Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
U.S.-TURKISH MILITARY COOPERATION DEEPENS AFTER ROUGH PATCH
The United States seems finally to have abandoned its hesitant attitude on supporting Turkey’s fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but Ankara is increasingly driving the agenda. On Sunday, January 27, Turkey’s deputy chief of the General Staff, four-star General Ergin Saygun, arrived in... MORE
OMV JOINS WITH GAZPROM TO UNDERCUT NABUCCO
On January 25 Austria’s state-dominated OMV energy company and Russia’s Gazprom signed an agreement to turn the Baumgarten gas transmission center near Vienna into a joint venture. Owned 100% by OMV until now, and ranked as the second- or third-largest gas transmission center in continental... MORE
NO RECKONING WITH REALITIES IN RUSSIAN ECONOMIC POLICY
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week was an unusually somber affair. Anti-globalization protesters were conspicuous by their absence, but the schmoozing among the cosmopolitan business elite was overcast by the heavy turbulence on global stock markets caused by the... MORE
NINE CANDIDATES REGISTER FOR ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AS CAMPAIGNING BEGINS
Campaigning for Armenia’s upcoming presidential election officially kicked off on January 21 and is turning nasty amid an intensifying war of words between the country’s current and former leaders. Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian, outgoing President Robert Kocharian’s favored successor, and his most outspoken challenger, former... MORE
AKP PRIORITIZING HEADSCARF OVER EU
Hopes that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would attempt to revive Turkey’s stalled bid for EU membership appear set to be the first victim of the party’s efforts to lift the ban that currently prevents women wearing headscarves from attending university. In recent... MORE
RUSSIA CAPTURES SERBIA’S ENERGY SECTOR
On January 25 in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Serbian leaders witnessed the signing of agreements to hand over Serbia’s entire gas and oil sectors to Russia’s Gazprom at one stroke. Serbia’s February 3 presidential election runoff and Russia’s support to Serbia against the West... MORE
REPRESSION UNDERMINES DIALOGUE WITH BELARUS
On January 22 Andrea Rigoni, a special rapporteur on Belarus for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), declared that PACE should recommence a dialogue with the Belarusian regime of President Alexander Lukashenka. Her comment denotes the latest stage in a continuing debate... MORE
SEMYON MOGILEVICH’S ARREST – A BLOW TO MEDVEDEV, OR A FAVOR?
Last week’s arrest in Moscow of Semyon Mogilevich was a surprise not because he was so elusive, but because he had apparently been living unmolested in the Russian capital for some time (even, reportedly, maintaining an office in the Ukraina Hotel). The Ukrainian-born reputed organized... MORE
KURDISH MPs CALL FOR FREEDOM FOR THEIR BELIEFS
As Turkey’s ruling moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) continues to try to find a way to lift the ban that currently prevents women wearing headscarves from attending university, members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DPT) have called on the government to show... MORE
PUTIN-VORONIN FAREWELL: AN ANTI-CLIMACTIC CODA
Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Vladimir Voronin of Moldova met on January 22 in Moscow for the last time in their presidencies. Voronin was still hoping against hope that Putin might finally deliver a settlement of the Transnistria conflict on terms compatible with Moldovan... MORE