Kazakh, Tajik officials discuss energy
24 November
Tajik Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov said Kazakhstan and Tajikistan will expand bilateral trade, including energy. Oqilov, speaking at a news conference in Dushanbe, said: "Today Kazakhstan holds the leading position among CIS countries in terms of foreign trade with Tajikistan. Trade between our countries increased by 5.7 percent in the first 10 months of this year as compared to (the same period of) last year. "We have discussed cooperation in power engineering and agreed our stances on the use of water balance; this is a sensitive issue. I think we will come to a decision which will satisfy all the countries in the region on the issue." Oqilov made his comments following a meeting with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov and his delegation, Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported Wednesday. In addition to energy issues, Oqilov said the sides had discussed during the talks prospects for cooperation in topics including "food security, including long-term supplies of grain from Kazakhstan to Tajikistan, a range of issues on military cooperation and cooperation in tourism." (UPI)

U.N.: Afghan farmers need opium subsistence
27 November
The new chief of the United Nations' anti-drug campaign said Saturday Afghan farmers must be helped to switch from opium to legal crops. Russian diplomat Yuri Fedotov, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, visited Kabul and met with President Hamid Karzai [1] to discuss drug production and trafficking, RIA Novosti reported.  "We must ensure that Afghan farmers will have access to markets and conditions for normal agricultural production," Fedotov said. "We have to provide Afghan farmers a chance and opportunity to fend for their families, without planting poppy." Fedotov said a few weeks ago his agency would carry out a new drug strategy in Afghanistan. Afghan drug production jumped after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and Russia has been plagued by rising heroin consumption. Russia estimates 90 percent of its heroin comes from Afghanistan via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Russia has long criticized NATO's efforts to stem the traffic. (UPI)

OSCE to send scaled-back mission to Kyrgyzstan
29 November
An Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) official says Europe's main rights watchdog will send a scaled-down police mission to Kyrgyzstan early next year after postponing its deployment due to security threats. Herbert Salber, director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Center, told Reuters in an interview that the OSCE planned to send 30 to 31 unarmed policemen to Kyrgyzstan in early 2011. Most of the policemen would be deployed in the south of the country, where clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks killed more than 400 people in June. The OSCE had earlier planned to send a 52-member police mission this year. The main task of the OSCE police would be to help local police and to rebuild inter-ethnic trust. Salber also said that Central Asian states should be able to fight the twin threats of Islamist militancy and ethnic violence without abandoning human rights. He was speaking in the Kazakh capital Astana, where the 56-member OSCE holds its first summit since 1999 on December 1-2. (RFE/RL)

Azeri energy company examines green future
1 December
Azerbaijan's state oil company has plans to roll out its own agenda to tackle climate change, an Azeri leader said at an energy conference in Baku. Soltan Aliyev, the vice president for ecological affairs in Azerbaijan, said on the sidelines of an energy summit for Caspian oil and gas companies in Baku that his country was eager to embrace climate challenges. The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan, he said, would approve a unilateral climate change strategy on the heels of the energy summit, the Trend news agency reports. In general, he said, SOCAR aimed to cut the amount of gas emitted into the atmosphere and adopt strategies to incorporate alternative energy resources into its business agenda. He added that the state energy company was working on ways to cut the amount of gas emissions released during production at the Guneshli oil and gas field in the Caspian Sea. (UPI)

Azerbaijan urges Armenia to continue talks on Nagorno-Karabakh
1 December
Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev urged Armenia to continue peace talks on Nagorno-Karabakh.  “Azerbaijan, as before, will remain committed to peace talks, hoping that they will bear fruit,” Aliyev said at the OSCE summit in Astana on Wednesday, December 1.  He stressed that Azerbaijan “is ready to continue the talks and finish them as soon as possible and reach such a result that will be based on the rules and principles of international law, within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.” Aliyev stressed that “Azerbaijan will never allow the initial process to become open-ended and endless.” “We are engaged in negotiations in order to get our land freed. We are conducting them in order to restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan recognised by the international community,” he said. The president expressed hope that the entities and mediators dealing with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would “have their categorical say.” “The time has long been ripe for that. Otherwise, these negotiations will be completely senseless. Negotiations are conducted for a result, not for its semblance,” Aliyev said. He said, “The Karabakh conflict is a real threat to region.” The head of state called for a speedy and fair settlement in Karabakh on the basis of international law. “We understand that major states want the region to live in peace and stability, without war. We want that too. But this does not mean that the conflict should remain frozen,” he said. Aliyev said he was hoping “positive tendencies” in the negotiations. The president said earlier that the Karabakh talks were in “a crucial stage.” “Negotiations over the past five to six years have led to the drafting of proposals on the settlement, which were officially presented to the parties to the conflict by international mediators - co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group. These proposals are balanced and can lead to a peaceful settlement of the problem within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity,” Aliyev said. The mediators' proposals call for “freeing the occupied Azerbaijani territories, returning refugees to their homeland, deploying peacekeeping troops in the region for security reasons, and opening a corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh,” Aliyev said. Speaking of the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh, he said it was “a matter of the future.” “We have said many times that we will never agree to any status for Nagorno-Karabakh outside Azerbaijan, and international law supports our positions,” the president said. (Itar-Tass)

