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Kyrgyzstan to purchase coal from Kazakh company

Electric Stations OJSC - the main producer of electricity and heat energy in Kyrgyzstan, has signed a contract for the supply of coal from the Kazakh KarTransUgol LLP, Trend reports citing 24.kg news agency.

Under this agreement, the volume of coal supplies from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan will be 400,000 tons, with the first batch arriving in October and the delivery schedule extending until the spring of 2023.

"The Bishkek thermal power plant is fully ready to start the autumn-winter heating season. Today, it has over 253,000 tons of coal. The daily consumption is about 1,500 tons of coal per day," Electric Stations OJSC noted.

Notably, KarTransUgol is one of Kazakhstan's largest coal suppliers, which delivers coal by rail across Kazakhstan, the CIS countries, and the Baltic States.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk in Baku on October 27 ahead of his unilaterally confirmed meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Sochi on October 31 under the aegis of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The meeting ahead of the upcoming trilateral summit seems logical and crucial in terms of identifying and agreeing on issues to be discussed in Sochi in the hope of bringing closer positions of Baku and Yerevan towards the possible signing of a peace deal by the end of the year, and closing gaps on issues the parties cannot come to the terms yet.

The two men in Baku, according to available reports, discussed the activities of the trilateral Azerbaijani-Russian-Armenia working group established for the purpose of restoring transport and economic relations in the region regarding the implementation of the November 10, 2020, statement.

On the same day, President Ilham Aliyev received UN Deputy Secretary General, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UN Geneva) Tatiana Valovaya, where the sides expressed confidence that Azerbaijan will achieve the targets set by 2030 in connection with the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

However, pundits familiar with the behind-the-curtain developments in the South Caucasus cite Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s October 24 working visit to Georgia as the most significant of the outgoing week.

In Georgia’s Château Mukhrani in Mtskheta Municipality, the ideal venue for discussing fateful for the South Caucasus issues, the Azerbaijani leader, accompanied by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, viewed the “Heritage of Karabakh Khanate” exhibition. With this move, official Tbilisi seems abandoned the previously-held balanced approach to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and proved on whose side it is on the Karabakh issue ahead of the upcoming second anniversary of the September 27 – November 10, 2020, war that led to the liberation of territories from Armenia’s 30-year-long yoke.

This is vital amid Azerbaijan’s quest for a peace deal with Armenia to finally bring peace and harmony to the war-torn Karabakh and surrounding region through rebuilding once prosperous towns, districts, and villages, and resettling the IDPs back to their homes by providing them with the vital infrastructures.

In Azerbaijan's regional vision, Georgia occupies a crucial place as it can and should be conducive to Baku’s efforts to make Yerevan play its part to this end. Since the start of the Karabakh conflict, Georgia has been the sole corridor for land-locked Armenia, through whose territory the gas pipeline carries Russian gas to resource-poor Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s strategic partnership relations with Georgia have almost risen to the level of alliance, Aliyev said in Georgia, opining that “many projects are of special importance not only for our countries but also for the region and Europe as a whole”.