increasingly worried about young disenfranchised men joining IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan is looking to bolster its military, media reported quoting Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov from a transcript of a meeting at the National Security Council. Mr Berdymukhamedov is concerned about Taliban activity on its border with Afghanistan. Turkmen forces have built strengthen defences in some border areas this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have sacked the powerful head of the Tashkent police force, Colonel Abdumajid Mullajonov, and several of his deputies, media reported.
Over the past year intrigue has gripped Uzbekistan over the demise of the once all-power daughter of President Islam Karimov, Gulnara Karimova, and her associates. Sources in Tashkent said, though, that dismissal of Colonel Mullajonov, the son of the Central Bank chief, was not linked to politics.
Instead media said he had been sacked for corruption and bribery.
The importance of the change of leadership at the Tashkent police force is to highlight the flux that these powerful Uzbek institutions are currently going through.
Uzbek sources said Colonel Mullajonov allegedly misappropriated businesses of a sugar magnate who was a close business partner of Ms Karimova, and that he owned dozens of fuel stations in the two largest cities in Uzbekistan.
Uzbek politics, business and power are closely linked. The sacking of Colonel Mullajonov and his colleagues adds more intrigue to a fluid domestic situation.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to Sweden by Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandalian, Armenia opened an embassy in Stockholm. Armenia has been looking to open more embassies abroad to both boost its support base and lobby for allies to back it with its dispute with Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)
OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan may officially be neutral but it is still discussing regional security issues with NATO.
NATO’s liaison officer for Central Asia Alexander Vinnikov met with Turkmen officials to discuss various bilateral security options, media reported. This was the second major security meeting held by Turkmenistan in October. Earlier in the month President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov to discuss cooperation.
The main worry for Turkmenistan is the growing Taliban threat along its border with Afghanistan. The Taliban has increased their activities, triggering the Turkmen military to bolster its defences.
It’s also concerned about a re-galvanised Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The IMU emerged in the 1990s and had targeted Uzbekistan. In the 2000s it joined the Taliban fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan and this year claimed responsibility for an attack on Karachi airport. More recently, the IMU has publicly declared its support for the so-called Islamic State extremist group which is fighting in Syria and Iraq.
If the IMU did become a major threat to Central Asian states once again, Turkmenistan, with all its gas riches and long border with Afghanistan, could well be in its sights.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
NOV. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Acknowledging that hundreds of Kyrgyz citizens have been fighting in Syria for the Islamic State, an extremist Islamic group, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev told Kyrgyzstan’s Security Council he was determined to defeat extremism. He said Kyrgyzstan was at risk of “Arabisation”.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Germany has agreed a deal with Uzbekistan to keep open an air base in the south of the country, media reported. According to German media, a helicopter crash a few days
before the current lease ran out at the end of October complicated the deal to extend the lease for the base which Germany took over in 2001 in the aftermath of the attack on New York by Al Qaeda and the NATO invasion of Afghanistan.
The base is important for several reasons.
After the withdrawal of the US military from their base outside Bishkek, the German base in Uzbekistan will now be NATO’s only full time base in the region. The French air force use the airport at Dushanbe but they share many of the facilities with civilian aircraft.
Uzbekistan is also an important transit country for NATO which is planning on shifting most of its kit out of Afghanistan through Uzbekistan and Russia.
For Uzbekistan, the German base is also something of a bulwark against the threat of Al Qaeda and Taliban across the border in Afghanistan.
Neither Uzbek nor German officials gave any details on the lease extension deal. Media reported that Germany stations about 300 soldiers at the base. Details of a 2011 deal showed that it paid 16m euros a year to lease the base.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s president, Serzh Sargsyan, described talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh as “constructive, useful and sincere”, media reported.This is the most upbeat assessment of the talks hosted by French president Francois Hollande.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Negotiations over the Tajik-Kyrgyz border have re-opened, media reported. This is important because this year there have been several skirmishes along the border. The issue of the Tajiki-Kyrgyz border is one of the most sensitive in Central Asia and has the potential to destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s government is increasingly worried about the number of young Tajiks fighting in the Syria for the extremist group Islamic State (IS). Media quoted officials as saying that 50 Tajik nationals had now been killed in Syria, up from five in June.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)