May 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Forces in the Georgian rebel state of South Ossetia released 17 people they had been holding after they strayed into their territory, media reported. Reports said the 17 Georgians had been picking herbs when they strayed into South Ossetia on May 10, triggering a standoff.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kamchibek Kolbayev, Kyrgyzstan’s most prominent crime lord, is set to be released from jail in June having served 1-1/2 years of a 5-year sentence, media reported.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a non-profit organisation, refers to Kolbayev as “a serious drug pipeline entrepreneur” and a key middleman in the heroin trade moving out of Afghanistan.
Kyrgyz officials have long been accused of enmeshment in this trade and civil activists are saying that his let-off stinks of a deal.
Put on an international drug barons list by Washington in 2011, Kolbayev was extradited to Kyrgyzstan from Dubai in December 2012 and charged with various crimes including kidnap and criminal conspiracy. During his trial, Kolbayev was noted for his debonair appearance and composure.
Kolbayev’s release signals continuing rule-of-law of issues in Kyrgyzstan. In April 2013 a political scandal blew up over the release on medical grounds and subsequent departure to Grozny of Kolbayev’s main rival, ethnic Chechen mobster Aziz Batukayev.
Batukayev, it turned out, was not ill at all.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Momentum appears to be building for Georgia’s NATO entry, or at least a move in that direction.
William Hague, the British foreign minister, visited Tbilisi and spoke of his support for “Georgia’s Euro- Atlantic trajectory, for its territorial integrity and for its democratic process”. His visit was part of a trip to Ukraine and Moldova too and followed trips from the French and German foreign ministers to Tbilisi.
In 2008, at a summit in Bucharest, NATO said that one day Georgia would be a NATO member. What it didn’t say, though, was when.
Since then, Georgia has been waiting for it membership card. It has supported various NATO initiatives, including the war in Afghanistan. It had hoped that perhaps a summit in Wales later this year may be the entry point, although that notion has been dashed by various NATO officials.
At the same time as Mr Hague was in Tbilisi, Georgia’s defence foreign minister, Irakli Alasania, was in Washington visiting the US defence secretary Chuck Hagel.
And if that wasn’t enough Western diplomatic handshaking, French President Francois Hollande turned up on May 13 on the final stop of his tour of the South Caucasus. Again, Georgia’s potential integration topped the agenda.
Despite some reservations by some NATO members, the crisis in Ukraine appears to have created a real opportunity for Georgia. If Georgia can maintain the forward momentum it has generated over the past couple of weeks, NATO membership may not be far off.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia are detaining 13 Georgian citizens, media reported. Reports said five Georgians were released after paying a fine for apparently straying illegally into South Ossetia. In 2008, Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a visit to Tashkent, US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns tried to woo Uzbekistan’s leaders by pointing to Ukraine and warning of the dangers that Russia still represents. Mr Burns said that the US’ commitment to Uzbekistan and the Central Asia region was enduring.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An on-off border row between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has flared up again, according to media reports.
Around 60 people were injured in a fight between villagers on each side of the border. Various cargo and trucks were destroyed.
This is a potentially dangerous issue and could destabilise the restive southern edge of Kyrgyzstan and the wider Ferghana Valley region, the most densely populated area of Central Asia.
Talks between the two governments over the delimitation of the 300km-long disputed border have been moving, at a sluggish pace, through out the year.
In January, a shootout between opposing forces injured several soldiers. As with many parts of Central Asia, the borders around southern Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan appear to have been draw up to generate strife and problems. Communities of different nationalities intersect each other; enclaves generate flashpoints.
As well as adding to the daily inconveniences experienced by communities living close to the border, the clashes hurt big business. In March South-Kyrgyz-Cement reported that sales had fallen as a result of Kyrgyzstan’s closure of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border, which lasted over two months after the Jan. 11 shootout.
A Kyrgyz-owned gas station and containers carrying cement and coal were among the property burned during in the most recent conflict.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appears to have triggered a minor international row by snubbing a meeting of a former Soviet military group in favour of talks with a senior US diplomat.
Mr Nazarbayev had been due to travel to Moscow for a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military group that includes Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Instead he decided to meet with the US deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, in Astana.
Officials were quick to deny there was a problem even though all the other CSTO leaders turned up in Moscow for a meeting chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr Nazarbayev was conspicuous by his absence.
Back in Astana, to make the situation even more uncomfortable for Mr Nazarbayev, diplomats told journalists that Mr Burns had asked Mr Nazarbayev to try and use his influence with Mr Putin to relax Russia’s pressure in eastern Ukraine.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
OSKEMEN/Kazakhstan, May 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yerkimbek Ayazbayev pointed at the billboard sitting on the top of the local government headquarters in this town in north-east Kazakhstan.
He read the slogan, written in both Kazakh and Russian, aloud: “Unity is the guarantee of success.” It had the ring of a Soviet-style mantra.
Under orders from central government, officials in northern Kazakhstan are urgently pressing this message home. They’re nervous because events in Ukraine have shaken up the former Soviet region’s fragile ethnic divisions.
Ayazbayev is a man with a mission. He runs the local branch of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan, a government-backed body representing the interests of Kazakhstan’s myriad ethnic groups, which numbered over 120 at last count.
It’s the job of Ayazbayev, an ethnic Kazakh, to drive home the mantra of ethnic harmony. He does this, seemingly, with the zeal of a true believer.
“We’re a multi-ethnic state and let’s say so proudly,” he said.
Russians equal around 25% of the population nationwide, but here in Oskemen over two-thirds of people are ethnic Russian. Oskemen is the Kazakh name for the Soviet city of Ust Kamenogorsk.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, 73, is hugely popular with Russians in Oskemen, but they are divided about the community’s prospects in the looming post-Nazarbayev future.
While the older generation is happy to stay in Kazakhstan, many of the younger ethnic Russians see their future over the border.
Student Anna Prokayeva plans to go and study in Russia. “I don’t want to come back to Kazakhstan,” she said. “This is my homeland, and no-one’s discriminating against me but I think I’ll feel more comfortable there.”
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Against the backdrop of worsening violence in Ukraine, NATO said it wants to speed up bringing Georgia closer to the Western military
alliance. On a visit to Tbilisi, NATO Special Representative to Georgia, James Appathurai, said: “We are now looking, of course, at next steps, at bringing Georgia even
closer to NATO.”
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Yemen media reported that government soldiers had killed 13 members of an al-Qaeda militant group, including their Uzbek leader. This is significant for Uzbekistan which has been battling militant Islamists for years. There have been a number of credible reports of Uzbeks fighting in Yemen and Afghanistan..
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)