Much of the Western media has portrayed Kyrgyzstan’s decision to permit US troops to use Manas Air Base as a surprise turnaround, painting Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek S. Bayikev as a crafty little leader, capable of pandering to both Russia and the United States as it suits him. Although I have no wish to demean President […]
After intense diplomatic pressure by the United States, including a letter from President Obama, the Kyrgyz Republic has decided to allow US troops to use the Manas air base as a transit stop for the mission in Afghanistan. The US will have to pay $60 million dollars a year, up from $17 million it has […]
First off, my friends at Rising Powers beat me to a SCO Summit report. In the shadow of the Iranian election drama and the first real BRIC get together, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Don’t know what the SCO is?) held their annual Heads of State Summit in the Russian Ural city of Yekaterinburg. The Heads […]
After reporting that the Uzbek/Kyrgyz border was tense, Radio Liberty reported on June 11 that Uzbek border guards killed an ethnic Uzbek who was a Kyrgyz citizen. The guards said that he was crossing the border illegally and did not stop when they told him to. Another Kyrgyz citizen, villagers reported, has been missing for […]
In the last few weeks, there have been numerous problems with Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley neighbors. While incidents have been provoked in the past, there has been a confluence of strife recently, likely due to the anniversary of the Andijon shootings of May 2005. In Tajikistan, the Uzbeks have erected a checkpoint along some disputed point […]
The magazine business new europe (bne) has recently issued a special report on Kazakhstan. The journal covers eastern, southeastern and central European markets. The special report on Kazakhstan is especially interesting right now as the country is closely tied to world markets and is therefore struggling. KazakhGold, the state gold company, listed on the London […]
Rakhat Aliev, President Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, has been living in Vienna, Austria since 2007 after a public split with Nazarbayev. Ever since, he has been denigrating the Kazakh leadership. He has finally put it all in a book, published in German and Russian, called The Godfather-in-Law. It is available in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The book […]
Eight countries from the Middle East and Central Asia met in Prague on Friday to push along plans for the Nabucco pipeline. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Egypt signed the agreement while Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan insisted there were more issues to be addressed. Turkmenistan is sending a delegation to Brussels in June for another meeting […]
On March 26, at a meeting in Almaty of state-sponsored environmentalists and ecologists, the Syr Darya was declared too polluted to even be used for irrigation in Kazakhstan. By the time the river weaves through the other Central Asian states, including through the Ferghana Valley, the river has accumulated the runoff from massive amounts of […]
On April 28, the five Central Asian states met to discuss water issues in a summit in Almaty. To no one’s surprise, no agreements of substance were signed. Instead, the leaders bickered and stalled, and in the end, signed an agreement that did not address regional water management. Continuing to provoke its neighbors, on April […]
After the recent unexplained explosion of a gas pipeline between Russia and Turkmenistan, each side has been accusing the other of blowing it up. After all the words exchanged, Turkmenistan has taken action by signing a major agreement with the German energy giant Rheinisch-Westfaelische Elektrizitaetswerk (RWE). RWE now has the right to explore and develop […]
Russia, China, and all the Central Asian states except Uzbekistan took part in war exercises south of Dushanbe. About 1,000 soldiers took part in a staged factory take-over with hostages. The only truly remarkable fact about this event is this quote from Radio Liberty: During the exercises, Tajik soldiers demonstrated their ability to tear apart […]
On April 15, Henry E. Hale, Ph.D. Harvard 1998, an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington (GW) University in Washington, DC, who specializes in the comparative study of democratization, federalism, ethnic politics, and international integration, came to speak at the University of Washington at Seattle on the “Logic of Regime […]
In another round of truly awful news for Tajiks, two former Soviet nuclear waste sites located in the northern Sughd region are not adequately sealed and will not be in the near future. Some of the dust has been escaping out of these mounds of waste and contaminating water and soil. So far, the dust […]
As I reported on March 29 and March 30, Russia and Turkmenistan seemed to be headed for a new level of mutually-beneficial relations. They had signed a series of treaties and left only one to be signed, on gas, for a date in the near future, after they had worked out some kinks. Then on […]