President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is “caught in a vice, which will only continue to tighten,” between democratically motivated Western pressures and Russia’s “interest in acquiring attractive Belarusian assets from a vulnerable Lukashenka,” according to David Kramer and Wess Mitchell (www.charter97.org, July 9). If so, Western sanctions... MORE

The failure of the tripartite Kazan summit on June 24 to resolve the standoff in Karabakh will undoubtedly have serious regional repercussions. Certainly they cast the insight and capability of Russian diplomacy and President Dmitry Medvedev’s leadership into question. Moscow clearly anticipated and even publicly... MORE

Despite continued failures of the peace talks during the last 17 years (since the ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994), every new meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents raises high hopes in Baku for a breakthrough in the deadlocked negotiations. The Kazan summit on June... MORE

The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach any tangible agreements during their latest negotiations, all but dashing renewed international hopes for the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. The conflicting parties blame each other for the failure of the summit hosted by Russian President... MORE

The Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Kazan on June 24 was intended to be an event of greater significance than any of the long series of trilateral meetings that had much elaborated the “agreeing-to-disagree” agenda. A leak from the Kremlin indicated that the two Caucasian states that... MORE

On June 8 in Kayseri (Turkey), Nabucco project companies from the five transit countries –Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria– signed with those countries’ corresponding ministries the Project Support Agreements (PSAs) for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline. The five companies plus RWE of Germany... MORE

Watching the serial outbreaks of unrest in Arab countries, Azerbaijan’s radical opposition parties see a possible model for political action in their own country. On the secular side, these groups are much-diminished descendants of the Musavat and Popular Front parties, which continually lost ground from... MORE

In the oversimplifying view of some Western commentators, the ongoing unrest in the “Muslim world” could or should not fail to grip Azerbaijan. On April 2 the veteran protest parties, Musavat and Popular Front, attempted to hold an unauthorized rally in Fountain Square, downtown Baku’s... MORE

In an attempt to copy the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the Azerbaijani opposition organized a street demonstration in Baku on April 2. Despite the government prohibition of this event and the offer by the Mayor’s office to hold the rally in another location, the organizers... MORE

Armenia and Azerbaijan claim that the prospects for resolving their dispute over Karabakh have brightened as result of a fresh meeting by their presidents hosted by their Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. Each conflicting party claims that the other has adopted a more flexible stance that... MORE