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Russia, Kyrgyzstan to set up joint air defence system

Noting that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Kant Air Base and the 30th anniversary of Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Japarov emphasized that they are symbols of friendship between the two countries…reports Asian Lite News

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has held talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Bishkek during Putin’s official visit to the Central Asian country.

Further strengthening military cooperation was discussed by the two sides and a law ratifying the agreement on the creation of a Joint Regional Air Defence System was signed on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the president’s press service, the agreement will ensure more reliable protection of the airspace of both countries, enhance security and protect national interests.

A five-hectare plot of land near Kant Air Base will be provided by Kyrgyzstan for the creation of the joint air defence system, it said. Kant Air Base is located near Bishkek and became operational in accordance with a bilateral agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan in October 2003.

Earlier in the day, the two leaders during the meeting highlighted the cooperation in the trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres, as well as in the fields of energy, agriculture, interregional cooperation and the development of green economy.

Noting that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Kant Air Base and the 30th anniversary of Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Japarov emphasized that they are symbols of friendship between the two countries.

“The Kyrgyz side highly values the Kyrgyz-Russian strategic partnership and allied relations,” he said.

The Russian president thanked Japarov for the warm welcome and hospitality, and highly appreciated the work done by Kyrgyzstan within the framework of its chairmanship in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The two leaders also had a wide-ranging and in-depth exchange of views on important issues of common concern.

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UAE, Kyrgyzstan strengthening energy cooperation

The meeting discussed mechanisms to enhance joint cooperation in various fields, especially renewable energy, transportation, and logistics services…reports Asian Lite News

Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, UAE’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, led a high-level UAE delegation to the Kyrgyz Republic on a visit aimed to explore opportunities to enhance cooperation between the two countries in all fields.

Sadyr Japarov, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, received Al Mazrouei, and his accompanying delegation, in the presence of Mohammed Al Arqi, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Kazakhstan, and the Non-Resident Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.

At the beginning of the meeting, the UAE Minister conveyed the greetings of President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, and their wishes for the leadership of the Kyrgyz Republic and their friendly people for more progress and prosperity.

The meeting discussed mechanisms to enhance joint cooperation in various fields, especially renewable energy, transportation, and logistics services.

Al Mazrouei also met with Akylbek Japarov, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic to review the latest developments in bilateral relations, and the outcome of the meetings of the UAE delegation during the visit, and emphasise on the importance of putting in place a mechanism to facilitate the process of enhancing economic and investment relations was stressed.

Al Mazrouei met with Taalaibek Ibrayev, Minister of Energy of the Kyrgyz Republic. The importance of the United Arab Emirates’ interest in developing relations in the field of energy and renewable energy was confirmed, as well as the interest of Masdar Company in investing in the Kyrgyz Republic in renewable energy projects. (ANI/WAM)

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Russia, Kyrgyzstan agree to boost military ties

Zhaparov will attend the Victory Day military parade, which will be held in Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday….reports Asian Lite News

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov have agreed to deepen military and military technical cooperation in a joint statement issued by the leaders following their talks in Moscow.

After discussing issues related to ensuring security in the Central Asian region, in the context of joint counteraction against external challenges and threats, both leaders confirm on Monday their readiness to further deepen military and military technical cooperation, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the statement.

They agreed on the importance of strengthening the Kyrgyz armed forces and developing Russian military facilities situated in Kyrgyzstan to further ensure the protection of the country’s sovereignty and counter terrorism, according to the statement.

Within the statement, the sides also attached importance to trade and economic cooperation, which is set to develop through the implementation of joint projects in the industrial and fuel and energy sectors, as well as in the agriculture, logistics, and infrastructure sectors, among others.

Zhaparov will attend the Victory Day military parade, which will be held in Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday.

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Stage set for crucial SCO meet

The ministers will discuss matters related to regional peace and security, counter-terrorism efforts within SCO and effective multilateralism…reports Asian Lite News

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will chair the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers Meeting on April 28 in New Delhi.

Defence Ministers of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan will participate in the meeting. India has invited Belarus and Iran, currently observers in SCO, to participate in the SCO Defence Ministers’ Meeting.
The Defence Minister of Pakistan would be participating virtually.

The ministers will discuss matters related to regional peace and security, counter-terrorism efforts within SCO and effective multilateralism.

Raksha Mantri will be holding bilateral meetings with the participating Defence ministers on April 27 and 28 where bilateral defence-related issues and other matters of mutual interest will be discussed.

India has ancient civilisational, cultural and spiritual ties with the SCO member countries. India’s membership of SCO in 2017, was, therefore, a reaffirmation of New Delhi’s keenness to deepen these historic ties.

India considers SCO as an important regional group to promote multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people interactions in the region.

India continues to bring more ideas and initiatives to strengthen cooperation amongst SCO countries. Under its chairmanship, this year, India organised two defence-related activities to enhance interoperability amongst SCO member-states.

The first was a workshop on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief and the second was a seminar on SCO countries’ defence think-tanks on the issue of Armed Forces contributing to Military Medicine, Healthcare and Pandemics.

India stands committed to taking forward the Agenda of SCO under its chairmanship.