OCSE summit in Astana
1 December
Heads of state and high-level diplomats from the 56 OSCE member countries are gathered in Astana, Kazakhstan for a two-day summit, which is the first of this type since 1999 Istanbul summit. The Astana Summit on December 1-2 brought together 38 heads of states and governments, and other senior officials – Georgian and Russian Presidents, Mikheil Saakashvili and Dmitri Medvedev, respectively, among them. Georgian diplomats said “a very intensive and difficult” work was ongoing in Astana on the draft of final declaration of the summit - OSCE decision-making process requires the consensus of all 56 member states.“It will be very difficult to reach a consensus, taking into consideration the fact that the country [Russia] with which we have tense relations is also an OSCE member. A very difficult work is underway in Astana right now on the draft of final document,” Nino Kalandadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister, said in Tbilisi on November 30. Grigol Vashadze, the Georgian foreign minister, told Georgian reporters in Astana, that Tbilisi would not support a text if it failed to reflect Georgia’s interests. Meanwhile, in his speech at summit on Wednesday morning the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, reiterated support to Georgia’s territorial integrity and called “on the parties” to fully implement August 12 and September 8, 2008 ceasefire agreements. “We salute the solemn undertaking given by the President of Georgia before the European Parliament to refrain from the use of force and we call on all the parties to accept this open hand,” the French PM said. (Civil Georgia)

OSCE meetings focused on security
1 December
Security for European and Asian communities is more than just a regional metaphor, the president of Kazakhstan said at the launch of an OSCE summit in Astana. Delegates to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the largest security body in the world, gathered Wednesday in Astana to discuss pressing security matters. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened the congress, the first in 11 years, by calling the meeting a "triumph of common sense." He said the summit was an important opportunity to strengthen trust across the international community as it works to build interstate structures. "Eurasian security is not a metaphor, it is a strict geopolitical fact," he said in a statement. "Therefore, the summit in Astana is a good opportunity to analyze the OSCE's prospects in global security." Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the secretary-general of the OSCE, said the meeting was a "historic opportunity" to readdress arms control discussions and improve confidence-building measures across the 56 participating members. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out a long list of concerns, from open democracies to the conflict in Afghanistan. She said summits like the one in Astana gave participating states the opportunity to tackle multidimensional challenges. "Our goal here in Astana should be to move forward on democracy, human rights, economic growth, and strengthening our security community," she said in her statement. (UPI)

Ethnic Uzbek jailed for life for killing doctor in Kyrgyz clashes
3 December
An ethnic Uzbek has been jailed for life after being found guilty of killing a doctor during ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in June, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports. Oktamjan Sulaimanov was found guilty of killing of Osh Oblast Pediatric Clinic physician Kasymbek Jusupakmatov during the clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz.
Sulaimanov, 44, pleaded guilty. The court also ordered his property be confiscated and Sulaimanov to pay the equivalent of $10,500 to the relatives of the victim. Jusupakmatov went missing after he was forcibly taken out of his house on June 16. His body was found two weeks later in neighboring Uzbekistan. He was indentified by his dentist. Jusupakmatov's colleague Dastan Jolboldieva told RFE/RL that the slain physician was 40 and left a wife and a son behind. Some 400 people were killed and hundreds were wounded during the June clashes in Kyrgyzstan's southern regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad. (RFE/RL)

OSCE tackles “thorny” issues in Astana
3 December
Leaders at an OSCE summit in Kazakhstan agreed that while security is interconnected, each state has the right to make its own decisions, a declaration reads. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev [2] hosted delegates at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the first such meeting for the alliance in 11 years. The president said member states agreed to back a comprehensive approach to trust and transparency in economic, political and military affairs. "We intend to raise the level and quality of security and understanding between our states and peoples," he said in a statement. Leaders at the OSCE summit agreed on a declaration that reaffirmed the core principles for security of the member states. The declaration in part noted that security for OSCE members is "inseparably linked" though each state maintains the right "to choose or change its security arrangements, including treaties of alliance, as they evolve." Nursultan said, however, that the road to a true partnership would be "long and thorny." Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, who takes over the OSCE chairmanship in 2011, said the goal of the OSCE is to enhance the influence of democracy "where all the commitments are implemented, the use of force is unthinkable and human rights and fundamental freedoms are fully respected." (UPI)

