Summing up the situation unfolding in Chechnya over the past year, it is worth noting that diametrically opposite processes took place in that part of the North Caucasus. Anyone who had a chance to visit Chechnya in the last year seems to be excited about... MORE

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Astana in early December 2010, was a symbolic showcase for the year-long failed negotiations on Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, did not even meet on the sidelines of... MORE

After several years of silence on the issue, Armenia has officially confirmed the existence of the sophisticated Russian-supplied S-300 air defense system in its military arsenal and demonstrated this by broadcasting video evidence. The authorities in Yerevan have also approved a five-year plan to modernize... MORE

In 2010, Circassian activists managed for the first time to stage public protests in multiple countries against what they referred to as Russian “imperialism” in the North Caucasus. The Circassians protested against the 2014 Winter Olympics that are scheduled to be held in the surroundings... MORE

On January 13 in Baku, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso signed a declaration on developing the Southern Gas Corridor to Europe. On January 14-15 in Ashgabat, Barroso and EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger conferred with President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on... MORE

On December 31, 2010, an Israeli analyst of the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria, Abraham Shmulevich, declared that the republic was entering a state of civil war. This stark warning came after a well-known researcher and popularizer of Circassian traditions and rites, Aslan Tsipinov, was killed on... MORE

The second week of January 2011 saw little let-up in apparent insurgency-related violence in the North Caucasus, with the largest number of reports coming out of Dagestan. On January 13, two men attacked a police unit in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, killing one policeman and wounding... MORE

The Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) is a project of the Milano-based Edison with Depa, the Greek state-controlled gas transmission and trading company. ITGI proposes to carry 10 to 12 billion cubic meters (bcm) of “Caspian” gas per year, including 8 bcm to Italy and the remainder... MORE

A contest for priority access to Azerbaijani gas has developed between three gas transport and trading projects: Nabucco, the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI), and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP, geographically a continuation of the Turkish pipeline route into Greece, heading for Italy). All three are component projects... MORE

In 2010, rights activists in the North Caucasus continued to come under strong pressure from the Russian government. Most notoriously, in September 2010, Chechnya’s ruler Ramzan Kadyrov filed a libel case against head of the Memorial human rights center, Oleg Orlov. Following the killing of... MORE