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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 5, No. 90, 01-05-11
RFE/RL NEWSLINE
Vol. 5, No. 90, 11 May 2001
CONTENTS
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[01] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INVESTMENT IN ARMENIA OPENS IN NEW YORK
[02] ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT AVOIDS DEBATE ON FUGITIVE DEPUTY
[03] ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT TO LAUNCH SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM
[04] IMF TO WITHHOLD LOAN TRANCHE FOR GEORGIA
[05] STALIN'S SAMOVAR STOLEN IN GEORGIA
[06] ABKHAZ, GEORGIAN HOSTAGES RELEASED
[07] PRO-PRESIDENTIAL PARTY DEFENDS KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT AGAINST BRIBERY
ALLEGATIONS...
[08] ...AS OPPOSITION CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO MONEY
LAUNDERING
[09] KAZAKH PRESIDENT'S SON-IN-LAW NAMED TO HEAD NEW PIPELINE AGENCY
[10] KAZAKHSTAN SUSPENDS OIL TRANSIT THROUGH CASPIAN PIPELINE
[11] CORRECTION:
[12] KYRGYZ NEWSPAPER EDITOR FINED
[13] BAPTIST CLERGYMAN FORBIDDEN TO MINISTER IN TURKMENISTAN
[14] EXILED UZBEK DISSIDENT SAYS PRESIDENT APPROVED PLANS FOR HIS
ASSASSINATION
[C] END NOTE
[15] UZBEKISTAN 'READY TO JOIN SHANGHAI FORUM'
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[01] INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INVESTMENT IN ARMENIA OPENS IN NEW YORK
A three-day conference on investment opportunities in Armenia opened in New
York on 9 May, attracting greater interest than anticipated, a
correspondent for RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported. In an address to the
opening session read by Industry and Trade Minister Karen Chshmaritian,
Armenian President Robert Kocharian pledged that the Armenian leadership
will do all in its power to support foreign investors and to combat what he
termed "strong bureaucratic obstruction and the evil of corruption." U.S.
Minsk Group co-chairman Carey Cavanaugh also attended the opening session,
underscoring the U.S. desire to resolve the Karabakh conflict as a
precondition for economic cooperation between the South Caucasus states.
The conference is being organized by the World Bank and the U.S. government
and is the first of its kind devoted to a single country. LF
[02] ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT AVOIDS DEBATE ON FUGITIVE DEPUTY
It is unlikely that the Armenian parliament will initiate a debate in the
near future on whether to strip deputy Vano Siradeghian of his mandate, the
chairman of the parliament committee on state and legal affairs, Viktor
Dallakian, told RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau on 10 May. The parliament's
statutes theoretically allow for doing so in the event of a deputy's
"unjustified" absence from voting for a period of six months. Siradeghian
fled Armenia in April 2000 while on trial on charges of having ordered a
series of contract murders during his tenure as interior minister in the
early 1990s after his fellow parliament deputies voted to lift his immunity
from arrest (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 4, 5 and 7 April 2000). His current
whereabouts are unknown. LF
[03] ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT TO LAUNCH SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM
The Armenian government will invest nearly $1 million in programs to
provide short-term employment in the public sector for the most
impoverished stratum of the population, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported.
Jobs will include road construction and cleaning activities, and will pay
800 drams ($1.5) per day. Social Security Minister Razmik Martirosian told
journalists that the government hopes to obtain additional funding for the
program from international aid agencies. LF
[04] IMF TO WITHHOLD LOAN TRANCHE FOR GEORGIA
Georgian Tax Minister Mikhail Machavariani said in Tbilisi on 10 May that
the IMF team of experts that recently visited Georgia has recommended
withholding until October disbursement of a $12 million loan tranche
pending improvements in tax collection, AP reported. The visiting team
expressed approval of the monetary policy implemented by the Georgian
National Bank and of improved macroeconomic indicators, but called on the
Georgian government to take more decisive measures over the next two months
to reduce the budget deficit by improved tax collection and to raise
electricity tariffs. It is not clear whether or not the mission advocated a
budget sequester. The fund suspended cooperation with Georgia late last
year but in January approved a new $141 million three-year antipoverty loan
of which two $12 million tranches have been disbursed to date (see "RFE/RL
Newsline," 16 January 2001). LF
[05] STALIN'S SAMOVAR STOLEN IN GEORGIA
Thieves have stolen from the Stalin Museum in Gori a samovar that was used
by the deceased Soviet dictator to make tea in the Kremlin, Reuters
reported on 10 May. LF
[06] ABKHAZ, GEORGIAN HOSTAGES RELEASED
Following talks in Chuburkhindji, western Georgia, on 11 May between senior
Georgian officials and Abkhaz Prosecutor General and presidential
representative Anri Djergenia, the Abkhaz side handed over three Georgian
guerrillas captured in early April and five detained Georgian fishermen,
Georgian agencies reported. In return, the Georgian "Forest Brother"
guerrilla band released five Georgian conscripts together with an Abkhaz
customs official whom they had earlier threatened to execute (see "RFE/RL
Newsline," 24 April and 9 May 2001). LF
[07] PRO-PRESIDENTIAL PARTY DEFENDS KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT AGAINST BRIBERY
ALLEGATIONS...