Russia, South Ossetia sign investment program for 2011
3 December
Russia will assign 6.8 billion roubles (USD 1 = RUB 31.26) for the social and economic development of the Republic of South Ossetia in 2011. The fund is envisaged by an investment program, which was signed by Russian Minister of Regional Development Viktor Basargin and South Ossetian Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev in Tskhinval on Friday. The sides also signed a document regulating the interaction between the Russian Ministry of Regional Development and an appropriate body of South Ossetia for the implementation of the above-mentioned program. During a meeting with South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity, Basargin voiced confidence that all agreements between Russia and South Ossetia will be implemented and the living standards of the republic’s population will improve. Kokoity, in turn, thanked Russia for the assistance. “We saw which problems Russia faced during the economic crisis and natural calamities. But the country met all of its commitments,” he said. Kokoity presented a medal to the Russian minister of regional development on the occasion of South Ossetia’s 20th anniversary. The minister was bestowed with the medal “for the great contribution in the development of friendly relations and assistance in the reconstruction of the republic after Georgia’s aggression.” (Itar-Tass)

President Roza Otunbayeva assigns creation of coalition to Respublica party
4 December
President Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan has assigned the creation of a parliamentary majority coalition to the Respublika Party, a representative of the press service of the Kyrgyz president told Itar-Tass on Saturday. “The Respublika Party has been assigned to create a coalition in accordance with the Kyrgyz legislation,” the Kyrgyz official said. Omurbek Babanov, leader of the Respublika Party, was given 15 working days for its creation. If the Respublka Party fails to fulfil the task, the MPs will have the right to create a coalition on their own. Otherwise the recently elected parliament will be dissolved, and new elections will be held in the country. Some time ago Ms. Otunbayeva assigned the Social Democratic Party, led by Almazbek Atambayev, to create a majority coalition. The Respublika Party and the Ata-Meken (Fatherland) Party joined the Social Democrats. During the election of a speaker the coalition suggested Omurbek Tekebayev, leader of Ata-Meken. He was not supported by the MPs, however, and it was announced on the next day that the coalition was breaking up. The parliamentary elections were held in Kyrgyzstan on October 10, this year. 29 political parties were vying for 120 seats in a new parliament, but only five of them managed to overcome the 5 per cent barrier. These included the Ata-Zhurt (Native Land) Party (28 seats), the Social Democratic Party (26 seats), Ar-Namys (Dignity) Party (25 seats), the Respublika Party (23 seats) and the Ata-Meken Party (18 seats). (Itar-Tass)

Iran wants more of Turkmenistan’s gas
6 December
Iran aims to receive more natural gas from Turkmenistan through a pipeline straddling their shared border, Iranian export officials said. Iran and Turkmenistan inaugurated the 75-mile second phase of a natural gas pipeline between the countries. The pipeline expands gas imports from Turkmenistan from 700 million cubic feet per day to 1.76 billion cfd. The pipeline services the mountainous north of Iran, which sees expanded industrial needs during winter months. Tehran said the pipeline also increased the export potential for European countries. Ashgar Sohilipour, a top Iranian gas export official, told the Oil Ministry's Petroenergy Information Network that Tehran was keen to get more gas from Turkmenistan. "Iran is in talks with Turkmenistan on increasing gas imports," he was quoted as saying. He added that Iran's neighbors in the Persian Gulf could get more gas if Iran and Turkmenistan can enhance their reputation as an energy hub using the bilateral pipeline. (UPI)

Syria to Import First Gas From Azerbaijan in 2011, Deputy Minister Says
6 December
Syria will start importing natural gas from Azerbaijan next year, under a new agreement between the two nations, Syrian Deputy Minister of Oil Hasan Zainab said. Syria will import about 3.5 million cubic meters of gas a day, Zainab said in a telephone interview from Damascus today. Syria and Azerbaijan signed a final agreement on technical details of the purchase during a visit by Syrian oil officials to Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, on Nov. 23. Zainab expects imports to start by the end of 2011, though the exact date would depend on the completion of a pipeline between Syria and Turkey, through which the gas would be shipped, he said. Infrastructure work on the Syrian portion of the pipeline is set for completion in March, while Turkey is due to finish preparations on its side of the border by the end of 2011, Zainab said. The pipeline would add to a regional network connecting Syria with Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe. Syria currently imports around 1.5 million cubic meters of gas a day, all of it from Egypt, Zainab said. The government expects to boost its production of both gas and oil this year and has raised its estimated gas reserves, Oil Minister Sufian Alao [3] said on Nov. 22 in Damascus. He did not provide figures or details. Syria had proven oil reserves of 2.5 billion barrels at the end of 2009 and is the smallest gas holder among the nine Middle Eastern countries listed in BP Plc’s statistical review for last year. (Bloomberg)

