2 May 2007 News Digest

GEORGIAN PRESIDENT LOOKS AHEAD TO NATO MAP

19 April

Addressing a NATO seminar in Tbilisi on April 19, Mikheil Saakashvili predicted that by autumn of 2007 Georgia will have successfully implemented the measures outlined in its Intensified Dialogue with NATO and will advance to receiving a Membership Action Plan, the final stage of preparation before a formal invitation is extended to join the alliance. At the same time, Saakashvili warned unnamed European states that they should not retreat from their expressed support for Georgia's accession to NATO for fear that Russia might retaliate by raising the price of natural gas for European customers. In the course of his address, Saakashvili affirmed that ethnic minorities are being willingly integrated into Georgian society and learning the Georgian language. Saakashvili said the international community is beginning to understand that the status quo with regard to unresolved conflicts on Georgian territory is untenable, and that new approaches to resolving those conflicts are called for. He condemned the mass flight of Georgians from Abkhazia during the 1992-93 war as "a clear example" of ethnic cleansing. (Caucasus Press)

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER COMMENTS ON BELGRADE TALKS

20 April

Vartan Oskanian told RFE/RL's Armenian Service by telephone on April 19 that his talks the previous day in Belgrade with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group proceeded normally, "in a constructive environment," and that the atmosphere was "more relaxed" than during the previous meeting in Geneva in mid-March. Oskanian told RFE/RL after the Geneva meeting that the two sides failed to make any progress and still had "deep differences" over unspecified key details of the draft agreement on resolving the Karabakh conflict draft.

Oskanian said on April 19 that during the Belgrade meeting, which lasted almost five hours, the Minsk Group co-chairmen unveiled "views as to how those differences can be addressed." He did not elaborate. He said the co-chairs will "most probably" travel to Armenia and Azerbaijan after the May 12 Armenian parliamentary elections and meet with the two countries' presidents. Responding to a query from RFE/RL, Oskanian said that it is up to President Robert Kocharian to decide whether he should remain as foreign minister in the government to be formed after the May 12 elections. He dismissed as premature the question whether he will participate in the 2008 presidential ballot in which Kocharian is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term. (RFE/RL)

TENSION MOUNTS IN KYRGYZSTAN AS OPPOSITION DEMONSTRATORS CLASH WITH POLICE

20 April

Some 2,000 Kyrgyz demonstrators gathered outside the Kyrgyz government building in Bishkek on April 19, the ninth day of rallies demanding the resignation of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev and the introduction of constitutional reforms, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported. After a small group of demonstrators began to throw stones at the building, nearby detachments of riot police moved in to disperse the protesters using tear gas, percussion grenades, and wielding batons. As the demonstrators regrouped, they joined a separate rally of 8,000 protesters in Bishkek's central Alatoo Square. Reacting to the incident, opposition leaders from the United Front For A Worthy Future for Kyrgyzstan and the For Reforms movement, including parliamentarian Temir Sariev, urged the crowd to refrain from violence. Following the clash with demonstrators, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Almaz Atambaev issued urgent orders to senior police officers to immediately cease any confrontation with the protesters. (RFE/RL)

There is more democracy in Tbilisi than Moscow – Georgian Minister
22 April
Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili has advised Russia to speak more respectfully of Georgia. Commenting on Sunday on a recent interview of Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov with The Financial Times criticizing the state of democracy in Ukraine and Georgia Merabishvili said to reporters: "There is more of it in Tbilisi than in Moscow." Expanding on the idea he said that unlike Tbilisi in Moscow "skinheads are roaming the streets and brutally treating representatives of ethnic minorities." "The Georgian police unlike Russian are not extorting money everywhere from Georgians and other arrivals, and unlike the Russian army Georgian army is free from hazing." "Journalists and political opponents are not assassinated or poisoned in Georgia," Merabishvili said. In a lengthy interview with The Financial Times Ivanov spoke on a wide range of home and foreign policy issues, including the ownership of natural resources, defense and upcoming elections. Among other things he spoke of democracy saying that Russia will be a democracy but should be allowed to find its own particular form as others have done. The article in The Financial Times said: "As for western-backed "beacons of democracy" around Russia's borders - Iraq, Georgia, or Ukraine, where parliament is engaged in a stand-off with the winner in the 2004 revolution - the tightened lips become almost a sneer. Ukraine "completely undermines democracy. Because people, having seen this total mess, will say, 'We don't need your democracy. Appoint us a tsar, give us our wages and stop bothering us with your democracy' ". (Interfax)

