Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
KYRGYZ LOCAL ELECTIONS HELD AMID CONTROVERSY
On October 5 Kyrgyzstan held local government elections in which 491 seats were contested. The competition was most fierce, with the Chair of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Klara Kabilova scandalously resigning just days before the vote (see EDM, October 1). Both local and international... MORE
PKK ATTACK IN DIYARBAKIR DEEPENS PUBLIC DOUBTS ABOUT TURKEY’S COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY
At around 5:30 P.M. on October 8, six people were killed and 21 wounded when militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ambushed a bus carrying police personnel in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. Eye-witnesses reported that the assailants hurled hand grenades and sprayed the... MORE
DMITRY MURATOV: POLITKOVSKAYA MURDER CASE HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY UNDERMINED
October 7 marked the second anniversary of the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. According to The Moscow Times, several hundred people, including Politkovskaya’s colleagues and children, human rights activists, and political opposition leaders, gathered on central Moscow’s Pushkin Square to remember her. In... MORE
MOSCOW PLEDGES PROACTIVE KOREAN POLICY
Russia and South Korea pledged to upgrade their relationship to a strategic partnership and to strengthen energy ties, but the latest spate of optimistic official pronouncements came as a reminder of similar earlier pledges. Following summit talks in the Kremlin, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and... MORE
UKRAINE BRACES ITSELF FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
The global financial crisis has not affected Ukraine directly as its stock market is underdeveloped, and mortgage loans do not play a major role in the local economy. But the consequences of the crisis should have a significant impact on the local economy, which depends... MORE
ERDOGAN GOES TO TURKMENISTAN
The military confrontation between Georgia and Russia in August highlighted the West's misconception that the Caspian energy transit through the Caucasian nation is a totally secure means of bypassing Russia and Iran, a key tenet of the U.S. administration’s policy. In the aftermath of the... MORE
EUROPEAN UNION MISSION DEPLOYS TO GEORGIA WHILE QUESTIONS PERSIST ABOUT GENEVA TALKS
The European Union launched the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia on October 1, in a series of tightly sequenced moves to implement the French-mediated armistice in the Russia-Georgia war. The next scheduled move is Russia’s withdrawal from the unilaterally declared “security zones” outside Abkhazia... MORE
YUSHCHENKO FATIGUE IN WASHINGTON?
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s working visit to Washington in late September left many observers wondering what, if anything, the visit had accomplished. The apparent purpose of the trip was to seek greater security assurances for Ukraine from the United States and gauge the level of... MORE
RUSSIAN GENERALS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE GENERAL STAFF AT START OF THE WAR WITH GEORGIA
On October 1 an article appeared in the Russian newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets, which appeared to delineate a controversy within Russia’s General Staff about forthcoming cuts planned to reduce its overall size. Yet, for those with an understanding of the huge importance of the General Staff... MORE
PKK ATTACK FUELS FEARS OF A RETURN TO THE PAST
In the early hours of October 7, Turkish warplanes struck at suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq for the third day in row as Turkey continued to reel from the October 3 PKK attack on a military outpost in the... MORE