A conference focusing on Kyrgyzstan’s present problems and future choices threatens to become sidetracked by a conflict-of-interest controversy. One of the financial backers of the event is involved in a legal tussle with the Kyrgyz government over allegations of financial impropriety.
The all-day workshop, titled Kyrgyzstan since 2010: Progress, Problems and Opportunities, is scheduled to take place May 15 in Brussels. It is being organized by the Washington, DC,-based Atlantic Council. Ambassador Ross Wilson, the director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, confirmed that Latvian financier Valeri Belokon was one of several event sponsors, his support coming via his involvement in the council’s Connecting Central Asia and the Caucasus Initiative.
Belokon remains a highly controversial figure in Kyrgyzstan. The Latvian banker is widely believed in Bishkek to have been a reputed business associate of Maxim Bakiyev, the son of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The Kyrgyz government is investigating whether Belokon helped Maxim illicitly transfer state assets out of the country amid the collapse of the Bakiyev administration in April of 2010. Belokon adamantly denies any wrongdoing.
The May 15 workshop will feature closed-door discussions that aim to “draw [Kyrgyzstan] westward,” according to Wilson. But several attendees, commenting on condition of anonymity, said that Belokon’s scheduled participation -- along with that of Viktors Makarovs, a Latvian Foreign Ministry representative – created a distraction ahead of the gathering. At the very least, Belokon’s presence was likely to anger the Kyrgyz government, and thus undermine the workshop’s intended aim of encouraging Bishkek’s westward tilt. Belokon was scheduled to deliver welcoming remarks at an opening reception on May 14.
Wilson stressed that Belokon “had no role in setting the agenda, or determining the participants” of the conference. He added that he saw no conflict of interest in this particular case.
“It would be a conflict if we were going to talk about something directly germane to the allegations relating to him [Belokon],” Wilson said. “That is not the case.”
Earlier this year, the Atlantic Council faced criticism when it was revealed that it received money from the governments of Kazakhstan and Georgia, as well as state-run entities including the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. It was also revealed that the Kazakhstani Embassy in Washington provided funding for an Atlantic Council-organized event marking 20 years of US-Kazakhstani relations.
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