US Special Operations Forces have permission to enter Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on a “case-by-case” basis when conducting counter-terrorism operations.
A controversial, opaque US defense initiative to make payments to Taliban fighters who renounce violence has been extended until September 2012. While a large, but unspecified amount of funding is devoted to the program, no one appears to be keeping track of how the money is being spent.
Is Turkmenistan bad for your career? If you are a member of the British Royal Family, yes, but if you are an American lobbyist, apparently not.
Take the case of David Goldwyn, the State Department’s Coordinator for International Energy Affairs. He appears to have a soft spot for dictators. Not only was he a leading light in the U.S.-Turkmen Business Council, for less than $5,000 he was prepared to represent the interests of Libya in 2008.
According to lobbying disclosure records, Goldwyn’s firm, Goldwyn International Strategies, lobbied on behalf of the U.S.-Libya Business Association on “issues related to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.” It was a six-day job with Goldwyn registering the Association as a client on May 6, 2008 and terminating on May 12, 2008.
But his ties with Libya stretch back further than that. He was also the registrant of the U.S.-Libya Business Association’s website in June 2005. According to the lobbying disclosures, the Association was based out of his office suite on K Street NW in Washington DC. Goldwyn is also listed as the registrant of the U.S.-Turkmen Business Council’s website.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Prince Andrew, a UK trade envoy, is taking a battering for his alleged excesses including a friendship with a convicted sex offender.
The US government’s Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) has trouble accurately tracking the Pentagon’s convoluted efforts to source fuel for the US-led war in Afghanistan.
The United States and Kyrgyzstan appear to be on a collision course over potential surcharges on jet fuel consumed at a US military transit facility outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
At least 38 businesses seized by the Kyrgyz provisional government following the collapse of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration last April are slated to be privatized by mid-2011.
One issue the group picks up with gusto is the notable four-year absence of a U.S. ambassador in Turkmenistan, the gas-rich desert state with long borders with Iran and Afghanistan. It might not be the most desirable diplomatic destination on the map, but there’s no denying that it’s a strategic post.
According to the report, the case of the missing ambassador is a hindrance to meaningful engagement with Turkmenistan.
The US can hardly pursue its interests in Ashgabat or elsewhere if it lacks a Senate-confirmed diplomatic representative on the ground to promote those interests. This is without precedent in any country with which the US has not had an underlying policy dispute.
One seasoned Turkmen watcher suggests that the whole process of putting an ambassador in place could invite unwanted scrutiny of U.S.-Turkmen relations. At Senate hearings people get to do things like ask questions.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is raising an alarm about a spike in inflation in Kyrgyzstan. The country, weakened by instability over the past year, lacks the means to cope with a surge in consumer prices.
Uzbekistan is squeezing Washington for more money to transport military supplies along the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). On February 1, just days after Uzbek leader Islam Karimov met with NATO representatives in Brussels, Tashkent announced it was raising transit fees for goods headed for Afghanistan via Uzbek railroads.
The US Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General (DoD OIG) is conducting an audit of transit operations on the Northern Distribution Network.
