The head of the Russian Defense Ministry's main department for international cooperation, General Leonid Ivashov, launched several days of talks in Athens yesterday devoted to military cooperation between Russia and Greece. The talks fall under the auspices of a Russian-Greek intergovernmental commission on military and... MORE

Japanese Foreign Ministry sources have indicated that, despite some public statements to the contrary, Tokyo remains wary about a proposal by Moscow to develop the disputed Kuril Islands jointly with Russia. In remarks made anonymously to the Kyodo news agency on March 14, Foreign Ministry... MORE

One of the fruits of last week's meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission is a Russian promise to cut excise duties on oil exports for joint ventures from 55 rubles ($9) per ton to 20 rubles per ton. Chernomyrdin also reportedly guaranteed the ventures access to... MORE

Kotelkin, who moved to Rosvooruzhenie in 1994 as a protege of Yeltsin's ex-security chief Aleksandr Korzhakov, battled with Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets for control over arms exports. Kotelkin was seen as a representative of the former military intelligence officials in Rosvooruzhenie, who were being... MORE

The summit meeting of leaders of the twelve members of the CIS that was to have taken place in Moscow on March 19 has been postponed until the end of April. (BBC, March 17) The postponement has been made in light of President Boris Yeltsin's... MORE

Last week, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin moved to consolidate his control over Russian arms exports. On March 7, Aleksandr Kotelkin, the former director of the leading arms export agency Rosvooruzhenie, was dismissed from his post as first deputy minister for foreign economic relations. (Kommersant, No.... MORE

Three of Kocharian's challengers are capable to directly and substantially influence the ultimate outcome of the election. Karen Demirchian, 66, nominated by the small Socialist party, was the first secretary of the Armenian Communist party's Central Committee from 1974 to 1988. He was swept from... MORE

(Continued from the preceding issue). No fewer than eleven candidates are challenging Acting President Robert Kocharian today in the first round of Armenia's presidential election. Most candidates' platforms resemble each other -- as well as Kocharian's -- in most of their points. Vying with one... MORE

Meeting in Tbilisi on March 13-14, Presidents Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia and Mesut Yilmaz of Turkey signed a set of agreements on: --routing the main oil export pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia (in circumvention of Russia) --connecting the two countries by a railroad... MORE

Three thousand supporters of the democratic opposition marched in downtown Minsk yesterday on Constitution Day, the fourth anniversary of the constitution rescinded by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Protest leaders, including former head of state Stanislau Shushkevich and shadow government leader Henadz Karpenka, described the constitution rewritten... MORE