After roughly eight months, Uzbekistan has renewed gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan’s southern region. It is unclear what caused the reversal in policy, as the original grievance back in April 2014 was the lack of a new contract and when Kyrgyzstan sold its state gas company Kyrgyzgaz to Russian Gazprom for exactly $1 and commitments from the energy giant to perform a complete overhaul of the country’s gas and power infrastructure.

Tahir Alimov, deputy director of the Osh branch of Gazprom Kyrgyzstan, said that Uzbekistan started shipping gas to the Osh region last night at 3 am, with no explanation from any Uzbek officials. Kyrgyz officials have complained recently that Uzbek officials would not even pick up their telephone calls. However, recent developments would indicate that the pressure to reverse this policy came from Russia, and the timing with Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the EEU, effective tomorrow, would suggest that some dealmaking on this issue occurred when Presidents Karimov and Putin met earlier in December and agreed to write off some $865 million in government debt.

Additionally, new agreements to ship Uzbekistan’s agricultural products to Russia, whose inflation levels for basic consumer products has reached 10% in comparison with prices during the summer, as well as promises from energy giant Lukoil to develop gas condensate fields in the Kandym-Khauzak-Shady-Kungrad zone, within the Bukhara-Khiva region of southwest Uzbekistan. Additional evidence that this was a critical point in Uzbek-Russian talks was that a member of the Russian delegation was Lukoil CEO Vagit Alekperov.

Follow us on Twitter: @SteppeDispatch

News Briefs:

• Russia has allocated $1.4 million for a UN program on settlements near radioactive dump sites in Kyrgyzstan. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement that said that “measures are planned to make the local population more informed about radiation risks and create a regular environmental monitoring system.

• Russian dissident Alexei Navalny broke out of house arrest yesterday and attempted to join an “unsanctioned antigovernment rally,” and oddly enough, was not thrown into jail once more. This came only a few hours after being spared a prison sentence for criminal fraud. However, authorities did imprison Navalny’s brother, Oleg to serve three and a half years. The verdict, when read, caused an outburst from Navalny, who asked the judge “Aren’t you ashamed?” before being escorted out of the courtroom. He is still under house arrest.

• The former Kazakh ambassador to Austria, Rakhat Alijev, has been charged with murder, who is a former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultant Nazarbayev. He is accused with the murder of two bank managers in Kazakhstan, which he denies any part in. After falling out with Nazarbayev in 2007, he has been in hiding in Austria, where two attempts to extradite him by the Kazakh government have been rebuffed.

• Two Azeri political prisoners were released yesterday after a presidential pardon was issued. They were members of the NIDA youth organization. This was part of a larger decree that included some 87 pardons for political crimes issued on Monday, perhaps as an attempt for damage control after the RFE/RL raid of the previous week. According to international human rights organizations, there are still some 90 political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

• Representatives from Luhansk, Donetsk, Kiev, and the mediator OSCE negotiators met for a second round of talks in the city of Luhansk today. A similar meeting was held on Monday in Donetsk, where three main issues were addressed – 1. Continuation of Minsk peace negotiations, 2. Ceasefire and pullback of heavy weaponry, and 3. Prisoner exchange protocols.

• Access to Youtube and Russian social networking site Odnoklassniki was restricted in Tajikistan again yesterday. An official from the government, speaking under anonymity, said that the two websites were blocked for “preventative reasons.” Gmail, Facebook, Youtube, and VKontakte have been blocked several times this year in the country.

• Underperformance of coal fire plants in Mongolia have strained foreign investors in China and abroad on the prospects for Mongolia to become one of the principal suppliers of coal to the energy-hungry Chinese market. Only the construction of four new plants have been approved in the preliminary budget for 2015 for the Chinese government, but coal still provides some 70% of Chinese electricity.