Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek President’s daughter under house arrest

JUNE 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The 21-year-old son of Gulnara Karimova, Islam Karimov, confirmed in an interview with Russian TV that his mother and sister are under house arrest in Tashkent.

Mr Karimov, who shares the same name as his grandfather Uzbek President Islam Karimov, is a student at Oxford University.

He said that, contrary to previous reports, his grandfather is not behind the detention of his mother.

“This is happening behind his back,” he told REN-TV. “Our enemies could have misrepresented the facts when briefing him.”

Mr Karimov’s version of events are very clear, then. He said that the family’s enemies are trying to enflame a family rift.

The interview is important because it gives an insider’s view on the apparent demise of Ms Karimova. She has not been heard of or seen since February when security agents apparently raided her apartment. Her closest business associates have apparently been charged with various business misdemeanours.

Over the past year Ms Karimova has had a spectacular fall from power. She controlled many of the country’s biggest businesses and lived a glamorous life as a fashion designer and pop star. Slowly these have been stripped away from her.

Information for outsiders has been scant, although it appears that she is the victims of inter-clan rivalries. One of her biggest enemies was said to be Rustam Inoyatov, head of the Uzbek security services.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have worst democracy

JUNE 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US-based lobby group Freedom House rated Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as having the worst democratic framework in its ranking of 29 countries in eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union. Human rights group often complain about a lack of democracy and entrenched corruption in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

World Bank loan to Uzbekistan stirs anger

JUNE 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank agreed to give Uzbekistan a $260m loan to improve irrigation in its agriculture, media reported, angering human rights activists who accuse Uzbekistan of using child labour to pick cotton. Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s biggest exports although many Western fashion brands refuse to use it in their clothing.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Transport price rises in Uzbek city

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of tickets on Tashkent’s bus, tram, trolleybus and metro systems increased by 20% on June 15 because of a rise in petrol prices, media reported. Petrol prices have been rising across Uzbekistan, frustrating locals. The Uzbek government sets petrol prices.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

South Korean leader visits Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korean president Park Geun-hye started a six day trip to Central Asia by visiting Tashkent.

There Ms Guen-hye pledged to increase cooperation in gas and solar power sector.

This was just the first stage in an important Central Asia trip for the South Korean leader. Ms Guen-hye now travels to Astana and then to Ashgabat laying down a serious marker in the region.

Central Asia is a natural region for South Korea to look to carve out an overseas trade foothold. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ensured that this was the case.

In the 1930s, worried about their loyalty, Stalin moved hundreds of thousands of Koreans living in the east of the Soviet Union to Central Asia. Most settled around Tashkent or Almaty.

Now both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have large Korean minorities. Many ethnic Koreans are involved in business and some in politics. There are Korean restaurants in cities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and transport links with Seoul are well-established.

Ms Geun-hye is looking to leverage these ties to ensure that South Korea is able to tap into the region’s energy reserves as well as putting Korean companies in a good position to do business.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Uzbek court releases prisoner

JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uzbekistan ordered the release of the critically ill prisoner Abdurasul Khudoynazarov, media quoted Human Rights Watch as saying. Khudoynazarov had served 8-1/2 years of a 9 year prison sentence for allegedly stirring anti-government protests around the city of Andijan, east Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Korean president to visit Uzbekistan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korean president Park Geun-hye will visit Uzbekistan next week as part of a tour of Central Asia that also includes Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, media reported quoting an Uzbek government source. There are large Koran ethnic minorities living in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Gas shortages triggered protests in Kyrgyzstan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps playing into Uzbekistan’s hands, the shortage of gas in Osh has triggered anger towards the central authorities in Kyrgyzstan.

Under a Soviet engineered system, Uzbekistan supplies Osh and other cities in south Kyrgyzstan with gas. It cut supplies on April 14 because it said that Kyrgyzstan was not keeping to its side of a bilateral arrangement.

Uzbek officials have also declined to negotiate with their Kyrgyz counterparts, leaving people living in the south without supplies.

And anger is brewing.

Osh has seen a few demonstrations but protests have now broken out in Bishkek. People protesting against the lack of gas in Osh merged with others demonstrating against Russia’s Gazprom’s takeover of KyrgyzGaz in April and the government’s drive towards the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Police were forced to break the protest up but any ground-swell of anti-government feelings in Kyrgyzstan can have serious implications for the government.

It is not surprising that Uzbekistan is being a difficult neighbour. Uzbekistan has been highly critical of Kambar-Ata-2, the Kyrgyz hydroelectric project the Kremlin agreed to finance. In 2012, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said upstream dams such as Kambar-Ata-2 could trigger wars between upstream and downstream countries.

Gazprom’s acquisition of KyrgyzGaz is also a threat to Uzbekistan as it gives the Kyrgyz energy network more firepower. Gazprom has talked also of a north-south gas pipeline in Kyrgyzstan that would cut Uzbekistan out of its supply chain. This, though, is some way off and it will not end Osh’s gas crisis in the short run.

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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistn claims Karachi attack

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) claimed responsibility for an attack on Karachi airport in Pakistan on June 9 that killed at least 39 people including the 10 attackers. The IMU formed in Uzbekistan in the 1990s. More recently it has been fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Karimov criticises Eurasian Economic Union

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov has criticised the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union as a thinly disguised effort to create a broader political group.

Mr Karimov is, perhaps, the first leader from Central Asia to offer such brazen criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects.

Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg reported Mr Karimov saying that joining the Eurasian Economic Union would mean losing national independence.

“They say that they will only create an economic market and it won’t relinquish sovereignty and independence. Tell me, can political independence exist without economic independence?” Mr Karimov said according to 24.kg.

Of course, Uzbekistan is the most unilateral of the Central Asian countries and criticism from Tashkent of the Eurasian Economic Union is not unexpected but Mr Karimov’s comments are particularly barbed and the timing poignant.

Alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are also members of the Eurasian Economic Union which was signed into existence last month at a ceremony in Astana. But Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are all eager to join.

Many Western analysts have said that despite assurances from Mr Putin, the Eurasian Economic Union is little more than a thinly veiled effort by the Kremlin to extend its political power. Clearly Mr Karimov shares these views.

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(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)