Lithuanian president Algirdas Brazauskas said over the weekend that Lithuania's early accession to NATO would help achieve Clinton's and Yeltsin's jointly proclaimed goal -- a stable, secure, and indivisible Europe. Lithuania's own path to security is the path to NATO, Brazauskas reiterated. Foreign Minister Algirdas... MORE

Culture Minister Yevgeny Sidorov, the first Russian minister to visit Estonia in five years, signed on March 21 with his counterpart Jaak Allik a bilateral cultural agreement for 1997-98, which in practice extends and enlarges a similar program for 1995-96. Much of the agreement is... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma on March 21 blamed Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's government for the absence of improvement in Ukraine's economy. (Interfax, March 20) Kuchma used his yearly state of the nation address before the parliament to blast the government's failure to pass the 1997... MORE

Russian presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky's March 19 remarks to reporters, which were highly critical of NATO enlargement, were made to reporters in Helsinki and not in Moscow, as was reported in yesterday's Monitor. The Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. It is researched... MORE

At NATO headquarters in Brussels yesterday, Ukrainian foreign minister Henady Udovenko and Defense and Security Council head Volodymyr Horbulin opened negotiations on a special partnership agreement between Ukraine and the alliance. A meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, held under the 16 + 1... MORE

Crimea's parliament is again paralyzed by internecine feuding. On March 13, the parliamentary presidium stripped the mandates of seven members of parliament representing the "anti-criminal coalition" and excluded them from the chamber. Three of the seven have since gone on a hunger strike. (Interfax, March... MORE

Karabakh president Robert Kocharian announced yesterday that he has been appointed prime minister of Armenia by Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian. The Karabakh legislature and government recommended that Kocharian accept the appointment and empowered Karabakh prime minister Leonard Petrosian to serve as acting President pending new... MORE

A draft law on citizenship is being debated by lawmakers in the Republic of Tatarstan, which is, Chechnya apart, Russia's most self-assertive republic. The republic's 1992 constitution described Tatarstan as a "sovereign state" and declared the supremacy of Tatarstan's laws over those of the Russian... MORE

While the on-going government reshuffle in Moscow is generally regarded as likely to improve prospects for economic reform in Russia, in the specific area of natural monopoly regulation the chances for reform may be getting cloudier. The departure of Economics Minister Yevgeny Yasin removes the... MORE

The Russian-U.S. summit in Helsinki got off to an amicable enough start yesterday, as President Boris Yeltsin sounded a conciliatory note upon his arrival in the Finnish capital while Bill Clinton was described as optimistic following a dinner for the two delegations hosted by Finnish... MORE