Latest Articles about The Caucasus
Kadyrov Performs the Hajj Pilgrimage
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Muzdalifah, near Mecca, in Saudi Arabia on December 9. Ziyad Sabsabi, the Russian Federation Council member representing Chechnya, also took part in the meeting and told Interfax that Kadyrov and Abbas “unanimously noted... MORE
Ingush President Makes Opposition Lawyer His Adviser
Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov this week appointed Musa Pliyev, the lawyer for the family of the slain opposition website founder, Magomed Yevloyev, as an adviser on law-enforcement issues. Pliyev told the Moscow Times that Yevkurov signed the decree appointing him to the position on December... MORE
Moscow Wants the OSCE To Negotiate Directly with South Ossetia
In the wake of the OSCE’s year-end meeting, Russia is continuing to block the return of OSCE monitors to a South Ossetia ethnically cleansed of its Georgian population and occupied by massive Russian forces in breach of the armistice. The Russians have prevented the mission’s... MORE
Armenia Scrambling To Cushion the Effects of the Global Economic Crisis
Armenia’s decade-long economic recovery seems to be slowing down due to the increasingly visible effects of the global financial and economic crisis. The authorities in Yerevan are scrambling to minimize them by boosting government involvement in business activity and seeking hundreds of millions of dollars... MORE
Ukrainian and Georgian ANPs Are Also Testing NATO
The NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels on December 3 announced that Albania and Croatia were now completing their Membership Action Plans (MAPs) and would be welcomed at the NATO Summit in April 2009 as new members of the alliance. The ministerial communiqué takes note of... MORE
From MAPs to ANPs: the Background to NATO’s Compromise Decision
NATO’s ministerial meeting on December 3 decided to offer Annual National Plans (ANPs), instead of Membership Action Plans (MAPs), to Georgia and Ukraine. The old NATO-Ukraine Commission and the new NATO-Georgia Commission are to draw up and administer the ANPs (see EDM, December 5). A... MORE
Lezgin Refugees from Dagestan Seek Refuge in Georgia’s Kakheti Region
According to the two reports, which appeared on the website of the Georgian non-governmental organization Human Rights Center (HRIDC) on October 27 and November 4, dozens of ethnic Lezgin refugees arrived in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia in the past month and a half.... MORE
Kadyrov Claims Demise of Insurgency: Rebels Respond with Wave of New Attacks
Right after Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s sensational statement that he was unable to find a single militant in Chechnya (Radio Ekho Moskvy, November 15)—which he attributed to the fact that none were left—the militants carried out several actions in the republic.For example on November 17,... MORE
Assassination of Vladikavkaz Mayor: Business or Politics?
Russia’s state run Vesti-24 television channel reported on December 2 that police in North Ossetia had detained five people in connection with the November 26 assassination of Vladikavkaz Mayor Vitaly Karayev. According to Bloomberg News, Vesti-24 reported that police in North Ossetia had carried out... MORE
Aushev: Moscow Should Talk to Rebels in the North Caucasus
RIA Novosti reported on December 3 that a police colonel, Isa Yevloyev, was wounded when unidentified attackers opened fire on the car he was driving in Nazran, Ingushetia. The news agency quoted an unnamed officer in the Investigations Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office for... MORE