Latest Articles about The Caucasus
OSCE DELEGATION BEGINS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SETTLING KARABAKH DISPUTE
The week-long OSCE fact-finding mission on Karabakh ended February 6, leaving both Armenia and Azerbaijan impatiently waiting for the final report. Ten experts from Finland, Italy, Sweden, and Germany, as well as the co-chairs of the OSCE's Minsk group from Russia, France, and the United... MORE
MASKHADOV’S CEASEFIRE OBEYED IN CHECHNYA, NOT IN DAGESTAN
On January 15, the Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov issued a special order to stop all military operations both inside and outside Chechnya until the end of February (EDM, February 4; Caucasus Times, February 4). According to an officer at the commandant's headquarters in Chechnya,... MORE
WILL ZHVANIA’S DEATH UNDERMINE GEORGIA’S DELICATE POLITICAL BALANCE?
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was buried on Sunday, February 6, becoming the 101st distinguished Georgian to be interred in the Didube memorial in Tbilisi. As the Georgian people paid their last respect to Zhvania at the St. Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, confidants of Zhvania... MORE
ARMENIANS COUNT THEIR LOSSES AS THEIR CURRENCY GROWS STRONGER
Armenia's national currency, the dram, has appreciated dramatically against the euro and especially against the U.S. dollar over the past year, hitting hard a large part of the country's population. The real causes of this phenomenon have been a matter of serious contention in recent... MORE
NEW GROUP OF GEORGIA’S FRIENDS FOUNDED
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria founded the "New Group of Georgia's Friends" on February 4 in Tbilisi. The specification "new" differentiates it from the decade-old "Group of Friends of Georgia," originally comprised of the United States, Germany, Britain, and France. That old group... MORE
CHECHEN REBELS START A TEMPORARY CEASEFIRE
On February 3, the Kavkazcenter website reported that Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov had ordered rebel fighters to lay down their weapons for one month. It also published a statement from warlord Shamil Basaev ordering fighters to obey Maskhadov's decree and halt all offensive military... MORE
DEATH OF GEORGIA’S PRIME MINISTER ZHVANIA RAISES QUESTIONS
The sudden death of Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania last night (February 2) has plunged the country into shock. The news of Zhvania's death comes on the heels of the car bomb that exploded in Gori two days ago, killing at least a dozen people.... MORE
AZERBAIJAN’S PRESIDENT IN IRAN
Some flowery rhetoric from Tehran notwithstanding, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliev's January 24-26 official visit to Iran turned out to be a routine event that confirmed the tension-free relations between neighboring countries, without evidence of rapprochement at U.S. expense. Such a rapprochement had been the subject... MORE
WHO IS BEHIND YARMUK JAMAAT: BALKARS OR KABARDINS?
On January 27, Russian troops and local police forces surrounded an apartment building where members of an underground Islamist organization known as "Yarmuk Jamaat" were hiding in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. The troops stormed the building, and seven rebels, three men and four women,... MORE
AZERBAIJAN CELEBRATES DIPLOMATIC VICTORY, BUT WHAT NEXT FOR KARABAKH?
For the last several days, Azerbaijani politicians and the general public have been celebrating a diplomatic victory. After several hours of intense and heated debate on January 25, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on the Karabakh conflict. The resolution,... MORE