Field Reports

On May 10, the recently elected President of Kyrgyzstan, Almazbek Atambayev, paid an official visit to his country’s northern neighbor, Kazakhstan, to discuss bilateral economic cooperation and regional integration in Central Asia. In his welcoming address, Nursultan Nazarbayev reiterated Kazakhstan’s vision of the Kyrgyz Republic as a strategic ally and partner in the region. He also applauded Atambayev’s personal efforts to stabilize the economic situation and restore public order in a country whose political life has been marked by two revolutionary regime changes since 2005.

The de facto Abkhaz government has demanded that the head of the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) Andrzej Tyszkiewicz be substituted as a sine qua non condition to participate in the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) meetings, Apsnipress reported on May 3. Moscow backed Sukhumi’s move, suggesting that the EU seek “a compromise solution” directly with the Abkhaz side. In response, the EU has expressed its “full confidence” in the mission’s present leadership. Meanwhile, Tbilisi considers Sukhumi’s demands to be an attempt by the Kremlin to undermine the EUMM’s institutional capacity on the territory of Georgia.

Kyrgyzstan’s opposition has ended its series of anti-governmental rallies in the country's regions, claiming that it has tried to make the government respond to the needs of ordinary people, but saw no reaction. However, most experts believe that the opposition leaders, after experiencing their inability to mobilize people, simply decided to wait for “better times.”

The BP-led consortium developing the Shah Deniz gas field has launched the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) phase of the US$ 25 billion stage II project. This has increased the competition between pipeline systems for future gas transportation from Azerbaijan to the European market.

On April 14, 2012, media in Tajikistan reported that local residents of the Mastcha district in Northern Tajikistan had observed multiple heavy military vehicles gathering on Uzbekistan’s territory close to its state border with Tajikistan. Observers believe that Uzbekistan’s concentration of military hardware on its border with Tajikistan is another sign of increased tension between the two neighboring countries.

The Parliament of Georgia passed draft amendments to the Organic Law on Political Unions of Citizens in its second reading on April 24. The new changes aim to ease the strict regulations imposed by the original amendments, which were initiated by the Georgian government in fall 2011.

On April 25, President Nazarbayev was interviewed by one of Russia’s leading television channels, Russia 24. Two weeks before the inauguration of Vladimir Putin as the country’s new president, the Kazakh leader shared his vision about the future of the world economy, the prospects of integration on the post-Soviet space and his understanding of common challenges for regional security in Central Asia.

Negotiations between Kyrgyzstan and Russia on large energy projects are deadlocked due to Moscow’s demands to revise the existing agreements. While most local observers support Bishkek's intention to adhere to the current agreement, others contend that the country's leaders need to consider Moscow's proposal.

On April 6, Astana hosted another meeting of foreign ministers representing the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. This high-level gathering was organized a month before the Moscow summit of the CSTO heads of state, which will officially mark the 20th anniversary of the Treaty, and touched upon a series of issues ranging from bilateral relations to the organization’s international agenda. As regards the situation in Afghanistan, the ministers agreed to take concrete measures to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border, considering that a gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan authorities will further aggravate the pending risks in hardly controllable border areas. For this purpose, it is envisaged that Tajikistan will receive additional support, in financial or technical terms, to fight unwarranted intrusions.