Militant group surrounded in Dagestan – Interior Ministry
23 April
A group of militants has been surrounded by law enforcers in a village in Dagestan. The press service of the Dagestani Interior Ministry told Interfax that law enforcers are conducting a sweep operation in the village of Pervomaiskoye in Khasavyurt district. "There are two to four militants in the group. They are barricaded in a private home which law enforcers have surrounded. So far there have been no reports of casualties," a spokesman said. (Interfax)

ARMENIA, RUSSIA DISCUSS COOPERATION IN NUCLEAR ENERGY

24 April

Russian Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) head Sergei Kiriyenko met in Yerevan on April 23 with Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, Noyan Tapan and RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported. The talks focused on possible Russian assistance in building a new nuclear power plant in Armenia to replace the existing one at Medzamor, which the EU wants shut down as potentially unsafe. Kiriyenko also signed an agreement with Sarkisian on joint prospecting for and exploitation of uranium deposits in Armenia. Kiriyenko pointed out that Armenia could use that uranium to create nuclear fuel for Medzamor. (RFE/RL)

AZERBAIJAN PROTESTS REVISION OF U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT

24 April

The Azerbaijani government has cancelled the planned visit to Washington of a high-level delegation that was to have held bilateral talks on security issues on April 23-24, Azerbaijani media reported, quoting the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. That decision was made to protest the rewording of a section of the State Department annual report on human rights in Armenia. The original text noted that "Armenia continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories." As a result of protests from the Armenian government and lobbying by Armenian organizations in the United States, that wording was changed to read "Armenian forces have occupied large sections of Azerbaijani territory adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian officials claim they have not 'occupied' Nagorno-Karabakh proper." According to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, the State Department revision distorts the essence of the conflict and calls into question Washington's objectivity as a mediator in the conflict. On April 24, the online daily echo-az.com quoted Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry press spokesman Khazar Ibrahim as saying that the new wording is at odds with the official U.S. position on the Karabakh conflict. (RFE/RL)

GEORGIAN PRESIDENT UNVEILS SOUTH OSSETIAN PEACE PLAN

24 April

Before leaving on April 23 on an official visit to the United Kingdom, President Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled at a session of the National Security Council a five-point peace plan for resolving the South Ossetian conflict, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reported. The plan envisages the creation of a temporary administration for South Ossetia that would designate its representatives to a number of central ministries, including the interior, finance, and justice ministries. The temporary administration would receive an unspecified amount of funds from the central budget to finance reconstruction. At some unspecified future date, and under conditions that Saakashvili did not spell out, the temporary administration would rule on the restoration of South Ossetia's autonomous status within Georgia, which the Georgian SSR Supreme Soviet abolished in late 1990. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Moscow would not participate in any negotiations involving the "alternative" pro-Tbilisi South Ossetian administration headed by Dmitry Sanakoyev. Also on April 23, speaker Nino Burdjanadze said the Georgian parliament would approve the funds designated by Saakashvili for postconflict reconstruction in South Ossetia, Caucasus Press reported. (RFE/RL)

Two servicemen wounded, civilian killed in mine incidents in Chechnya
25 April
A Defense Ministry serviceman suffered wounds when he tripped on a mine in Chechnya, sources in law enforcement services informed Interfax on Wednesday. No further details of the incident were provided. Another contract serviceman sustained injuries in a similar incident on the outskirts of Staraya Sunzha in Groznensky district on Tuesday. He was hospitalized, they said. A local resident was killed when an anti-tank mine blew up under his tractor outside Serzhen-Yurt in Chechnya's Shali district, the sources said. (Interfax-AVN)

