Tag Archives: Tajikistan

Editorial: Tajik students

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imitation is, they say, the most sincere form of flattery. So is flattery what Tajik officials had in mind when they organised a series of student protests against diplomatic missions of the European Union, the OSCE and Turkey in Dushanbe and Khujand? Or perhaps they were just thinking about the intimidation they wanted to inflict on diplomats?

They deny any link to the student protests, but in Tajikistan people are controlled and a protest outside a foreign embassy couldn’t have happened without the support of the authorities.

Ten years ago, the Russian state spawned a youth movement called Nashi. It was well-funded, well-organised and vicious. When it was given a target it went into attack mode. Just ask ambassadors from Western countries they targeted or the democracy advocates they harassed.

It appears as if Tajik officials now want to achieve something similar, although on a smaller scale. They want to intimidate Turkey and the European Union into giving up opposition members who have fled Tajikistan. Nashi’s own results were, in the end, mixed and the Tajik students’ won’t be any better.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Editorial: Uzbekistan’s railway

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At 19.2km, the Kamchik Pass railway tunnel may be the longest in Central Asia and might also be a great engineering achievement, but it is also a sign of Uzbekistan’s further isolation from world politics and markets.

Uzbekistan said it completed a World Bank and China-backed railway bypass in the Ferghana Valley that will allow its trains to run to the east of the country without having to transit through Tajikistan.

The World Bank support is important because it shows international endorsement for a mega project that Uzbekistan was eager to achieve despite the economic downturn rolling through Central Asia.

Chinese money and workers were key to the success of the project, as China has growing interest in building infrastructure in Central Asia to support its ambitious project to connect with Europe via rail and road.

Tajikistan is the main loser in this game. It will no longer receive the in- kind payment of $25m worth of gas shipments from Uzbekistan in exchange for the railway transit. And it also lost an important diplomatic chip in its endless row with Tashkent.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Economic woes take Tajikistan

FEB. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The amount of cash flowing into the Tajik government’s coffers is slowing, media reported quoting the ministry of finance. It said, without giving specifics, that in January, it only hit 87.7% of its target inflow. Tajikistan has been heavily hit by the worsening economic conditions across the region. Remittances from Russia, a vital source of income, have fallen by 50%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Tajik court jails 13 for IS flag

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Court in Tajikistan sentenced 13 men to between 10 and 25 years in jail for allegedly hoisting an IS flag over a building in the provincial town of Nurek, media reported. The authorities in Tajikistan have sentenced similar numbers of men on similar charges previously. It has said that radical Islam is growing in the region but human rights groups have accused the Tajik government of simply wanting to clamp down on dissenters.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan dispute over border

FEB. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) -The foreign ministries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan traded angry notes after Kyrgyz soldiers appeared to raise their national flag over a disputed border area. International monitors have said that the two neighbours had been making decent progress towards thrashing out a solution to their long-running border row. The recent dispute, though, may have endangered this progress. Analysts have said that the Tajik-Kyrgyz border dispute has the potential to destabilise the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Russia boosts assistance to Tajikistan

FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said that Russia would supply Tajikistan with all the equipment and intelligence that it needed to fend off various threats from the Taliban who are looking increasingly powerful. Mr Antonov made the promise on a trip to Tajikistan a few days after news that Taliban forces in Afghanistan had attacked a power-line running from Uzbekistan to Kabul. Central Asian states are increasingly worried about a resurgent Taliban.

ENDS

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

First petrol from Iran arrives in Tajikistan

FEB. 3 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran shipped its first batch of petrol to Tajikistan, a deal both countries credited to the lifting of Western sanctions.

It’s also, importantly, more evidence of the impact that post-sanctions Iran is having on Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Reports from across the region have shown a sharp increase in trade with Iran since the US and the European Union lifted sanctions on Jan. 16.

These deals have included an agreement with Kazakh airline Air Astana, grPain agreements with Kazakhstan, trade arrangements with Armenia and the arrival of the first train, via Central Asia, direct from China in Iran.

But it is, perhaps, petrol exports to the Central Asia/South Caucasus region where Iran can have the biggest impact.

Officials from the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company told local media the shipment of petrol to Tajikistan measured 2.9m litres, a volume they could maintain on a daily basis. If it did send this amount of petrol to Tajikistan every day, Iran’s petrol exports would measure around 750,000 tonnes a year. This roughly equals Tajikistan’s total current consumption. It had previously imported most of its petrol from Russia.

Mohammad-Mehdi Gharaei, director of the distribution company, told media that Tajikistan had asked for the petrol products. “In view of the [post-sanctions] conditions, Tajikistan requested in early February to purchase Iranian gasoline,” he said.

Iran sent petrol to Tajikistan on trucks through Afghanistan.

Iran is a net importer of petrol. This, though, will change later this year when a new super-sized refinery opens on the Persian Gulf. This refinery will turn Iran into a petrol exporter and Central Asia and the South Caucasus will be a prime target market. They just don’t have enough refinery capacity.

Iman Nasseri, of FGE energy consultancy in London, said Iran is looking to capture market share.

“In the post-sanctions era we expect more shipments from Iran. Most of these might have been discussed and negotiated before sanctions were lifted,” Mr Nasseri told The Bulletin.

ENDS

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

Tajikistan to rename cities

FEB. 1 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon ordered Parliament to rename a number of cities, regions and a reservoir to give them more of a Tajik flavour.

Since becoming an independent state in 1991, the Tajik government has been keen to build up a back-story for the country. It replaced most of the Russian place names with names mostly derived from the Samanid Empire (819-919), a common tactic in Central Asia which had not been independent countries before 1991.

In 2007 Rakhmon also dropped the Russian suffix ‘ov’ from his name.

His press office said: “The renaming of districts and cities promotes national values and a sense of dignity. It is especially important to educate younger generations about the rich culture of the ancestors of the modern statehood of Tajik people.”

But not everybody thinks it is such a good idea.

Dushanbe taxi driver Odilbek, 38, said it was a waste of money. “These people do not understand what they are doing,” he said. “We have more serious problems and this is a waste of money. People will call the cities by their old names anyway.”

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

Editorial: Iranian oil for Tajikistan

FEB. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran is emerging from its economic exile with force and its impact is being felt across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

The new petrol export deal with Tajikistan, together with recent deals with Kazakhstan’s Air Astana and the negotiations with Armenia and Georgia over gas supplies, is a testimony of the importance that countries in the region give to Iran as a trade partner.

Iran is still a net importer of gasoline but it is now close to opening a new 18m tonnes refinery on the Persian Gulf coast, which officials say “will change the gasoline balance in Iran” and could possibly turn the country into a net exporter.

For countries like Tajikistan this is good news as it means that Iran could become a supplier of oil for both Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Tajikistan has previously bought all its refined petrol from Russia. With Iran’s re-emergence onto the scene this over-reliance on its former colonial master is reduced, giving Tajikistan a genuine choice on where to buys its petrol.

ENDS

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

Tajikistan makes constitutional changes

FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) -Tajikistan’s Constitutional Court approved changes to the country’s constitution that removed a limit on the number of times that a person can be president. The amendments will mean that Pres. Emomali Rakhmon is now eligible to run for president again at the next election in 2020. He has been in power since the mid-1990s. Tajik lawmakers are also looking into changing the constitution to allow people under the age of 35 to run for president. This would allow Mr Rakhmon’s son to stand in 2020. Analysts have said that Mr Rakhmon is hedging his bets before he decides if he wants to run or not.

ENDS

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