Kazakh, Uzbek leaders reignite talk of succession

Map of CIS Central Asia and Environs

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Naubet Bisenov in Almaty and Olim Abdullayev in Tashkent – September 17, 2015) The issue of succession has become topical again in Central Asia’s largest countries – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – after the Kazakh leader appointed his daughter as deputy prime minister, while the Uzbek president was reported to have openly nominated his second […]

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Kazakh president ends speculation by announcing will stand for re-election

File Photo of Nursultan Nazarbayev and Barack Obama with Flags

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Naubet Bisenov in Almaty – March 11, 2015) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the Central Asian nation with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, has agreed to his Nur Otan party’s nomination to stand for another term. The 2007 amendment to the Kazakh constitution abolished term limits […]

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Nazarbayev Weighs New Run to Extend Longest Ex-Soviet Tenure

File Photo of Nursultan Nazarbayev and Barack Obama with Flags

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Nariman Gizitdinov and Torrey Clark – February 12, 2014) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he may extend the longest reign of any former Soviet leader by running for a fifth term in 2016. “There definitely will be a transition of power — there’s nothing frozen, it will be changed,” Nazarbayev, 73, said in an interview last […]

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Presidents Agree to End Baikonur Dispute

Kazakhstan Baikonur Cosmodrome file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – February 11, 2013) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, said Friday that they had agreed to end their dispute over the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia rents from the Central Asian nation. Putin, who received Nazarbayev in the Kremlin, said that amid  increasing cooperation between the two countries, there […]

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