Latest Articles about Central Asia
KREMLIN SHADOW LOOMS OVER KAZAKH-UKRAINIAN TALKS
Despite considerable public interest, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's first visit to Kazakhstan was rather anti-climactic. Official media sources in Kazakhstan did not go beyond the set pattern for covering state visits, namely highlighting a growing trade volume (around $1 billion last year) and discussing economic... MORE
The Ongoing Baluch Insurgency in Pakistan
On May 14, four bombs went off in Gwadar, a coastal town in Pakistan’s western province of Baluchistan, where around 500 Chinese engineers and workers are busy building a deep-sea port. [1] On May 3, 2003, a bomb blast at the same site killed three... MORE
KYRGYZSTAN ADOPTS GEORGIAN MODEL TO FIGHT CORRUPTION
The Kyrgyz government is determined to investigate, prosecute, and eliminate corruption in the state. Deputy Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov recently announced that more associates of former president Askar Akayev would find themselves in prison in the coming weeks. "Kyrgyzstan will adhere to the Georgian experience... MORE
The Future of Uzbekistan After Andijan
To assess the nature and likely development of terrorist threats to Uzbekistan in the wake of the Andijan massacre, we must determine what exactly happened there on May 12-13 and place this massacre – which may have taken as many as 1,000 lives – in... MORE
CONTEST MOVES FROM WESTERN TO EASTERN CASPIAN SHORE
At the Baku inauguration events, President Nursultan Nazarbayev confirmed Kazakhstan's intention to develop a trans-Caspian oil transport system, linked to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. If achieved on the scale that is now envisaged, this export route could deeply dent Russia's near-monopoly on the transit of... MORE
KYRGYZ INTERIM GOVERNMENT ATTACKED BY PREVIOUS REGIME, SUPPORTED BY INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
The electoral alliance between Kyrgyzstan's Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and First Deputy Prime Minister Felix Kulov is gaining credibility domestically and receiving positive reactions from the international community. According to recent polls in Bishkek, about 55% of the population will vote for Bakiyev in the... MORE
What Lies Ahead For Tajikistan?
Tajikistan differs from the other countries of Central Asia for several reasons. Tajiks are the only relatively large group of Persian-speaking people in Central Asia. The titular nationalities of the remaining republics belong to the Turkic language group. The threat of forceful assimilation by Turks... MORE
Uzbekistan and the War on Terror: A View from the Field
The republic of Uzbekistan, with a Muslim population of 23 million, is the key state in the Central Asian political landscape. Having survived a significant confrontation with terrorism in the form of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and despite the presence of the "non-violent"... MORE
Narco-Terrorism in Afghanistan
The illicit drug economy in Afghanistan is said to be fuelling terrorism. During a conference held in Kabul on February 8-9, Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), warned of "mounting evidence of drug money being... MORE
ANDIJAN’S AFTERMATH RAISES SECURITY STAKES IN KYRGYZSTAN
Heightened security and increased concerns among Uzbekistan's immediate neighbors mark the uneasy atmosphere produced by Tashkent's crackdown in Andijan on May 13. Kyrgyzstan's security agencies are particularly anxious to avoid any spillover of political violence across the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border. Tension is high on the border... MORE