26November 2008 News Digest

Afghan Suicide Blast Kills 11; Two British Soldiers Dead
13 November
A suicide car-bomber has attacked a convoy of U.S.-led troops in eastern Afghanistan, killing 11 people, including a U.S. soldier, and wounding 58, the U.S. military said. Earlier, a U.S. military spokesman said 20 people had been killed in the attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan. Afghanistan is facing its worst spell of violence this year, the bloodiest since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001, raising fears about the success of international efforts to bring peace and to develop the country. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said the bomber rammed his vehicle laden with explosives into the convoy as it went through a crowded market just outside Jalalabad. Ten of those killed in the suicide bombing were civilians as were the 58 wounded. "The enemies of Afghanistan committed another barbaric act today," Bashary said, referring to Taliban insurgents and their Al-Qaeda allies. Separately, two British soldiers were killed in the southern province of Helmand while on patrol on November 12 with Afghan soldiers, when their vehicle was blown up by a bomb, the British Ministry of Defense said. Also on November 12, suicide bombers struck in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, killing more than 10 people. Taliban spokesmen could not be contacted for comment. (Reuters)

Uzbekistan's Small Farmers Unhappy With Land Reforms
14 November

Many Uzbek farmers are complaining about land-reform plans that are forcing small farms to merge with larger ones. The head of the Human Rights Initiative Group of Uzbekistan, Surat Ikromov, told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service that government officials in various parts of Uzbekistan are forcing farmers to give up land that they lease from the state. He said that "land is simply being confiscated from farmers by threats and by force." Ikromov said officials cite a decree by President Islam Karimov to justify the land seizures. According to the alleged decree, farms with less than 80 hectares should be given to larger farms. There are officially more than 215,000 private farms in Uzbekistan employing about 1.5 million people. Ikromov said there are fears that this "collectivization" of land could severely reduce the number of farms, leading to massive unemployment. (RFE/RL)

Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan Agree Deal On Oil Transport
15 November
The state-run energy companies of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have agreed to set up an oil transport system across the Caspian Sea to help move Central Asia's energy reserves to Western markets. The system would use tankers and barges to bring oil from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan, the starting point for the Western-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which bypasses Russia to deliver oil through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey. Reports say shipments are planned to start in 2013. The announcement was made as the leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and senior officials from other nations held an energy summit in Baku. Most summit participants signed a declaration backing the development of pipelines to supply Europe that bypass Russia. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at the summit that he is confident the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will maintain U.S. interest in Central Asia and the Caspian and continue efforts to diversify export routes for the region's oil and gas. (RFE/RL)

Taliban Rejects Afghan Leader's Safety Vow
17 November
A Taliban militant leader has rejected an offer from Afghan President Hamid Karzai of safe passage for insurgent leaders who wanted to talk peace. Karzai, back from a trip to Britain and the United States, said on November 16 he would guarantee the safety of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if he was prepared to negotiate. With the Taliban insurgency intensifying seven years after the hard-line Islamists were forced from power, the possibility of talks with more moderate Taliban leaders is increasingly being considered, both in Afghanistan and among its allies. The Afghan government says it is willing to talk to anyone who recognizes the constitution. The Taliban have ruled out any talks as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. Karzai said on November 16 that condition was unacceptable. Mullah Brother, deputy leader of the Taliban, rejected Karzai's offer of safe passage and again said foreign troops had to leave before negotiations could start. "As long as foreign occupiers remain in Afghanistan, we aren't ready for talks because they hold the power and talks won't bear fruit.... The problems in Afghanistan are because of them," Brother said. "We are safe in Afghanistan and we have no need for Hamid Karzai's offer of safety," he told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location, adding that the Taliban jihad, or holy war, would go on. Violence in Afghanistan has surged over the past two years, raising doubts about prospects for the country and Western efforts to establish peace and build a stable state. Some 70,000 foreign troops, around half of them U.S., are struggling against the Taliban, whose influence, and attacks, are spreading in the south, east and west. (Reuters)

Azerbaijan's territorial integrity must not be damaged - Azeri official
17 November
Azerbaijan is ready to grant "a broad status" to Nagorno Karabakh within Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, said Novruz Mamedov, the head of the presidential staff's foreign relations department on Monday. "Baku has always been ready to grant any status to Nagorno Karabakh within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. We could grant Nagorno Karabakh the broadest possible status only in the framework of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," Mamedov said. Azerbaijan's position is based on the current world practice, he also said. "The country's territorial integrity must not be violated. This is not being discussed so far. Concerning national self-determination, Armenians did decide on this once already. The world will never accept the emergence of Armenian states whenever Armenians live. No one will accept this. Azerbaijan will never recognize this, either," Mamedov said. (Interfax-Azerbaijan)

