Field Reports

The electoral campaign for the October 10 parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan proved highly competitive. Twenty-nine political parties ran for the national parliament, and according to local experts, for the first time had equal opportunities for reaching out to the electorate. The country never experienced such a dynamic electoral campaign in its history. However, despite the level playing field and the more or less civilized campaigns that political parties reportedly conducted, a number of events and incidents related to the campaign made the political struggle more complicated and aggressive, and perhaps even posed a threat to the conduct of the election itself.

On September 20, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov took part in the UN “Millennium Development Goals” plenary meeting in New York. Identifying wars and conflicts throughout the world as the major obstacles to development, Karimov’s speech at the meeting covered three major topics: ways for bringing peace to Afghanistan, stabilizing the situation in Kyrgyzstan, and issues of water usage in the Central Asian region. These topics were not accidental – each one touches upon Uzbekistan’s international and regional interests. Moreover, of President Karimov’s speech shed light on the positions Uzbekistan takes on the above-mentioned issues.

The security situation in Tajikistan has destabilized lately. On September 19, a military convoy transporting national army servicemen was attacked in the Rasht region. Twenty-six officers and soldiers were killed and ten wounded. The Tajik authorities accused former field commanders of the United Tajik Opposition for the attack. Starting on September 22, a large-scale military operation for eliminating the militants was underway in the Rasht region. However, news from the field has not been positive – every other day new casualties from among national army soldiers are reported. Meanwhile, the Tajik Ministry of Defense criticized some independent media sources, accusing them of being “provocative” and providing subjective coverage of the events in Rasht. It should be noted that all means of communication with the Rasht region are cut off since the military operation started, and no journalists are allowed into the region.

On September 15-16, the presidents of Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan came together for the 10th summit of the Turkic speaking countries to strengthen economic ties and foster solidarity over a common cultural heritage. Within the framework of the summit, the energy ministers of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan held three-way talks on the construction of gas pipelines including the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline project and export of gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey with further routes to Europe.

On September 22, the Tajik army and law enforcement agencies began a massive security operation in the Rasht valley in the country’s east. The operation reportedly targets former United Tajik Opposition (UTO) rebels and “foreign mercenaries” who were behind the deadly assault on government forces three days earlier.

Armenia declared in August 2010 that it would start preparations for a new nuclear power unit next year and will start construction of the unit in 2012.

At a time when Kazakhstan is preparing to hold an OSCE summit, local media are buzzing with shocking news from a number of detention facilities across the country.

In early September, Gazprom reached a deal to double supplies from Azerbaijan next year, making good on the Russian gas monopoly’s promise to buy “as much gas as SOCAR can supply”.

On September 3, a heavy explosion occurred in an administrative building of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs in the northern city of Khujand. A suicide bomber drove a car into the building of the Regional Department against Organized Crime in the city of Khujand, which is the administrative centre of Tajikistan’s Sughd province. This was Tajikistan’s first experience of a terrorist act committed by a suicide bomber.

The past two weeks in Turkmenistan were marked with President Bedimuhammedov’s calls for expediting the intergovernmental negotiation process over the construction of the long-delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan and India (TAPI) gas pipeline. Following his conversation with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai two weeks ago and the signature of the bilateral Turkmen-Afghan inter-governmental agreement over the construction of the pipeline in Kabul on August 30, Berdimuhammedov spoke with Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari on September 9.