INGUSH LAUNCH NEW CAMPAIGN TO FORCE PRESIDENT'S RESIGNATION

26 April

An initiative group named Justice and Dignity has released an open letter to the population of Ingushetia calling for coordinated protests and legal action to expedite the dismissal of republican President Murat Zyazikov. The appeal, which was posted on April 24 on the website ingushetiya.ru, accuses Zyazikov of lying egregiously, including in audiences with President Putin, about the political and economic situation in Ingushetia, exaggerating the volume of foreign investment and housing construction and depicting the overall situation in utopian terms at a time when "nine out of 10 people do not have enough to eat and unemployment stands at 60 percent." The appeal further accuses Zyazikov of turning a blind eye to corruption among his subordinates and of undermining national dignity. The appeal notes that there are numerous factions within the Russian leadership, of which only one -- the "party of war" - supports

Zyazikov. It predicts that, regardless who succeeds Putin as Russian president in 2008, Zyazikov will lose his post and, in all likelihood, be named Russian ambassador to Jordan. The appeal calls for legal action against Zyazikov for lies and disinformation, and encourages Ingush to sign the electronic petition (zyazikov.ru) calling for his dismissal. (That action was launched three years ago, and to date almost 2,000 people, of a population of some 468,000, have signed it.) Meanwhile, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on April 26 commented that Ingushetia's economic successes "do not cease to amaze even skeptics." The paper further quoted unidentified opinion polls as demonstrating a high rate of popular support for Zyazikov, who was first elected president in late April 2002, and who appealed successfully to President Putin in June 2005 to be renominated for a second term in the wake of the first wave of popular protests against his failure to expedite the return to their homes in North Ossetia's disputed Prigorodny Raion of Ingush forced to flee during the October-November 1992 fighting. (RFE/RL)

CONFUSION SURROUNDS KYRGYZ PARLIAMENTARY BID BY EX-PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER

26 April

The status of a parliamentary bid by Bermet Akaeva, daughter of former Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev, remained unclear on April 25 amid conflicting reports about court rulings, news agencies reported. In an interview with akipress.org, Myktarbek Alymkulov, a regional court judge in Kemin, said that he ruled to annul her candidacy in the April 29 by-election. He also alleged that Akaeva's supporters pressured him and threatened him physically. But the news agency ferghana.ru reported that the court decision rests on a residency requirement that was removed from the country's constitution on December 30. For her part, Akaeva told ferghana.ru that she expects the Supreme Court to rule on the case. Akaeva's supporters briefly blocked the Bishkek-Torugart highway on April 24 to protest the court ruling to remove her from the running in the April 29 by-election. (RFE/RL)

KAZAKH PRESIDENT VISITS KYRGYZSTAN

26 April

Nursultan Nazarbaev met with Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev in Bishkek on April 26 to discuss bilateral relations. The two agreed to form a council to deepen cooperation between the two countries. Nazarbaev told a press conference that Kazakhstan is "ready to inject $100 million in economic aid into the Kyrgyz economy," Interfax reported. Nazarbaev said that Kazakhstan has already invested $300 million in

Kyrgyzstan, including $100 million in 2006, the news agency 24.kg reported. Kazakhstan will also provide humanitarian aid, including 1,500 tons of grain. In connection with recent political demonstrations in Kyrgyzstan, Nazarbaev said, "those are your internal affairs. We support any decision, but we are sincerely concerned for Kyrgzystan." (akipress.org)