Two Killed in Blast at S.Ossetian Border
17 November
An explosion in the village of Plavi at the South Ossetian administrative border killed two Georgian de-miners and injured nine other people, including a ten-year-old boy, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs said on November 17. The ministry said in a statement that at about 3pm local time on November 17 a Russian unmanned reconnaissance drone crashed in the village, which is located on the Georgian side of the administrative border in the south-east from the breakaway region’s capital Tskhinvali. It said that explosive went off when a team of the Georgian Interior Ministry’s de-mining unit arrived on the scene to study the crashed drone. Two other de-miners and six policemen, as well as ten-year-old local villager who were at the scene were also wounded, according to the Interior Ministry. (Civil Georgia)

Dushanbe's Mayor Demands Explanation After Power Shortages
18 November
The Dushanbe mayor is demanding that the local electricity provider explain the "unexpected electricity shortages" in the capital that led to complaints of heating problems. Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev's office has requested that police help investigate nearly 300 complaints this week from Dushanbe residents about heating problems. Sherali Gulov, a spokesman for the Barqi Tojik electric company, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that the complaints are baseless because the city's heating system uses natural gas, not electricity. Tajikistan has suffered major power shortages during the winter for many years. Last year's severe winter coupled with the energy shortage led to the deaths of dozens of Tajiks across the country, including many newborns. (RFE/RL)

Iran aims for 2009 launch of nuclear plant
18 November
Iran is aiming to commission its first nuclear power plant in 2009 after years of delays, the official IRNA news agency has reported. Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel under a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran. But the start-up timetable has frequently been put back because of issues such as a row over payments. Russia agreed to build the plant in 1995 on the site of an earlier project begun in the 1970s by German firm Siemens. The Siemens' project was disrupted by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. "The commissioning stage of Bushehr nuclear power station has begun and we are hopeful the power station will be commissioned in 2009 as per the agreement we have had with the Russian party," the spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohsen Delaviz, was quoted a saying. He did not give a more precise date. "There is a good environment prevailing in our relations with the Russians and we are hoping they will honor their commitments," he added. Atomstroyexport, the Russian firm building the plant, said in September the plant was nearing completion and that it would start "technological work" in December 2008 to February 2009 that would put the plant on an "irreversible final" course. Analysts say Russia has used Bushehr as a lever in relations with Tehran. It had previously said it expected the plant to start up some time this year. Iran is at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear program that Tehran says has only civilian aims but which the United States and its allies say is a smokescreen for building atomic weapons. (Reuters)

Trans-Caspian oil artery developing
19 November
The 1.2 million barrels of Kazakh oil carried through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is the first step of the expansion of the Caspian energy infrastructure.The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan and the Kazakh state-owned KazMunaiGas agreed Nov. 14 on the basic foundations of the Trans-Caspian pipeline network. The proposed 435-mile network will bring oil from the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan to the BTC, bypassing Russia. The state statistics committee in Azerbaijan said October deliveries of oil from Kashagan reached 1.21 million barrels, while total deliveries through the BTC were up 22 percent from October compared with 2007, the Azerbaijan Business Center reported Wednesday. The joint agreement between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan calls for the creation of a joint venture to launch a feasibility study and future construction and operations of the $3 billion Trans-Caspian project. The Trans-Caspian project includes a tanker transportation system through terminals in both countries with an initial capacity of 500,000 barrels of oil per day and a final volume estimated at 1.2 million barrels per day. (UPI)

U.S. Commander In Afghanistan Puts Forward Reconciliation Plan
19 November
The top commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan has recommended a plan to stem growing violence by empowering local Afghan leaders, including former Taliban members. "That is the local leadership that we have to work with for a successful outcome in Afghanistan," U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan said while advocating support for district governing councils that are willing to accept the Afghan constitution and reject the Taliban. "Reconciliation at the local level, of local fighters, of local influencers, potentially is a very, very powerful metric," he said in remarks before the Washington-based Atlantic Council of the United States. "This is a country that historically has had very little central government. But it's a country with a history of local autonomy and local tribal authority systems." McKiernan laid out details of the strategy for engaging what he called "small-t" Taliban members, saying he is already talking to Afghan ministers about a prototype plan that would assemble district leaders into a shura, or tribal council, backed by Western development aid. Reconciliation with some Taliban members has already been embraced by U.S. officials as a possible antidote to surging violence that has reached its highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. U.S. military officials have conceded that the United States is not winning in Afghanistan and that a 70,000-strong Western military force cannot succeed without political, diplomatic and development assistance for the local populace. "We're not going to run out of bad people in Afghanistan that have bad intentions and we're not going to kill and capture so many of these bad people that it's going to break the will of all the insurgent groups," McKiernan said. "Ultimately, it's going to be people that decide that they want a different outcome in Afghanistan. It's going to be a political outcome," he said. McKiernan likened his plan to the so-called Awakening Council movement in Iraq, which began when local Sunni tribesmen in western Iraq chose to join U.S. forces against Al-Qaeda militants. He said the plan he has discussed with Afghan ministers calls for Kabul to assemble local leaders into a shura council that would then select a representative committee with backing from the United States and the international community. (Reuters)

