Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
MOSCOW HOSTS THREE SECESSIONIST LEADERS
Sergei Bagapsh, Eduard Kokoiti, and Igor Smirnov, Russian-installed leaders respectively of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria, conferred with Russian government officials in Moscow on November 16-18, held a joint news conference, and were featured extensively on Russian state television channels. All three made it clear... MORE
GAZPROM RESHUFFLE FOLLOWS WARNINGS OF DOMESTIC GAS SHORTAGE
As Russia faces a natural gas shortage and the government mulls higher domestic prices for 2007, the gas monopoly Gazprom fired its top executive in charge of domestic supplies and some exports to the Commonwealth of Independent States. Following a government report that Russia could... MORE
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA: TIME FOR CHANGE?
On November 10 John Ordway, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan, attempted to play down speculation that the Republican defeat in the U.S. mid-term elections could presage changes in Washington’s priorities in Central Asia. In fact, basing his assessment on the continuity of U.S. foreign policy in... MORE
PRO-OSSETIAN AUTHORITIES EMERGING IN SOUTH OSSETIA
The Tbilisi-backed Union for National Salvation of Ossetians (UNSO) conducted its own referendum and presidential election in South Ossetia on November 12, as an alternative to the referendum and election conducted that day by the Moscow-installed authorities (see EDM, November 15). Residents of villages with... MORE
STRENGTHENING THE “EASTERN VECTOR”: ANKARA HOSTS TURKIC SUMMIT
Leaders of Turkic nations are meeting today, November 17, in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya. This first summit of Turkish-speaking peoples in five years appears to reflect Ankara’s ongoing rethinking about its international identity. Increasingly frustrated with the mounting hurdles on the path of... MORE
KAZAKH, UZBEK PRESIDENTS CONFER OVER LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN KYRGYZSTAN
On November 3 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid an informal visit to Uzbekistan. The trip came as a complete surprise inside Kazakhstan, as it had not been announced in advance and looked like a spontaneous decision. Nazarbayev had been touring South Kazakhstan and he arrived... MORE
KYRGYZSTAN’S NEW CONSTITUTION PROMISES SUBSTANTIAL, LONG-TERM CHANGES
Kyrgyzstan has become the first Central Asian country to endorse a constitution that proclaims a parliamentary state system and significantly trims the president’s powers. This achievement is the result of popular demand, voiced through almost week-long demonstrations organized by the “For Reforms” opposition bloc. According... MORE
HUNGER STRIKE DISTRACTS AZERBAIJANI ACTIVISTS FROM FOCUSING ON UPCOMING ELECTIONS
Azerbaijani opposition activists and journalists have launched a hunger strike to protest the recent pressure on the media and opposition parties from the State Committee for the Management of State Properties. The Committee is demanding that a building located in the heart of Baku, at... MORE
KYIV CHANGING IDEAS, MIXING SIGNALS ON ODESSA-BRODY OIL PIPELINE
Yesterday, November 15, Prime Ministers Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine and Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland announced that they would support building an extension of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline westward, to the Kralupy refinery in the Czech Republic. The announcement implicitly changes the original intention to extend... MORE
U.S. GREEN LIGHTS RUSSIAN WTO MEMBERSHIP, SEEKS AGREEMENT ON IRAN
Last July, just before the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters that Washington and Moscow had reached a deal on Russian membership in the World Trade Organization and that a final bilateral agreement would be signed during the summit... MORE