Armenia, too, is on record with a regional security initiative, but that content seems vague as well as subject to changes resulting from the power struggle underway in Yerevan. President Robert Kocharian presented the plan, as it then stood, to the summit of the Organization... MORE

Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliev agreed with his Turkish counterpart Suleyman Demirel's initiative during Aliev's January 10 visit to Ankara (Turan, AzadInform, Anatolia news agency, The Turkish Daily News, January 11-12). The Turkish proposal, in effect, carries an earlier Aliev proposal one or two steps further.... 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 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sent a token team to monitor the Georgian side of the... MORE

The new State Duma is likely to look much like the last one in at least one respect: the betting in Moscow is that the post will be filled by Gennady Seleznev, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) official who presided over the... MORE

The leadership of the self-declared republic of Chechnya-Ichkeria and the leadership of Afghanistan's Taliban movement have established diplomatic relations. The Taliban government itself is recognized only by Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. On January 16, Taliban leader Mullah Omar met with former... MORE

World leaders, anxious to get a reading on Russia's new, acting president, should perhaps not put too much stock into the more statesman-like role that he assumed yesterday. Putin's apparently constructive dialogue with the European delegation, after all, took place as Russian military forces were... MORE

Russia has been buffeted from all sides in recent days by a new volley of criticism over its military campaign in Chechnya, but the unwillingness of Western countries to back up their criticism with punitive measures suggests that it will continue to have little or... MORE

The Belarusan leadership seems confused and worried by Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin's intimations that his policy toward CIS countries, including its union partner Belarus, will be governed strictly by Russian state interests. Both immediately before and after his elevation to the presidency (Itar-Tass, Federal... MORE

The Russian air force continued to hit targets in the southern Shatoi, Itum-Kalin and Vedeno districts of Chechnya over the weekend, and the Russian military's press center in Chechnya reported today that federal forces had carried out another "cleaning" operation in the town of Vedeno.... MORE

In a television interview broadcast yesterday evening, First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov seemed to be trying to dampen down expectations for significant improvements in the Russian economy in the near future. Asked about the 5-percent drop in the ruble's value in relation to the... MORE