Some Details of Planned International Probe into War Reported
20 November
EU is expected to adopt a wide-ranging mandate for the commission that will investigate the causes of the August war and the commission is expected to put conclusions on November 30, 2009, the Brussels-based EUobserver.com reported. “The mission’s objective will be to enquire into the origins and evolution of the conflict that started on 7 August 2008, with reference to international law and human rights law. The geographic and temporal scope of the enquiry must be sufficiently large to determine all the possible causes,” the EU's draft decision on the enquiry says, a diplomatic source familiar with the text told EUobserver.com. The commission, which will be chaired by a Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, who was UN’s envoy in Georgia in 2002-2006, will have to present its final report to the EU, the UN, the OSCE, Russia and Georgia next November. Eka Tkeshelashvili, the Georgia’s foreign minister, reiterated on November 19 that Tbilisi was open for international inquiry into the war. She, however, stressed that Tbilisi wanted a comprehensive approach to the matter. “We have called for the international probe shortly after the war not only into what has happened immediately before and during the conflict, but also to broadly investigate and analyze what has been happening years before the conflict. Russia’s actions in previous years clearly indicate on how Moscow was preparing ground for what eventually has happened [in August],” Tkeshelashvili said. In her testimony before the Georgian parliamentary commission studying the August events, Tkeshelashvili said on October 25: “Any type of international investigative commission’s mandate should involve a probe of not only the August events, but also an in-depth study of the ethnic cleansing, which was carried out not only in August, but also in the early 90s. A failure by the international community to investigate the first wave was to a certain extent a cause for the most recent ethnic cleansing.” (Civil Georgia)

Armenian president, politicians discuss Karabakh settlement

20 November
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has met with Armenian politicians to discuss the current stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. "These discussions will promote understanding of the opinions and approaches and will help work out a single position on certain issues," said Sargsyan. "Such a mechanism will promote the political decision-making process," he said. Members of the opposition Armenian National Congress, which is led by former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian, did not take part in the meeting. (Interfax)

SOCAR to deliver gas to Georgia
21 November
Tbilisi signed a five-year contract with Baku to receive 80 percent its natural gas supplies from the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic, officials said. SOCAR delivers some 53 million cubic feet of natural gas to Georgia each day, with about 65 percent coming from the offshore Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he views the deal as a way to provide stable and secure prices for gas for his country, the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Washington, D.C., said on its Web site. Energy security was destabilized in August during a conflict between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia. Georgia hosts the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the second-longest in the world. Russia has moved aggressively into the European energy sector as European Union states struggle to find alternatives to Russian natural resources. (UPI)

Polish President Visits Georgia
23 November
Lech Kaczynski, the President Poland, arrived in Tbilisi on November 23 on the fifth anniversary of Rose Revolution. Last time Kaczynski visited Georgia was on August 12-13 along with the leaders from the Baltic states. The Polish President also was in Tbilisi to attend the ceremonies marking Georgia’s Independence Day on May 26 and also on November 23, 2007. The Polish Foreign Ministry announced that Warsaw would allocate EUR 2.5 million aid for Georgia in 2009, Polskie Radio reported on November 23. The Foreign Ministry also said, according to this report, that Poland was intending to spend total of EUR 6 mln for Georgia till 2010. (Civil Georgia)

Shots Heard Close to Polish, Georgian Leaders’ Convoy
23 November
Shots were fired when a motorcade carrying Georgian and Polish Presidents approached a Russian checkpoint at the Akhalgori section of the South Ossetian administrative border, the Georgian television stations reported on Sunday evening. Speaking at a news conference in Tbilisi Polish President, Lech Kaczynski said that he was not aware whether shots were “fired into the air or where.” A Polish journalist asked President Saakashvili at the news conference how did it happen that the Georgian journalists were on the scene beforehand and whether the incident was staged. President Saakashvili responded that there were no Georgian journalists on the scene and the only cameraman on the scene was from his staff, who always accompanies him. He also said he would have never endangered the Polish President’s life. The Georgian television stations aired a footage, which was shot from inside a car, which apparently was in the convoy. Although shots were heard in the footage, the television pictures were inconclusive and it was not possible to define from the video what exactly has happened. President Kaczynski said in a response to the Polish journalist’s question: “Some may say now that it was staged by the Georgians, but that would be very unserious to say that, such an approach would be very unserious.” "I appeal from here to my friends in the European Union and also to my friends in the United States and ask them to make proper conclusions from this incident before it is not too late,” Kaczynski said and added that Russia was not fulfilling its ceasefire commitments. President Saakashvili also said that the incident was a clear reminder of Russia’s continuing occupation of the Georgian territories. He said that the incident should be a reminder for those politicians in Europe, who, he said, thought Russia was more or less implementing its ceasefire commitments. (Civil Georgia)

