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Central Asia / Siberia
NEWSLINE: Central Asia, Transcaucasia and RussiaRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Kazakhstan ratifies border treaty with China
Kazakhstan's Senate on 10 March ratified a border treaty with China (see ''RFE/RL Newsline,'' 4 February 1999), Interfax reported. Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister Kasymjomart Tokayev told the Senate ''in the context of the current geopolitical situation, the Kazakh-Chinese border treaty is very favorable for Kazakhstan and gives us additional security guarantees.'' Kazakhstan is to receives 56.9 percent of a disputed area totaling 944 square kilometers. (Bruce Pannier)
Trial opens in Kyrgyzstan over cyanide spill
The trial of Murat Murtazin and Viktor Perminov began in an Issyk-Kul district court on 11 March, RFE/RL correspondents in Bishkek reported. Murtazin was the driver of the truck that overturned last May and spilled 1.5 tons of sodium cyanide into the Barskoon River (see ''RFE/RL Newsline,'' 22 May 1998). Perminov is the chief of security at a warehouse in Balykchy, where the sodium cyanide is stored. Both are accused of ''ecocide.'' The spill is blamed for the deaths of four people and the hospitalization of more than 1,000. The cyanide affected a wide area adjoining the river. As a result, local villages, which are dependent on agriculture, were unable to sell their produce last year. (B.P.)
Kyrgyzstan creates oil monopoly
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has signed a decree forming the Munai Oil Company and charging the new company with providing petroleum products to various sectors of the economy, RFE/RL correspondents in Bishkek reported on 9 March. The primary goal of Munai, which replaces Kyrgyzgazmunaizat, is to ensure the agricultural sector has the fuel it needs to start spring planting. Agriculture requires 30,000 tons of oil for spring planting but currently has only 18,000 tons. (B.P.)
Tajik opposition fighters reintegrated
Twenty fighters of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) have been reinstated in the posts they held in law enforcement and defense agencies before the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan in 1992, Interfax reported on 10 March. The head of the UTO press center, Sultan Khamadov, said that 450 UTO fighters have been integrated into five units of the Interior Ministry. That move follows a 2 March presidential decree that ordered the integration of UTO fighters into regular army and law enforcement structures. The UN and countries that are guarantors of the Tajik Peace Accord have complained about the lack of progress in recent months in implementing that integration, which is one of the terms of the accord. (B.P.)
Turkmenistan ready to satisfy all gas customers
At the opening of the fourth Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan exhibition in Ashgabat on 10 March, Turkmen Minister of Oil, Gas, and Mineral Resources Rejepbai Arazov said the country's gas industry is able to produce as much as 90 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, ITAR-TASS and Interfax reported. Arazov said once new fields are open, that figure will rise to 100 billion cubic meters annually. He noted that this year Turkmenistan will ship 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Ukraine and 4 billion cubic meters to Iran. But Arazov added that Iran is not prepared to pay for all those supplies, in which case deliveries may be smaller. The Turkmen minister said his country ''can provide consumers with any amount of natural gas required. The question is whether they have the money to pay for it.'' (B.P.)
Armenian, Karabakh officials comment on peace process
In a telephone interview with RFE/RL on 10 March, Naira Melkumian, foreign minister of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, said recent meetings between the enclave's president, Arkadii Ghukasian, and U.S. officials testify to a shift in the U.S.'s attitude toward the Karabakh conflict. Melkumian, who is accompanying Ghukasian on his U.S. tour, said that Donald Kaiser, U.S. co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, had said that the most recent Minsk Group Karabakh peace proposal remains in force and that no amendments to it should be expected. Azerbaijan has rejected that proposal, which calls for Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh to form a ''common state.'' Also on 10 March, Armenian presidential foreign policy adviser Aram Sarkisian told journalists in Yerevan that Armenia intends to make new proposals ''soon'' to give fresh impetus to the deadlocked Karabakh peace process. But he declined to outline what those proposals entail, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. (Liz Fuller)
Armenian minister assesses Azerbaijan threat
Addressing students at Yerevan State University on 10 March, Vazgen Sargsian said that Armenia's military advantage over Azerbaijan has increased in recent years, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. But he warned that both Armenia and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic must continue to build up their armed forces to enable them to counter any possible attempt by Azerbaijan to solve the Karabakh conflict by military means. He predicted that if Azerbaijan launched a new offensive, ''we will make more serious gains.'' ''We are ready for peace [with Azerbaijan], but not at any cost,'' he said. Sargsian also reiterated that he will spare no effort to prevent fraud and malpractice in the 30 May parliamentary elections, adding that ''I don't care what the correlation of forces will be in the next parliament.'' Opposition parties claim the present election law favors Sargsian's Republican Party. (L.F.)
