Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
PROTESTS CONTINUE IN KURDISH CITIES IN TURKEY
On October 17 lawyers for imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan claimed that prison personnel had physically attacked Ocalan and threatened him by saying that when the time came he would be killed (Firat News Agency, October 17). Immediately after the statement was released, the Kurdistan... MORE
RUSSIA SEES EASTERN PIPELINE AS A “MAJOR VICTORY”
The Kremlin has moved to expedite construction of the Eastern Siberia Pacific Oil Pipeline (ESPO), as a project considered of the utmost importance in terms of the domestic economy and foreign policy considerations. Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft inaugurated the 660- mile (1,100-kilometer) completed section of... MORE
KAZAKHSTAN AND RUSSIA PLAN AIR DEFENSE EXERCISE
Kazakhstan and Russia are in the final stages of planning large-scale training of their air defense forces. Shield-2008 will be held in western Kazakhstan as a joint air defense exercise, intended to deter “air raids and missile attacks” on either country. According to Abay Tasbulatov,... MORE
UKRAINIAN CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS COME UNDER STRAIN
Like the political crisis in the spring of 2007, the crisis unfolding since September has placed great strains on law enforcement agencies (see EDM, June 1, 2007). On April 2, 2007, and now again on October 8, the president disbanded parliament. In the spring of... MORE
WILL RUSSIA’S FINANCIAL CRISIS UNDERMINE POLITICAL STABILITY?
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has said that while the Russian state could end up owning a significant share of private companies as the result of bail-out measures currently being implemented, the government had no plans to “nationalize” their stakes and would put them... MORE
CFE TREATY DEAD AND BURIED IN GEORGIA
Since December 2007, Russia has officially “suspended its compliance” with the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE, signed in 1990 and adapted in 1999). The “suspension” has dealt the coup de grace to a treaty that Russia was already breaching on multiple counts for... MORE
TYMOSHENKO OPPOSES EARLY ELECTION IN UKRAINE
On October 9 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko disbanded parliament and scheduled an early parliamentary election for December 7. This was the result of the breakup of the ruling coalition of Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense bloc (NUNS) and the bloc of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (BYT)... MORE
TURKEY COURTS CENTRAL ASIA
In the aftermath of the Georgian-Russian confrontation, Ankara sees an opportunity to expand its trade relations with Central Asia, particularly the rising petro-states of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Seeking to capitalize on the changing geostrategic environment for Caspian energy exports, Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Koksal Toptan, accompanied... MORE
ROMANIA IS THE LATEST TARGET FOR GAZPROM’S SOUTH STREAM TEMPTATIONS
On October 17 in Moscow, Gazprom president Alexei Miller conferred in the presence of the Romanian ambassador with the general managers of Romania’s Transgaz and Romgaz companies,. Gazprom’s communiqué implied, and subsequent leaks to the Russian media corroborated, that the Russian side proposed including Romania... MORE
PUTIN’S CONSENSUS AMONG THE ELITE TESTED BY THE DEEPENING CRISIS
For the vast majority of Russians the idea of a global financial crisis remains entirely foreign and the shocking figures about the meltdown on the domestic stock exchange are meaningless. The legendary Klim Petrovich—the Russian cousin of Joe the Plumber created 40 years ago by... MORE