In an apparent departure from earlier promises to develop their bilateral energy partnership, Russian and Kazakh leaders plan to re-focus on multilateral cooperation within the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space (CES).On October 22, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev... MORE

Kyrgyzstan’s new president-elect Almazbek Atambayev has once again hinted that he wants the US Transit Center at Manas out of Kyrgyzstan by the time coalition forces leave Afghanistan. “In 2014 the United States will have to withdraw its military base from the ‘Manas’ international airport,”... MORE

The recent murder of the Tabasaran sheikh of the Naqshbandi order, Sirajuddin Israfilov, has been extensively discussed in the North Caucasian media. Israfilov came from the village Khurik and so was better known as Sirajuddin Khuriksky. The Tabasarans are one of the highlander peoples of... MORE

This week Russia’s military intelligence service (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye –GRU) celebrated its official annual holiday – Military Spy Day (Dyen Voyennogo Razvedchyka). This professional holiday was established in October 2000 by President Vladimir Putin, himself a KGB spy during the Cold War in East Germany.... MORE

The Izmir agreements on the transit of Azerbaijani gas to Europe through Turkish pipelines (see EDM, November 1) and the BP-proposed South-East European Pipeline for gas (see EDM, November 2) raise some major, as yet unanswered questions. At first sight, they seriously complicate the outlook... MORE

Arson is believed to be the cause of a fire on October 24 that damaged a cotton-processing plant belonging to Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, a prominent Tajik religious and political figure, in the town of Vahdat, some 30 kilometers east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe. The... MORE

Ukraine has signed a free trade agreement with the CIS and completed its free trade talks with the EU. Unlike membership of the Customs Union (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan), which Moscow keeps inviting Kyiv to join, the CIS free trade accord does not formally hinder... MORE

On October 31, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with the head of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, in Moscow. Discussed in the meeting was the grand Russian program to spend nearly $200 billion to modernize the North Caucasus over the period 2012-2025. “If adopting the North... MORE

Azerbaijan and the Shah Deniz gas producers’ consortium have just signed bilateral agreements with Turkey on gas transit to Europe (see EDM, November 1). Meanwhile, the Shah Deniz consortium is nearing a final decision to select a pipeline route, out of four options, through Turkey... MORE

On September 15, on the eve of the NATO EULEX mission’s takeover of the Kosovo customs’ points Brnjak and Jarinje, Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Konuzin created a diplomatic scandal in Serbia that has apparently since grown. Speaking at the Belgrade Security Forum, Konuzin lambasted the audience... MORE