On the morning of February 12, a MiG-29 fighter jet from the Kazakh Air Force crashed while landing at a military airfield in Almaty region. Just seconds before the plane hit the ground, crew members ejected from the cockpit, but because of the low altitude,... MORE

Israel’s recent military incursion into Gaza has further strained its already troubled relationship with Turkey and highlighted the two countries’ divergent attitudes toward Hamas. For many Turks, the contrast between the muted U.S. reaction to the Israeli raid and its insistence on a rapid curtailment... MORE

Elections are supposed to focus on the question of who wins, but Russia makes an exception: President Vladimir Putin’s re-election in early 2004 had no suspense at all. But with the electoral exercise that took place yesterday, March 2, the question was not about “Who?”... MORE

Speaking in Moscow at the informal February Commonwealth of Independent States summit, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev praised his country’s relations with Russia, pointing to bilateral action plans signed in 2006-07 that prioritized shared concerns. He highlighted how closely both countries cooperate across a wide range... MORE

After only eight days, Turkey abruptly ended its military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday February 29. The withdrawal of Turkish troops caught many observers, as well as the Turkish public, by surprise. Only one day earlier, Turkish Chief of Staff General Yasar Buyukanit refused... MORE

Following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, political analysts predicted that the Kremlin would step up its efforts to conquer the hearts and minds of people living in the post-Soviet region. This “soft diplomacy” has long been a powerful tool for Western democracies, and it is... MORE

Since the 1991 collapse of the USSR, the former Soviet republics, now independent nations, have regrouped in a variety of political and economic configurations. These include the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and GUAM... MORE

Almost exactly 150 years ago, in June 1858, Abraham Lincoln famously declared that a house divided against itself could not stand. Yet in recent days, despite deepening internal divisions over the government’s attempts to lift the headscarf ban in Turkish universities, officials and politicians from... MORE