On January 31, representatives of the 100,000 member Syrian Circassian community held a press conference in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. Three of the visiting Syrians said their goal was to discuss with the government the possible repatriation of Circassians from conflict-ridden Syria to the North Caucasus. The... MORE

As Russia is a member of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program and a neighbor of North Korea, it naturally was concerned by the announcement of Kim Jong-Il’s sudden but not altogether unexpected death on December 17, 2011. Moscow quickly sent official condolences... MORE

Discussions are ongoing in NATO about prolonging the air-policing mission over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The mission’s prolongation will necessitate a decision at NATO’s summit in May in Chicago. Resource constraints and political considerations seem to complicate that decision unnecessarily.This small air-policing mission represents the... MORE

The failure of a recent UN Security Council resolution that sought to calm Syria has once again highlighted the dilemmas Turkey has faced in its efforts to end the humanitarian catastrophe in this neighboring state. Ankara joined international outrage, condemning the Syrian regime on the... MORE

On January 26, the Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov announced an apparently routine measure to strengthen the Southern Military District by stationing additional Special Forces elements in Stavropol and Kislovodsk. GRU Spetsnaz (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye – GRU, Voyska spetsialnogo naznacheniya – Spetsnaz), the prestigious Special... MORE

Bulgaria’s energy security and independence were the key topics discussed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the Bulgarian government during her short visit to Sofia on February 5. She urged the Bulgarian government to break dependence on Russia by diversifying its energy supplies.... MORE

The first summit for seven months between Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev was held on January 23 in Sochi, and mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (as in all previous eight meetings in the past three years). After his failure... MORE

Front for Change party leader, Arseniy Yatseniuk, said in an interview in Fokus magazine “In effect in the country there is a two party system. The post-Soviet system confronts the pro-European, the past versus the future” (https://focus.ua/politics/213418/). This view was repeatedly stated by opposition leaders... MORE

On February 2, the Dagestani government outlined its latest plans for curbing the insurgency in the republic. The statement by the head of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, on governmental plans to exert control over the republic sounded like a plan to occupy a foreign country. “We... MORE

For more than a decade, Nabucco was the only pipeline project (and lately, the frontrunner project) for transporting Caspian gas to EU territory. Nabucco relied exclusively on Azerbaijani gas for the pipeline’s first stage (the hopes to add gas volumes from northern Iraq proved unrealistic... MORE