US support for Azerbaijan in its Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations with Armenia will most likely prove the price for any agreements on other issues made during US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s July 4 visit to Baku, local analysts say.
The Pentagon appears set to spend over $40 million on security infrastructure projects in Central Asia. The money for the building spree will come from US Central Command’s counter-narcotics fund.
Responses to a Pentagon-issued request for information about sourcing fuel in Uzbekistan appear to suggest that the Uzbek-Afghan corridor of the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) is a morass of inefficiency, arbitrariness and “informal” payments.
Analysts are warning that relations between Turkey and the United States may be heading for a period of volatility, particularly in the wake of the botched May 31 Israeli commando raid on a Gaza aid flotilla, along with Ankara’s recent decision to vote “no” in the United Nations Security Council on sanctions against Iran.
With ongoing instability in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan’s role as a logistics point for US and NATO operations in Afghanistan could take on heightened importance, military and political experts in Baku believe.
The United States and Russia are working on a groundbreaking deal that would make Moscow the chief fuel supplier to the US-operated Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan. Under the arrangement, Russia would become a “third partner” at Manas, a key logistics hub for US and NATO military operations in Afghanistan.
As southern Kyrgyzstan continues to smolder, the country’s provisional government is thinking about opening a new income stream. Provisional leaders are seeking to slap a value-added tax of 12 percent, plus excise duties, on fuel imports destined for the Manas Transit Center.
A lawsuit filed by the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America against the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles over a medieval manuscript has revived long-standing concerns within Armenia about the need to preserve the country’s cultural heritage.
The Pentagon is preparing to embark on a mini-building boom in Central Asia. A recently posted sources-sought survey indicates the US military wants to be involved in strategic construction projects in all five Central Asian states, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The United States and Kyrgyzstan have reached a provisional solution to a fuel tax dispute that had disrupted re-fueling operations at the Manas transit center near Bishkek.
