Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday called for Iran, Russia, and China to strengthen their economic and political ties. According to Rafsanjani, such "cooperation... will not only satisfy the needs of these three countries, but will help the development of regional cooperation considerably." The remarks came... MORE

Dushanbe security forces operating in Leninabad region yesterday killed five suspects in the April 30 assassination attempt on President Imomali Rahmonov, the president's chief spokesman announced yesterday. Those killed were members of an armed group of 10 "terrorists" involved in the attack, the spokesman claimed.... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma has had to postpone indefinitely an official visit to Turkmenistan, scheduled to have begun today. Ashgabat asked Kiev at the last moment to repay the Ukrainian International Energy Corporation's (ITERA) $205 million debt for past deliveries of gas from Turkmenistan. Ukrainian... MORE

Moscow and Djohar-gala are said to be close to agreement on a peace settlement that could be signed later this week at a meeting in Moscow between the Chechen and Russian presidents, Aslan Maskhadov and Boris Yeltsin. Maskhadov's spokesman, Kazbek Khadzhiev, was in Moscow over... MORE

Chechen internal affairs minister Kazbek Makhashev stated yesterday for the first time that the two women being held on suspicion of involvement in the Pyatigorsk bombing, in which two people were killed and 50 were injured, are indeed the two women previously identified by Russian... MORE

A meeting of experts took place in Moscow on April 28 at which Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov presented the government's new draft tax code. The draft, which was prepared in less than a month, aims to cut the number of taxes in force from... MORE

Russian and U.S. negotiators expressed reserved optimism on May 2 after a second and unplanned series of talks between U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov in Moscow apparently yielded some progress in the stalled talks on a Russia-NATO charter... MORE

On behalf of a previously unknown "Belarusan Liberation Army," a telephone caller has claimed responsibility for two explosions which occurred on April 28 and 30 on Belarusan gas distribution pipelines, and also for an April 1 shotgun burst in the air outside the Russian embassy... MORE

Foreign Ministers Hennady Udovenko and Adrian Severin initialed on May 3 in Kiev the text of the Ukrainian-Romanian treaty on good-neighborly relations ("framework treaty"), which had been held up for several years by oblique Romanian territorial claims on Ukraine. Finalized in last-minute negotiations on the... MORE

The conclusion of an IMF mission to Kazakstan on April 29 and the start of a visit to Uzbekistan by IMF deputy managing director Stanley Fischer on May 2 underscores the international financial community's interest in Central Asia. While neither mission seems likely ultimately to... MORE