Tajikistan to break $1 billion contract
26 April
Tajikistan will break a US$1 billion (euro735 million) contract with Russian aluminum giant OAO Rusal for a hydroelectric plant, after continuing problems with the project, a top Tajik energy official said Thursday. Tajikistan will break a US$1 billion (euro735 million) contract with Russian aluminum giant OAO Rusal for a hydroelectric plant, after continuing problems with the project, a top Tajik energy official said Thursday. The Rogun dam, crucial for the impoverished Central Asian nation, has been stalled from the outset by disputes between the government and Rusal. In January, the Tajik government accused the company of failing to fulfill the contract signed in 2004. Sharifkhon Samiyev, head of the Tajik national energy company, said the government now intends to create an international consortium to complete the project. Russian companies, except Rusal, would be welcome to join, he added. "There is a (government) decision to bar Rusal from working in the country," Samiyev said. But, Rusal's office in Tajikistan said the company remained committed to the dam. "We don't know of any changes from the Russian side in relation to our participation in this project," a company statement said. Tajikistan has long sought an investor to complete the dam on the Vakhsh River, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of the capital, Dushanbe. Construction was interrupted by the 1992-97 civil war. The country's fast-flowing mountain rivers have a potential hydropower capacity of 527 billion kilowatt hours a year, among the largest in the world, according to international experts. Energy sales would bring a substantial boon to the former Soviet republic, racked by rampant unemployment and problems caused by increasing amounts of drugs being smuggled from neighboring Afghanistan. The plant's completion would substantially increase sales of electricity to neighboring China, as well as to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Russia's RAO Unified Energy Systems is involved in a US$480 million (euro363 million) project to complete another major hydroelectric plant in the country. (AP)

ARMENIA 'BEWILDERED' BY U.S. VOLTE FACE ON HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

27 April

The U.S. State Department amended for the second time on April 25 the wording of a controversial paragraph of its annual report on human rights in Armenia, restoring the initial wording that caused consternation and protest in Yerevan and among Armenian organizations in the United States. That wording, affirming that "Armenia continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories," was changed in the wake of Armenian protests to read "Armenian forces have occupied large sections of Azerbaijani territory adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian officials claim they have not 'occupied' Nagorno-Karabakh proper." Angered by that change, Baku cancelled the planned visit to Washington of a high-level delegation that was to have held bilateral talks on security issues on April 23-24, whereupon U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza telephoned Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in an attempt to reassure him that the new wording did not imply a retreat from Washington's policy of respect for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Karapetian told RFE/RL's Armenian Service on April 26 that "we thought the mistake was corrected and are bewildered by such an unserious approach." Mammadyarov for his part was quoted by day.az on April 26 as saying the reversion to the original wording of the report is "very important news." (RFE/RL)

17 Die in Helicopter Crash in Chechnya
27 April
According to preliminary information, 17 people were killed in a crash of an Mi-8 helicopter carrying a landing party in southern Chechnya, a source in the headquarters of the joint group of forces in the North Caucasus told Interfax-AVN on Friday. "Three crewmembers and 14 soldiers died. According to preliminary information, the helicopter was hit from the ground," the source said. A special operation to eliminate an illegal armed group has been under way to the south from the Shatoi town. Three Mi-8 helicopters with landing parties were sent to the district. One of them was brought down. (Interfax-AVN)

Tajikistan in $1 bn hydropower bid
30 April
Tajikistan has announced a $1bn (£500m) plan to become one of the world's leading hydropower producers. President Emomali Rakhmon said the former Soviet republic hoped to attract foreign investment over the next three years to help build 80 power plants. Tajikistan sees potential energy sales as a key way of lifting the economy, which was battered by civil war during the 1990s. The central Asian state is one of the poorest in the region. But experts believe Tajikistan's mountainous rivers have a hydropower capacity of 527 billion kilowatt hours a year - potentially one of the largest in the world. The government said recently it would break a $1bn deal with Russian aluminium firm OAO Rusal for Tajikistan's largest hydropower project, because of ongoing disagreements. (BBC)

