Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
GOVERNMENT INFIGHTING HERALDS START OF ELECTION CAMPAIGN IN ARMENIA
Armenia's governing coalition is beset with fresh infighting between the two largest political parties loyal to President Robert Kocharian, which could have repercussions for next year's parliamentary election. The Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party of parliamentary speaker Artur Baghdasarian has publicly denounced Prime Minister... MORE
ARMENIA’S GIVEAWAYS TO RUSSIA: FROM PROPERTY-FOR-DEBT TO PROPERTY-FOR-GAS
Armenian critics describe the government's new agreement with Russia, giving up infrastructure property for moderately priced gas, as the equivalent of giving up the family's milch cow -- or at least selling the cow for the price of milk. The preliminary Armenian-Russian sale-and-purchase agreement, first... MORE
KAZMUNAYGAZ CAN BE THE OPTIMAL CHOICE FOR MAZEIKIAI
The Moscow court-appointed administrator of Yukos oil company's residual assets, Eduard Rebgun, filed suit in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on April 13, seeking to block the sale of Yukos' majority stake in Lithuania's oil industry to that country's government. The suit ostensibly protects... MORE
CHINA ADVANCES ITS INTERESTS IN CENTRAL ASIA THROUGH SCO
On April 13 Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretary-General Zhang Deguang announced that the SCO's upcoming June summit would consider renaming and reforming the organization's secretariat, as well as granting permanent membership to observer countries that have applied for membership. India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan currently hold... MORE
AMID PUBLIC ANXIETIES, BEIJING AND ASTANA BOOST TIES
Kazakh Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev traveled to Beijing April 11-13 for a wide range of talks with top Chinese officials on energy, transportation, communications, trade, and trans-border rivers issues, a long-running sticking point in bilateral relations. Considering the complexity of problems in relations with Beijing,... MORE
MOSCOW PUTS PR SPIN ON ITS SHRINKING NUCLEAR ARSENAL
Russia will complete the modernization of its land-based and sea-based strategic missiles in 2015-2020 and plans to deploy up to 2,000 nuclear warheads as prescribed by the current arms control treaties with the United States. That was the main message from a rare public statement... MORE
RUSSIA WALKS THE TIGHTROPE BETWEEN IRAN AND WASHINGTON
The virtually simultaneous revelation of U.S. contingency -- and even operational -- planning for Iran by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine and of Iran's capacity for enhancing uranium may not have generated a massive outpouring of overtly emotional replies in Russia. Indeed, Sergei... MORE
MOSCOW STEPS UP ECONOMIC, POLITICAL TIES WITH UZBEKISTAN
As Tashkent drifts closer towards Moscow-led post-Soviet groupings, Russia has lost little time in boosting bilateral economic and political ties with Uzbekistan, Central Asia's major market. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Uzbek counterpart, Islam Karimov, conferred by telephone on Friday, April 14. Both leaders... MORE
LEADING KYRGYZ ACTIVIST ATTACKED
Prominent Kyrgyz civil-society activist Edil Baisalov was attacked near his office in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on April 12. Baisalov has been an outspoken critic of the dangerous fusion between crime and politics in the country since the March 2005 Tulip Revolution. His concerns... MORE
RUSSIAN PUNDITS SAY WORLD COMMUNITY DOES NOT HAVE LEVERAGE OVER IRAN
The Iranian leadership's announcement that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium prompted two types of reaction among Russia's analytic community. Most nuclear experts flatly dismiss Iran's overly triumphant claims, arguing that the country's specialists are pursuing routine research, that, if anything, the Islamic Republic is still... MORE