Arat Narmaghambetov, a leading member of the OTAN party created in January
1999 to support President Nursultan Nazarbaev, has addressed an open letter
to Kazakhstan's Prosecutor-General Rashid Tusypbekov, the U.S. Department
of Justice, and the Swiss Justice Ministry stressing that President
Nazarbaev has repeatedly rejected as untrue articles published in the U.S.
press over the past 18 months implicating him in accepting huge bribes from
Western oil companies that were allegedly paid into foreign bank accounts.
In the letter, Narmaghambetov appeals to Tusypbekov to bring legal
proceedings for insulting the honor and dignity of the president against
the foreign newspapers that published such articles. A copy of
Narmaghambetov's letter was faxed to RFE/RL's Almaty bureau on 10 May. LF
[08] ...AS OPPOSITION CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO MONEY
LAUNDERING
RFE/RL's Almaty bureau also received by fax on 10 May a copy of a second
letter signed by leaders of the opposition Communist Party, republican
People's Party of Kazakhstan, the Workers' Movement, LAD (representing
Kazakhstan's Slav population), and Orleu among others, which was addressed
to the U.S. Congress and the OSCE. That letter claimed that the recently
enacted legislation offering impunity to persons who transfer back to
Kazakhstan capital they had previously deposited in foreign bank accounts
(see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7, 8 and 22 March 2001) has encouraged unnamed
Kazakh officials to engage in money laundering, rechanneling such capital
via Kazakh banks to other foreign banks. LF
[09] KAZAKH PRESIDENT'S SON-IN-LAW NAMED TO HEAD NEW PIPELINE AGENCY
President Nazarbaev's son-in-law, Timur Kulibaev, has been named to head
the newly created state pipeline company Oil and Gas Transport, Interfax
reported on 8 May. That agency was created on 2 May on the basis of the oil
transportation company KazTransOil, of which Kulibaev was president;
KazTransGaz; and state shares in the shipping company Kazmortransflot. The
new agency will be responsible for the marketing, transportation, and sale
of hydrocarbon reserves; the organization of financing, development and
feasibility studies; and the design and construction of oil pipelines. It
will also participate in all domestic and foreign projects involving the
transportation of oil and gas. LF
[10] KAZAKHSTAN SUSPENDS OIL TRANSIT THROUGH CASPIAN PIPELINE
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) has suspended pumping oil into its
recently launched export pipeline because of the absence of an agreement
between the consortium and Russian Customs that would allow for the import
of that oil into the Russian Federation, Interfax reported on 10 May,
quoting Kazakhstan's Deputy Energy Minister Nurlan Kapparov, a former head
of the state oil company KazakhOil. A CPC spokesman in Atyrau said that to
date some 120,000 tons of crude have been pumped into the pipeline, filling
a 248 kilometer section. The CPC has denied Kazakh press reports that
Russia has refused to allow the oil to transit its territory because no
agreement has yet been reached between the Russian and Kazakh governments
on transport tariffs. LF
[11] CORRECTION:
On 7 May "RFE/RL Newsline" erroneously reported that President Nazarbaev
had appointed Security Council Secretary Marat Tazhin as chairman of that
body. Tazhin was in fact appointed chairman of the National Security
Committee (the former KGB).
[12] KYRGYZ NEWSPAPER EDITOR FINED
A district court in Bishkek on 10 May fined Melis Eshimkanov, editor of the
now defunct opposition newspaper "Asaba," 1,000 soms (about $20) for his
participation in a 13 April protest against the paper's forced closure,
RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 May 2001).
Communist Party Chairwoman Klara Ajybekova and Socialist Party leader
Omurbek Tekebaev, who is deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament,
face similar charges. LF
[13] BAPTIST CLERGYMAN FORBIDDEN TO MINISTER IN TURKMENISTAN
Turkmen security police warned Baptist pastor Viktor Korobov in Ashgabat on
7 May not to lead any further religious services in the city or to leave
the city for the next six months, Keston News Service reported on 10 May.
LF
[14] EXILED UZBEK DISSIDENT SAYS PRESIDENT APPROVED PLANS FOR HIS
ASSASSINATION
In a fax to RFE/RL's Uzbek Service in Prague on 11 May, Bahram Muminakhunov,
an Uzbek citizen currently residing in Moscow, said he was asked in the
fall of 1999 by two senior Uzbek Interior Ministry (MVD) officials to
arrange through his Chechen contacts the murder of Mohammad Salikh, the
exiled leader of the banned Uzbek Democratic Party ("Erk") who currently
lives in Norway. Muminakhunov also said he was present at a meeting in
April 2000 between those officials and Uzbek President Islam Karimov to
discuss plans for the assassination. He says he has tapes of conversations
with the MVD officials discussing the planned killing, for which they
offered to pay $2 million. Muminakhunov then tipped off Salikh, whose
relatives announced his disappearance. The Uzbek officials refused, however,
to pay the full fee for the killing until Salikh's body was found. In a
telephone conversation with RFE/RL and at a separate press conference in
Oslo on 11 May Salikh confirmed Muminakhunov's statement. LF
[C] END NOTE
[15] UZBEKISTAN 'READY TO JOIN SHANGHAI FORUM'
Addressing a session of Uzbekistan's parliament on 11 May, President
Karimov said his country is ready to join the Shanghai Forum, ITAR-TASS
reported. That grouping, which comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, is to hold its next forum in Shanghai on 15
June. LF
Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
URL: http://www.rferl.org
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