Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles

Politicization in the Turkish Judiciary System Deepens

The Ergenekon investigation has sparked a controversy about whether the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is using public prosecutors to subdue the opposition. The debate about whether the judiciary system is being politicized resurfaced once again, after the most recent phase of the Ergenekon investigation... MORE

Tajikistan Claims Border Security Improving

Tajikistan’s border security agencies, severely challenged by the continued flow of narcotics and arms across the country’s porous borders, have released official statistics and details on their successes over the past year. On January 7 Colonel-General Khayriddin Abdurahimov, chief of the main border directorate within... MORE

Russia’s Gas Disinformation Game

Disinformation operations, as every former KGB operative knows, can be an invaluable tool in winning a war. “Deza,” as it is called by the old boys who once worked on Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow, is an art meant to be used carefully by professionals; otherwise... MORE

Russia Hiding Gas Shortfall by Touting Multiple Export Routes

Russia is using the gas supply crisis, which it has itself triggered, to induce a contest among consumer countries over imports of Russian natural gas. Russian-produced gas has become a commodity in short supply when measured against Russia’s internal requirements and its existing export commitments.... MORE

Can Egemen Bagis Revive Turkey’s Stalled EU Accession Process?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan selected Istanbul parliamentary deputy Egemen Bagis as the new chief negotiator for Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union. Erdogan also moved the Secretariat General for EU Affairs (ABGS) from the Foreign Ministry to the Prime Minister’s office under Bagis,... MORE

Belarus Devalues Its Currency

On January 2 residents of Belarus learned that the national currency—the Belarusian ruble (known locally as the zaichik or hare)—had been devalued by 20.5 percent against the US dollar, falling from around 2,200 to 2,650. In November and December the administration of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka... MORE

U.S. and Georgia Sign Strategic Partnership Charter

On January 9 in Washington, barely a week before the change of administrations there, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigol Vashadze signed the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership. The document and the overall guiding concept primarily involve issues of hard... MORE

Uncertain German Perspectives on Energy Relations with Russia

Beyond the energy sector itself, natural gas induces structural dependency at the macroeconomic level. The pipeline mode of delivery is based on long-term contracts, locking in the predominant share of the German market for Russia. The spot market for natural gas, which could provide an... MORE