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Latest Articles about Kazakhstan
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President Nazarbayev Announces Early Parliamentary Elections Amid Crisis
On January 20, the official website of Kazakhstan’s presidency published Nursultan Nazarbayev’s address to the nation in which he announced snap parliamentary elections. Earlier, on January 13, the lower chamber of parliament, the Mazhilis, had made public a collective appeal to the head of state... MORE
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Cheaper Oil Price Pushes Kazakhstan Toward Limited Economic and Political Reforms
With the global oil price dropping to below $40 per barrel and the tenge showing the worst performance among the world’s currencies in a year (Nur.kz, December 19, 2015), Kazakhstan is hastily adjusting to the dramatic change in market conditions by returning to more liberal... MORE
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Nazarbayev Blocks Russian TV in Kazakhstan
In slightly over a generation, Kazakhstan has gone from being a republic in which ethnic Russians formed a plurality, to one in which ethnic Kazakhs form a two-thirds majority. But to keep that country within Russia’s orbit, Moscow still counts on the fact that most... MORE
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Hard Choice for Kazakhstan as Russia-Turkey Spat Deepens
On November 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared economic sanctions against Turkey. Four days earlier, the latter had downed a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the border with Syria after it illegally entered Turkish airspace, according to both Ankara and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... MORE
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Central Asian Countries React to Latest US Overtures in Security Sphere
In early November 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry toured all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. It was the first such visit by a top United States diplomat to the region, long regarded by Russia as its backyard and “sphere of privileged... MORE
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Kazakhstan Looks to India, Iran for Access to the World’s Oceans
Since achieving independence in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, landlocked Kazakhstan has sought to end its geographical isolation by fostering relations with neighboring countries. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan’s national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) and India’s Ministry of Railways signed a... MORE
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Central Asian Republics Welcome New US Approach Toward Region
On November 1, the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, hosted the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian republics, who met together with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the newly introduced C5+1 format (Rpg15.wordpress.com, November 1). Initiated by Washington, the C5+1 format has several... MORE
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Kazakhstan Gives Russians a Taste of Their Own Medicine With New NGO Law
Vladimir Putin’s flagrant abuse of Russian laws governing the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGO) has led to the demonization and even closure of many of them. Such policies have, not surprisingly, made rights activists worldwide deeply suspicious of any legislation in other post-Soviet states that... MORE
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Kazakhstan Walking Tightrope Amid Russia-Ukraine Divide
At a time when relations between Russia and the West are at an all-time low because of Moscow’s meddling in Ukraine and Syria, Kazakhstan is finding it increasingly complicated to preserve the balance. In the span of a week this month (October 2015), Kazakhstani President... MORE
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Tsentr 2015: Testing Mobility and Strategic Messaging
Russia’s Armed Forces and security bodies have concluded the primary military exercise of the combat training year. The strategic-operational exercise Tsentr 2015 was the largest of the year, modeling an intervention in Central Asia under the umbrella of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The... MORE