Lavrov: Presidential Convoy Shots Tbilisi’s Provocation
24 November
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Tbilisi’s allegations about Russian soldiers firing shots when a motorcade carrying Georgian and Polish Presidents was approaching a South Ossetian border was “yet another provocation” by the Georgian side. “This is a real provocation. This is not for the first time when such things are happening: they stage everything themselves and then accuse the Russian or Ossetian sides,” Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying on November 24. “Moscow thinks that it is a provocation, when the President invites to Tbilisi the President of another country and then takes him to another state,” Lavrov added. The Russian Foreign Minister also said that if President Saakashvili seriously wanted to carry out security talks in Geneva, “he should stop his provocations.” (Civil Georgia)

Leader of movement Against Illegal Migration accused of fueling ethnichatred

24 November
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office has charged leader of the Movement Against Illegal Migration Alexander Potkin (Belov) with fomenting ethnic hatred. The Investigative Committee's department in western Moscow brought charges of fueling hatred and humiliating human dignity (Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code) in Potkin's statements during the sanctioned Unity Day rally on November 4, the Investigative Committee's spokesman told Interfax. Potkin delivered a speech at the rally in which, as experts established, he spoke negatively about certain group of people, in particular Jews and natives of Central Asia and South Caucasus, as well as calling for hostile actions against these people. Potkin signed a written pledge not to leave. (Interfax)

Militarizing Georgia aggravates tensions in Caucasus - CSTO PA

24 November
By aiding Georgia to build up its military potential, the United States is turning that country into a hotbed of tensions in the Caucasus, says a report by the Defense and Security Commission of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's Parliamentary Commission. The report was released after members of the Commission visited the region, Vitaly Strugovets, spokesman for the CSTO Secretariat, told Interfax-AVN on Saturday. "The deputies believe that Georgia is actually evolving into the main destabilizing factor in the Caucasus region as it is building up its military potential with U.S. assistance and provoking aggression in relation to South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Strugovets said. "The United States and its NATO allies' active strategic course to further reach into the Caucasus region, given its important geographical location, large reserves of hydrocarbons and routes of transporting them" rank among the main reasons why the political situation in the region has deteriorated, as members of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly see them, he said. "The situation is being aggravated by the current socio-political instability in Georgia over the unpredictable steps, made by the country's political leadership last summer," Strugovets said. Among the factors which the deputies think has a negative impact on the military-political situation in the region, are the impasse in resolving the Karabakh problem, setbacks in the Middle East settlement, the tensions surrounding Iran and destabilization in Iraq. "The deputies stated that the military-political situation in the Caucasus region of the CSTO's collective security, remains tense with a trend towards further complication," he said. (Interfax)

Security Council to review Afghan mission
24 November
Members of the U.N. Security Council arrived in Afghanistan Monday as part of a mission to evaluate the country's progress toward peace. The U.N. Security Council delegation is being led by Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata. The mission is an initiative by the United Nations to see firsthand what the security conditions are like in Afghanistan and the effectiveness of the rebuilding effort, the United Nations reported. The U.N. delegation is also in Afghanistan to evaluate governing institutions. Afghan government officials have been criticized by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime as corrupt for allowing the illicit trafficking of opium in the country. Di Sant'Agata and the rest of the Security Council team are expected to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government leaders and review the progress of pledges to Afghanistan made by the international community. "Among its tasks, the delegation will review the status of international pledges made at the Paris conference in June, at which dozens of countries and organizations committed resources to help rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure and advance peace, security and development," the release said. (UPI)

Azerbaijan to host Turkmenistan’s gas
25 November
Gas transport arteries through Azerbaijan will be available for Turkmenistan to transport its natural resources to European markets, officials said Tuesday. Azeri Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said from Vienna Tuesday his country was in a position to offer Turkmenistan the opportunity to export natural gas to Europe, the Trend Capital news agency reported. "We have built a powerful transit corridor and are in condition to present this corridor to Turkmenistan for exploitation," he said. Aliyev noted Europe was looking to Azerbaijan as a key energy hub as plans for the Nabucco pipeline develop. The European Union is looking to ease its dependence on Russian natural resources through the planned Nabucco pipeline from the Caspian region and Turkey. "In the first stage of the (Nabucco) project, the Azerbaijani gas will become a significant source so that other sources could join (later)," he said, cautioning his country cannot meet European demands exclusively. The $12.4 billion Nabucco project should go online in 2013 to bring around 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to Europe each year. (UPI)