Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
AGREEMENT AT HAND ON OIL TRANSPORT FROM KAZAKHSTAN TO AZERBAIJAN
Following Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's late April visit to Washington and U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney's early May visit to Kazakhstan, a breakthrough seems imminent on the project to connect Kazakhstan with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. Officials in Kazakhstan now anticipate that Presidents Nursultan... MORE
ABKHAZIA SLIDES TOWARD RUSSIA, BUT GEORGIA HOLDS ONTO ITS CLAIMS
May 6 marked the second anniversary of the restoration of Georgia's full jurisdiction over the Ajarian Autonomous Republic. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, attending the celebration in Batumi, Ajaria's main city, stated that this process "should surely be completed" in breakaway Abkhazia (TV-Imedi, Regnum, May 6).... MORE
KARIMOV’S SEARCH FOR SECURITY PARTNERS LEADS TO PAKISTAN
Uzbek President Islam Karimov visited Pakistan on May 2, making a point of placing security atop the agenda for bilateral meetings. Karimov is staking considerable political capital on deepening Tashkent's relations with Pakistan, principally based on building economic ties and appealing to mutual security interests... MORE
KYRGYZ OPPOSITION SETS DEADLINE FOR BAKIYEV TO FIGHT CORRUPTION, ORGANIZED CRIME
On April 29 between 15,000 and 20,000 members of Kyrgyz civil society groups and the political opposition staged a peaceful demonstration in central Bishkek, the capital city. This unprecedented act of popular mobilization called on the government to take action regarding organized crime, stalled constitutional... MORE
KAZAKHSTAN EXACERBATES “RELIGIOUS THREAT” BY MANEUVERING BETWEEN BEIJING AND WASHINGTON
Following the example set by officials in Astana, leaders of the two main religions in Kazakhstan, Islam and the Russian Orthodox Church, sporadically sound alarm bells to alert the population of the dangers posed by "non-traditional" Western spiritual movements. At the first sitting of the... MORE
CHENEY VISIT SPOTLIGHTS KAZAKHSTAN’S PIVOTAL ROLE
U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney's May 5-6 visit to Astana -- and an overlapping visit by European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs there -- achieved a long-overdue rebalancing of Western policy priorities regarding Kazakhstan and, by implication, the region as a whole. At the joint... MORE
AFTER VILNIUS, PUTIN HAS TO RECONSIDER HIS PROSPECTS
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney used his speech at last week's conference in Vilnius to address Russia in a blunt new tone. Prior to the conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin's advisers had assumed that the maximum extent of U.S. criticism had been set by the... MORE
CHENEY’S VISIT LEAVES ASTANA FACING NEW DILEMMA IN MULTI-VECTOR POLICY
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney praised Kazakhstan as "a good friend and important strategic partner," particularly in fighting international terrorism, as he wrapped up his two-day visit to Kazakhstan on May 6. The trip culminated with the signing of documents to amend the agreement to... MORE
VILNIUS CONFERENCE ON EUROPE’S COMPLETION IN THE EAST
U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney joined the presidents of the three Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia, as well as other high-level European officials, for a conference on "Common Vision for a Common Neighborhood" on May 3-4 in Vilnius. The common neighborhood... MORE
KREMLIN PONDERS MEANING OF EAST EUROPEAN SUMMIT
The exceptionally harsh criticism of Russia's behavior by the senior Western representatives at this week's Vilnius summit of Eastern European countries has undoubtedly rattled the Kremlin leadership. But the big question that the Moscow policy elite tries to answer is about the true meaning of... MORE