Uzbekistan, China sign major gaspipeline deal
30 April
Uzbekistan plans to build a gas pipeline to China with a capacity of 30 billion cubic metres a year, equivalent to half the Central Asian state's gas production, the Uzbek government said in a statement. The statement said Ma Kai, the head of China's top state planning body, and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov signed an agreement in Tashkent on Monday about the principles of building and running a pipeline along the route. "It would be 530 km long and have a throughput capacity of 30 billion cubic metres of the resource every year. The project includes a plan to bring two compressor stations on stream," the statement said. The statement did not give a time frame or name participants in the project. Earlier this month an Uzbek government source said China's Sinopec Corp. had pulled out of a project to explore new Uzbek projects and revitalise stalled projects with state energy firm Uzbekneftegas. The source said Uzbekistan would focus instead on cooperation with another Chinese oil major, China National Petroleum Corp. Uzbekistan has traditionally supplied gas not to China but to Russia, where pipeline monopoly Gazprom controls pipeline networks threading into the lucrative European market. Although the European Union would love to tap the growing supplies of gas in Central Asia, Gazprom's control of the intervening pipelines stops European buyers doing deals directly and allows Russia to control the market for Central Asian gas. Despite its vast size, Gazprom is itself keen to buy the region's gas to shore up its own reserves. The European Union has further distanced itself by criticising Uzbek human rights, while Russia and China, desperate to find more fuel for their roaring economies, openly courted Uzbekistan and its gas-rich neighbour Turkmenistan. However, neither country shares a border with China, and it was not clear whether the pipeline would traverse Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan or Kazakhstan to reach its destination. Although there are also huge physical obstacles -- mountains and deserts -- a pipeline could diversify China's energy supplies while allowing Uzbekistan to break free of Gazprom's control and play China and Russia off against each other. Gazprom is already moving fast to enter the Asian market, building pipelines with a capacity of 60-80 bcm to China. It has also just bought 50 percent of the huge Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project, previously controlled by Shell , which will mainly supply South Korea and Japan. Its export monopoly also means it holds sway over several other big potential China supply projects, including the Kovykta gas field operated by BP's joint venture TNK-BP. (Reuters)

U.S. radar in Georgia would be able to monitor Russian ICBM test-fires -- expert
2 May
The deployment of a missile defense radar in Georgia would enable the U.S. to monitor test-fires of Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a former chief of staff of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, told Interfax on Wednesday. "The Americans have long been trying to have the chance to monitor test-fires of missiles conducted at the Kapustin Yar range in the Astrakhan region, which is used to test the combat equipment of intercontinental ballistic missiles," Yesin said. (Interfax-AVN)

Azerbaijan gives up oil transit via Russian territory
2 May
Azerbaijan has given up oil transit via Russia’s territory, the Prime-Tass news agency quoted Transneft as saying on Wednesday. According to Transneft, Azerbaijan gave up oil transit via Russia’s territory till the end of the year. In April Azerbaijan stopped oil export via Russia’s territory, the company said. In the first quarter of 2007 oil transit from Azerbaijan reached 1.023 million tonnes. (Itar-Tass)

Students demand US troops leave Afghanistan after civilian deaths
2 May
More than 1,000 Afghan students took to the streets Wednesday in a fourth day of anti-American protests over civilians allegedly killed by coalition troops, witnesses said. The angry protestors shouted "Death to (George W.) Bush, death to (President Hamid) Karzai" in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, where six people were killed in a US-led raid at the weekend. They called on the 14,000-strong US-led coalition, based in Afghanistan to root out Taliban remnants, to leave the war-torn country. "The Americans must leave Afghanistan because they don't respect Afghanistan," said one protester. The protest comes a day after Afghan authorities said that some 30 civilians were among scores of Taliban-linked militants killed during operations by US-led and Afghan forces in the western province of Herat. Hundreds of people demonstrated in Herat's Shindand district on Monday, saying scores of civilians were killed in the US-led operation on Friday and Sunday. The Jalalabad demonstration follows similar protests in the town since Sunday when US-led forces killed six people. The coalition has said four were militants and that a woman and a teenager were killed in crossfire. "Why are they (Karzai and Bush) not accounting for the blood of innocent people who are being killed by the Americans on our soil," said one student who declined to be named. "The Americans have invaded our country. They have made themselves the owners and us their slaves," shouted another one, cheered by others. The students from Nangarhar University burned an effigy of President Bush in similar demonstrations they staged on Tuesday. The interior ministry has appointed a commission to investigate the civilian deaths in Shindand. Parliamentarians also expressed anger this week at mounting civilian deaths in military operations against insurgents, including by the US-led coalition that invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. (AFP)