"Vladimir Putin's elevation to the Russian presidency seems to have lent a fresh impetus to the intimidation campaign against Georgia and Azerbaijan. Beginning on January 7 the Russian military and the intelligence agencies began accusing those two countries of condoning the creation of Chechen "jump-off... MORE

Slowly and cautiously, the West is stepping in to forestall a possible extension of Russian military operations from Chechnya into the South Caucasus. Last month, the OSCE sent a token monitoring team to the Georgian side of the Georgian-Russian border, where Moscow has claimed without... MORE

Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliev agreed with Demirel's initiative during Aliev's January 10 visit to Ankara. The Turkish proposal, in effect, carries an earlier Aliev proposal one or two steps further. The Azerbaijani president had called for a South Caucasus security pact in his address to... MORE

Armenia, too, is on record with a regional security initiative, but its content seems vague and also subject to changes resulting from the power struggle underway in Yerevan. President Robert Kocharian presented the plan, as it then stood, to the OSCE's recent summit. That plan... MORE

The New Year ended with Russia--who else?--providing the biggest millennium celebration surprise. Boris Yeltsin's resignation caught most people in and outside Russia off guard, and certainly gave credence to fans of "the first Russian president," as he is now officially called, who had always argued... MORE

All this speculation was undoubtedly viewed as nitpicking by the new Kremlin leader and his enthusiasts in the West. In any case, they had little to worry about: the early presidential elections, set for March 26, looked likely to be something more closely resembling a... MORE

Yeltsin's unexpected December 31 resignation also turned an otherwise quiet diplomatic calendar over the winter holidays into a time of tumult, one that stunned world leaders and left them scrambling to react to the changes in Moscow. As suggested above, most chose publicly to hail... MORE

Although events over the holiday season were dominated by the changeover of power in Moscow, several other noteworthy developments occurred. In St. Petersburg there was a rare victory for the rule of law in Russia, as accused former navy captain Aleksandr Nikitin won acquittal on... MORE

The reelection of President Leonid Kuchma has removed a set of temporary constraints on Ukraine's cooperation with NATO. During most of the election year, Kuchma deemphasized that particular aspect of his foreign policy, one apt to have alienated more voters in eastern Ukraine than it... MORE

Following a visit to NATO headquarters, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayet Guliev announced on December 20 in Baku that the country intends to apply for the status of "aspirant to membership" in the alliance. The Azerbaijani delegation discussed the matter with key Western counterparts during the... MORE