British Leader Says troops could start leaving Afghanistan in 2011
7 December
British Prime Minister David Cameron says his country's troops may begin to leave Afghanistan as early as 2011. Cameron made his comments today during a surprise visit to Afghanistan, as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also flew into the country. Cameron spoke at Camp Bastion, the British military base in the volatile southern Afghan province of Helmand where the prime minister began his Afghan visit on December 6. Helmand is where the bulk of Britain's 9,500-strong Afghanistan contingent is serving. The British prime Minister today also held bilateral talks with President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul.  More than 340 British troops have so far died in Afghanistan, and a recent rise in casualties has added to the war's unpopularity at home. Since taking office, Cameron has backed a plan to bring all British combat troops home from Afghanistan by 2015. He previously said his government has scaled back British ambitions in Afghanistan and has warned of declining public support for the war there. In a joint press conference with the Afghan president in Kabul, Cameron said that "real progress" made this year in the nine-year conflict in Afghanistan must be made "irreversible" in 2011. "I have seen for myself the progress that we are making in Helmand Province," Cameron said. "I have discussed with President Karzai the plan for handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and our long-term relationship between our two countries. And we also discussed our shared priorities for 2011, which we must make a decisive year in this campaign." Cameron said that London and Kabul would work together on a new long-term partnership that would "set out in black and white the ways in which we will support you politically, economically, and militarily." The two leaders also put on a joint front in the wake of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables that revealed criticism of British operations in Afghanistan. A November 2008 cable made public by the WikiLeaks website said that Washington and Karzai "agree the British are not up to the task of securing Helmand." The cables also quoted senior Afghan officials as expressing grave doubts over British willingness to really take on the insurgents.  Karzai today, however, brushed such disagreements aside. "The WikiLeaks documents are having some truth and some not-so-truth in them," Karzai said. "Britain has been a steadfast supporter of Afghanistan and of the Afghan people. Britain has contributed in the sacrifice of its soldiers, of blood and of resources in Afghanistan, for which the Afghan people are extremely grateful." (RFE/RL)

Kazakh government approves draft agreement on CES markets of oil/gas
7 December
The Kazakh government has approved the draft agreement on setting up the common markets of oil and gas within the framework of the Common Economic Space (CES). "This agreement gives priority in meeting the demand for oil and petroleum products in the CES countries (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan). It guarantees the transportation of oil and petroleum products between them on equitable terms for all the economic entities," Kazakh Minister of Oil and Gas Lyazzat Kiinov said. Kiinov noted that the CES would have the uniforms norms and standards of oil and petroleum products between the countries and a system of information support of the common markets of oil and petroleum products. (Itar-Tass)

Ashgabat lauds benefits of TAPI pipeline
7 December
Building a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan could help stabilize the war-torn country, the government in Turkmenistan declared. Western allies are backing a natural gas pipeline stretching from Turkmenistan to India. The government in Ashgabat said construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline was of "tremendous significance" to the region, the Trend News Agency reports. The government said TAPI wouldn't only give Turkmenistan more export options but would also help build trade and economic relations for Afghanistan. The pipeline was on the agenda during weekend talks in Kabul between the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 1,043-mile natural gas pipeline would transport natural gas from Turkmenistan. The Western-backed project is viewed as a rival to Iran's plans to transit natural gas from its South Pars gas field to Pakistan and India through the so-called Peace Pipeline. The TAPI pipeline would move natural gas from the Dauletabad field in Turkmenistan, which holds more than 40 trillion cubic feet of gas. (UPI)

U.S. Defense Secretary Arrives in Istanbul
7 December
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has arrived in Afghanistan for talks with commanders and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. His unannounced trip comes ahead of a review of U.S. military policy in Afghanistan due for completion next week. The review will gauge whether last year's surge of an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama, in order to train Afghans to take control of their own security is working to suppress the insurgency.  There are now 150,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan, over half of them American. The United States and its NATO partners agreed last month to begin turning over control to local Afghan authorities in 2011, with a goal of completing the transition by the end of 2014. (RFE/RL)

