Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
RUSSIA INSISTS ON TREATING SEVASTOPOL AS AN OPEN QUESTION
President Dmitri Medvedev has tried to make a positive impression on every foreign partner he has encountered in his first month in office, building an image of an open-minded, polite and impeccably organized statesman, if perhaps not yet as a leader. He has made few... MORE
TATARSTAN LEADER CRITICIZES THE “VERTICAL OF POWER” AND “GREAT RUSSIAN CHAUVINISM”
In the most serious verbal challenge to the “vertical of power” that Vladimir Putin created after becoming head of the Russian state in 2000, and what may be a sign that Putin’s influence is on the decline since stepping down as president and becoming prime... MORE
SYRIA PROPOSES NUCLEAR COOPERATION WITH TURKEY
On June 13, during a visit to Istanbul for the Third Turkish-Arab Economic Forum, Syrian Oil Minister Sufiyan al-AW announced that Syria and Turkey were preparing to create a joint oil company to conduct oil prospecting activities in Syria, Turkey and third countries. Al-AW said... MORE
MEDVEDEV CONTINUES AND ESCALATES PUTIN’S HARD LINE ON GEORGIA
The Kremlin not only uses every available opportunity but also creates opportunities to show disdain for the weakness of Western policies on Georgia. Following the European Union-United States June 10 summit declaration, supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity in fine-print words only, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promptly... MORE
SOLANA RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED FROM ABKHAZIA
The European Union’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana returned empty-handed from his June 6 talks with Abkhaz secessionist leaders in Sokhumi. Solana held talks with Georgian leaders first, while en route to Sokhumi; and briefed Georgian leaders afterward, before... MORE
CENTRAL ASIAN WATER AND RUSSIA
They say that you can’t kill a good idea--or apparently a bad one, either. Moscow mayor and Putin silovik Yuriy Luzhkov has revived one of the USSR’s last and most megalomaniacal projects, a scheme to divert a Siberian river southward to relieve Central Asia’s perennial... MORE
TURKEY’S LAST TABOO
On June 12 the public prosecutor in the Istanbul neighborhood of Beyoglu initiated a criminal investigation of two young women wearing head scarves who had told the host of a popular television program that they did not like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938), who founded the... MORE
MEDVEDEV’S SOFT-SPOKEN HARD-LINE STATEMENTS
Before taking office Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was presumed to be a "liberal," who would somehow modify Vladimir Putin's anti-Western rhetoric and authoritarian ways. Medvedev's statements are indeed somewhat more polite, but Russian policy seems actually more hard-line. In Beijing last month, during his first... MORE
THE RISE OF AZERI SEAPOWER
The Caspian’s legal status has been in limbo since the 1991 collapse of the USSR. The Caspian is the world’s largest enclosed body of water, with a surface area of 143,244 square miles. A mini-fleet of tankers now prowls its water, but less known is... MORE
KYRGYZ GOVERNMENT, PARLIAMENT REFUSE TO PROLONG CONTRACT WITH CANADIAN GOLD COMPANY
The Kyrgyz government and parliament have been postponing ratification of a contract with the Canadian mining company Cameco Corporation that is due on June 1. Talk has been circulating for the past few years that the Kyrgyz government’s 2003 agreement between Kyrgyz Kumtor Gold Company... MORE