Shevardnadze upbeat on CIS, relations with Russia
Eduard Shevardnadze told journalists in Tbilisi on 10 March that he believes the CIS has ''good prospects'' provided that it gives priority to expanding economic cooperation among its member states, ITAR-TASS reported. Shevardnadze said he does not think President Yeltsin's firing of Boris Berezovskii as CIS executive secretary will have a negative impact either on Georgian-Russian relations or on relations between CIS states. He said he considers it unlikely that either Nikolai Ryzhkov, former chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, or a Georgian candidate will be named as Berezovskii's permanent successor. Shevardnadze and Yeltsin discussed bilateral relations and CIS reform in a telephone conversation later the same day. (L.F.)
Primakov rules out military intervention in Chechnya
Speaking at a 10 March government session that included the speakers of both houses of the Russian parliament, Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov made it clear that Russia has no intention of launching military action against Chechnya in retaliation for the 5 March abduction of Interior Ministry official Major-General Gennadii Shpigun. Primakov said that Russian and Chechen special services and police are cooperating in the search to locate and release Shpigun. Nationalities Minister Ramazan Abdulatipov told RTR the same day that both Primakov and President Boris Yeltsin are ready to meet with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov if there are ''real steps toward each other.'' Maskhadov had requested such a meeting on 9 March (see ''RFE/RL Newsline,'' 10 March 1999). (L.F.)
Speculation on kidnappers' identity continues
The Chechen Shariah Security Ministry on 10 March refuted an ITAR-TASS report that two of Shpigun's abductors have been identified. Maskhadov's special foreign policy representative, Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus President Yusup Soslambekov, accused Russian security services of organizing kidnappings in Chechnya to blacken the region's image, according to AP. ''Moskovskii komsomolets'' claimed on 11 March that Russian security officials believe that dismissed CIS Executive Secretary Boris Berezovskii may have stage-managed Shpigun's abduction with the intention of subsequently mediating his release and thereby rehabilitating himself politically. The Chechen field commander who abducted Shpigun was Arbi Baraev, according to the newspaper. Maskhadov fired Baraev as commander of the special Islamic regiment last July, following fighting between that detachment and Chechen government forces. (L.F.)
Yeltsin to veto media bill
President Yeltsin will veto the law on ''the supreme council for protection of morality in broadcasting'' passed by the State Duma on 10 March, presidential spokesman Dmitrii Yakushkin told Interfax. The law, which establishes a council with the authority to issue warnings to broadcasting companies and impose fines for violating guidelines on morality laid out in the bill, still must be approved by the Federation Council before Yeltsin can act on it. According to ITAR-TASS, fines would range from 1,000 to 50,000 times the current monthly minimum wage, which is 83 rubles ($3.6), for national broadcasting companies. The president, Duma, Federation Council, and government would each appoint three members of the 12-strong council. According to Yakushkin, President Yeltsin considers the law ''an attempt by the Duma to restrict freedom of speech.'' (Julie A. Corwin)
Russia, IMF compromising on VAT issue?
IMF Moscow representative Martin Gilman told reporters on 10 March that progress has been achieved in identifying outstanding issues between the IMF and Russia and that the mission arriving on 11 March will seek to narrow these differences. Also on 10 March, Budget Committee Chairman Aleksandr Zhukov told Interfax that he does not rule out that the planned reduction in value-added tax might be postponed until 1 January 2000 because of the fund's objections to the government's tax plans. The Duma has already passed in the second reading a bill lowering VAT as of 1 July. First Deputy Prime Minister Yurii Maslyukov, who has had and theoretically still has primary responsibility for dealing with the IMF, headed off for a trip to Indonesia on 10 March and will remain in Asia for the next several days.
Gazprom, military not bugged by Y2K
Gazprom spokesman Gennadii Yezhov dismissed testimony by CIA official Lawrence Gershwin to a U.S. Senate committee that the company's aging computer system will not be able to manage the transition to the year 2000 and as a result big chunks of Europe will be left without natural gas. Yezhov told ITAR-TASS on 10 March that his company ''has practically unraveled the Y2K problem'' and that the company's gas transportation control system is fully up to date. Earlier, Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, chief of the Defense Ministry's Fourth Central Scientific Research Institute, declared that the Y2K problem does not exist at all as far as country's nuclear strategic forces are concerned, ''Nezavisimaya gazeta'' reported on 3 March. According to Dvorkin, the forces' automated control systems do not operate in real time and do not involve any specific calendar dates. The daily reported that the ministry has 30 groups working on updating its computer systems. (J.A.C.)
Sberbank firmly in the black
The state savings bank Sberbank posted profits exceeding 15 billion rubles ($652 million) in 1998, Sberbank President Andrei Kazmin told NTV on 10 March. According to Kazmin, this amount is a tripling of profits from 1997. The company also paid a total of 11 billion rubles in taxes last year, making the company the second biggest taxpayer after Gazprom. (J.A.C.)
©1998 RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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March 13, 1999