Saakashvili: 'Very Serious Terror Attacks Prevented'
7 December
President Saakashvili said on December 7 that with the arrest of six suspects [4] behind series of recent explosions in Georgia, the law enforcement agencies helped to prevent “serious terror attacks.”“The Georgian police arrested a group [of people] suspected of dangerous crime, the group, which is accused of committing several very dangerous acts, in particular explosions at the Georgian railway, [explosion] in the vicinity of the U.S. embassy [5] and outside one of the opposition party’s office [6], which led to death of a woman,” Saakashvili said in televised remarks before departure to Mexico [7].“All the evidence available to our law enforcement agencies indicate that these people [perpetrators] were acting from the occupied territory,” he said. The Georgian Interior Ministry said that the key suspect was acting under the instructions of a Russian military officer, serving in breakaway Abkhazia. Georgian Deputy Interior Minister, Eka Zguladze, said that Georgia would like to cooperate with “any party”, including with Russia, in the process of investigation. “We are ready to cooperate with any party and we hope that in case of a constructive approach by relevant Russian agencies we will be able to question others involved in the case,” Zguladze said. President Saakashvili also said that evidence available for now, including explosive devices confiscated during searches at home of one of the suspects, indicated that “we have managed to prevent very serious terror attacks.” “These terrorist acts were planned in advance and perpetrators were given both instructions and explosives… I want to thank our law enforcement agencies, our police and I want to call on them to further intensify their work,” Saakashvili said. (Civil Georgia)

Russia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan agree on anti-drug fight
8 December
The heads of the Russian, Afghan, Pakistani and Tajik anti-drug agencies signed in Moscow on Wednesday a joint statement on setting up a Central Asian anti-drug quartet. “We stated unanimously that Afghanistan will not cope with that problem alone,” the head of the Russian Federal Anti-Drug Service, Viktor Ivanov, said. According to him, the Afghan people have become the same prisoner of the situation as the people who have suffered from drugs in other countries. “The format of our four-party cooperation is extremely important. We have vast potentials for to jointly boosting fight against drug trafficking,” Ivanov stressed. “Unfortunately, NATO which has rather big forces in Afghanistan, does not take efficient measures to destroy drug production,” Ivanov added. He also noted that “no place for fixing the problem of drug production in Afghanistan” was found in the NATO strategy approved in Lisbon on November 19. In accordance with the signed memorandum, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan agree to “exchange strategic information on channels of drug trafficking and people involved in illegal drug trafficking,” “to develop a mechanism for planning and carrying out a special operation to liquidate drug crops and drug laboratories”, to exchange experience and to cooperate on reducing the demand for drugs. The heads of the anti-drug agencies have agreed to meet yearly. The next meeting is scheduled for the first half of 2011. (Itar-Tass)

RF, Kazakhstan agree to create common air defense regional system
8 December
Russia and Kazakhstan will create a common air defence regional system, Kazakhstani Air Force Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Alexander Sorokin said. “We agreed to create a common air defence regional system, which will be similar to the Russian-Belarusian system,” the Kazakhstani general told journalists on Wednesday. “The creation of the common system will help us strengthen the common defence space. Kazakhstan’s air defence will take full responsibility for covering Russia’s airspace along the border with Kazakhstan,” General Sorokin said. “The common air defence system will facilitate supplies of Russian air defence missile weapon systems to Kazakhstan,” the commander-in-chief said. He declined to elaborate. “Kazakhstan seeks to acquire the newest Russian S-400 Triumph air defence mobile defence systems. But we understand that at first Russia should be armed by these systems,” General Sorokin said. Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said he hopes for a serious breakthrough in military cooperation with Kazakhstan. Serdyukov said Russia “hopes for a serious breakthrough in military cooperation with Kazakhstan in 2011”. “I believe that the expiring year was very successful for our military cooperation. In 2011 we wait for a serious breakthrough. During today’s talks, we’ve discussed a wide range of issues,” the Russian minister stressed. Kazakhstani Defence Minister Adilbek Dzhaksybekov said, “We’ve arrived to you as brothers in arms. I hope that our meeting will be open and informal.” He noted, “Today’s meeting preceded the talks between experts. The need arouse to have talks on different issues and determine further trends to strengthen cooperation.” Russia will supply an S-300 air defence missile system to Kazakhstan, a spokeswoman for the Russian Defence Minister said. “I order to safeguard the common defence area, the parties to the talks discussed possible supplies of S-300 missile systems to Kazakhstan. Currently, work is underway to draft relevant contract documents,” said Irina Kovalchuk. There are no immediate details of the would-be deal. Russia and Kazakhstan are partners within the CIS and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and enjoy preferences in the area of mutual arms supplies. (Itar-Tass)