MAY 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – One of Tajikistan’s most senior police chiefs has gone missing, Radio Free Europe/Radio liberty reported. Gulmurod Halimov, commander of the interior ministry’s special forces unit OMON, has not been seen since leaving home in Dushanbe on April 23.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s interior ministry said that it would not prose- cute men who have fought for the extremist IS group in Syria or Iraq if they repent and want to return home. Tajikistan is increasingly concerned about the number of young men who have moved to Syria to fight for IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to New Delhi, Tajikistan’s foreign minister, Sirojiddin Aslov, met with Indian foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, and defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, to discuss India’s accession into the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan Trade and Transit Agreement (PATTTA).
Tajikistan and India have looked to improve their diplomatic and trade relations over the past years. Both countries now see the PATTTA, a mechanism designed to increase regional trade which was only finalised in April, as an option for cooperation. Pakistan has yet to agree to India’s accession.
Trade turnover between India and Tajikistan has grown in the past years, although it still stands below $30m. India has openly made designs on Central Asia. It tried, and failed, to buy into the giant Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea and is a partner in the so-called TAPI project that should pump Turkmen gas to south Asia.
India does, though, operate the Farkhor Air Base in south- western Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s ministry of justice has drawn up a list of names that it wants to ban parents giving to their babies, media reported. The so-called black list appears to be an attempt to centralise names.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon sacked the head of Tajikistan’s Central Bank Abdujabbor Shirinov, media reported, an apparent reaction to the continued slide of the somoni currency.
This year the somoni has nose-dived by around 20% against the US dollar as it struggled to cope with a fall in the value of the Russian rouble and a dip in Russia’s economy which has hit remittances.
Mr Shirinov, a previous Tajik ambassador to the United States and head of the Central Bank since 2012 has taken increasingly desperate measures to defend the currency. Last month he ordered exchange kiosks to be banned but instead of giving the government more control over its currency, it just forced money changers into the black market.
The Dushanbe-based ASIA-Plus reported that Jamshed Nourmahmadzoda had been appointed Tajikistan’s new Central Bank chief. Mr Nourmahmadzoda was previously head of Amonatbonk.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in south Tajikistan sentenced 10 men to 8-1/2 years in prison each for being members of the banned Islamic extremist group Jamaat Ansarullah. Jamaat Ansarullah is an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, blamed for a series of attacks over the past couple of decades in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Istanbul, Tajik, Pakistani and Afghan officials signed a deal that will mean electricity generated in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains will power households in Islamabad.
The CASA-1000 project should generate income for Dushanbe from its hydro-stations and for Kabul as a transit country while plugging a shortfall in electricity in Pakistan.
As well as an economic success, the $1.2b project is seen as a diplomatic highlight by the United States which is keen to involve Central Asian countries in trade deals with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It sees this as a way to foster stability once it withdraws its forces.
Richard Hoagland, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, said: “We’ve already seen the efficacy of such an approach in the successes of the CASA-1000 energy project, which brought together a grouping of countries that had never before worked together on a development project.”
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Devout Muslims in Tajikistan say officials are waging a campaign designed to intimidate and humiliate them by shaving off their beards and limiting access to the annual Haj to Mecca, the AFP news agency reported. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon has steadily cracked down on Islam.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan both moved their Victory Day military parades from May 9 to May 7 because their leaders were due to be in Moscow for the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A move by Tajikistan’s government to ban exchange booths from dealing in currencies has pushed currency trading into the black market and reduced the value of the Tajik somoni further, Eurasianet reported. The somoni has lost around 17% of its value this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)