General Li Shangfu. (Photo:Twittre)

Chinese Defence Minister lands in India

Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu arrived in New Delhi on Thursday to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ meeting scheduled to be held on Friday in the National Capital.

Li Shangfu will also take part in the bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh.
This is the first visit by the Chinese Defence Minister following the border transgression in Galwan.

India and China recently held the 18th round of the India-China Corps Commander Level Meeting at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point on the Chinese side.

India, and China during the 18th round of Corps Commander Level Meeting, agreed to maintain security and stability on the ground in the Western Sector of the LAC.

The meeting took place after a gap of five months. The last meeting between the two sides at the Corps Commander level was held in December last year.

Meanwhile, the Indian Defence Minister is also likely to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. The Russian Defence Minister last visited India for the first India-Russia 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in December 2021.

Iranian counterpart arrives

Iranian Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani arrived in Delhi on Thursday to attend Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ Meeting scheduled to be held on Friday.

The minister will hold a bilateral meeting with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh today.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will likely meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit.

Earlier, Sergei Shoigu visited India in December 2021 for the first India-Russia 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue.

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BRI grapples with mounting debt crisis

The mounting financial pressure has also raised concerns that the country may have to hand over lucrative assets if it fails to meet its repayment obligations…reports Asian Lite News

Like Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan also has a swelling state debt and took on billions worth of loans over the last decade from China’s Export-Import Bank for a series of infrastructure plans under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature policy, which he once dubbed “the project of the century”, media reports said.

Kyrgyzstan’s debt currently sits north of $5.1 billion, according to the Foreign Ministry, 42 per cent of which is owed to Beijing. But Bishkek is struggling to cope with a contracting economy and has so far failed to yield a commercial return on the projects backed by its huge Chinese loans. This has prompted fears the country will be unable to pay off its loans or even meet interest payments. The mounting financial pressure has also raised concerns that the country may have to hand over lucrative assets if it fails to meet its repayment obligations.

That warning comes as sovereign-debt distress spreads in several countries along the BRI, prompting China’s first overseas debt crisis as it grapples with a mounting pile of non-performing loans and increased scrutiny of how Chinese lending has exacerbated economic pressures on vulnerable governments, RFE/RL reported.

“There’s no doubt that the Chinese Ministry of Finance and central bank are looking at their dashboards and their red lights are going off right now,” Bradley Parks, Executive Director of the AidData Lab at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, told RFE/RL.

The globe-spanning scale of BRI, which was launched in 2013 by Beijing as the largest infrastructure program undertaken by a single country, has left it with a list of risky debtors around the world — including Argentina, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Zambia, and Iran — that hoped to take advantage of the surge in Chinese overseas lending but now find themselves struggling with a debt crisis the World Bank has warned could trigger a series of defaults not seen since the 1980s.

“China is growing more concerned about it not being able to get paid back, so we have seen a pullback in lending that is set to accelerate,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, the chief economist for Asia-Pacific at the investment bank Natixis, told RFE/RL. “China is also under growing economic pressure at home now and is becoming more hesitant to lend to risky countries. (This) has (opened) a new phase of the BRI.”

The BRI has helped make China the world’s largest bilateral lender and seen it give out loans totaling $932 billion since it was established eight years ago, according to data collected by the Green Finance and Development Center at Fudan University in Shanghai, RFE/RL reported.

Loans issued in recent years are turning bad at an unprecedented rate, with research by Rhodium Group, a New York-based research consultancy, showing that the value of Chinese loans that required negotiation soared to $52 billion in 2020 and 2021, a threefold increase from the previous two years.

Data compiled by William and Mary’s AidData Lab, which maintains one of the most comprehensive datasets on Chinese development finance, also shows the current scale of the debt crisis, with its research indicating 60 per cent of Chinese loans are to countries in financial distress, compared to only 5 per cent in 2010 before the BRI was launched. Other research by AidData shows that 35 per cent of the BRI infrastructure projects currently face major implementation problems.

In the face of such pressures, Beijing has begun to issue so-called “rescue loans” to starve off defaults, with AidData showing that tens of billions of dollars have been issued by Chinese state institutions to countries such as Pakistan, Belarus, Egypt, Mongolia, Turkey, and Sri Lanka, to help service their loans and avoid default, RFE/RL reported.

“We are at a major pivot point right now. The scale of this widespread debt pressure is something that China has never faced before and it is having to reinvent BRI on the fly,” Matthew Mingey, senior research analyst at Rhodium Group, told RFE/RL.

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Mansour bin Zayed received Kyrgyzstan FM

H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, received Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, Ruslan Kazakbaev, at Qasr Al Watan…reports Asian Lite News

During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations in various fields, particularly in the economic, investment, and development domains for the benefit of the mutual interests of the two friendly countries and peoples.

Mansour bin Zayed received Kyrgyzstan FM(WAM)

Sheikh Mansour and Kazakbaev exchanged views regarding a number of issues of mutual concern, in light of the latest regional and international developments.

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Abdullah Muhair Al Ketbi, Minister of Federal Supreme Council Affairs, attended the meeting.