Latest Articles about South Caucasus
U.S., NEW MEMBERS BACKING NATO MEMBERSHIP ACTION PLANS FOR GEORGIA AND UKRAINE
NATO debates on Membership Action Plans (MAPs) for Georgia and Ukraine have entered the final stage in the run-up to the alliance’s April 2-4 summit in Bucharest. With NATO’s approval rating in Ukraine at merely 20-25% in the fourth year of the Yushchenko presidency, political... MORE
HARD DEBATES AT NATO ON GEORGIAN MEMBERSHIP ACTION PLAN
Several West European governments cold-shouldered Georgia’s and Ukraine’s applications for NATO Membership Action Plans (MAPs) during the meeting of NATO countries’ ministers of foreign affairs on March 6 in Brussels. Intended to prepare for the NATO Summit due in early April in Bucharest, the Brussels... MORE
ARE KARABAKH SKIRMISHES MEANT TO DRAW ATTENTION FROM YEREVAN?
Azerbaijanis increasingly see the recent wave of cease-fire violations in Karabakh as an attempt by Yerevan to divert attention from the domestic turmoil that has erupted since Armenia’s February 19 presidential election. Reportedly, four soldiers from the Azerbaijani side and eight from the Armenian side... MORE
SOUTH OSSETIA JOINT CONTROL COMMISSION INGLORIOUSLY MOTHBALLED
Georgia has taken the long-overdue step to send the Joint Control Commission (JCC) for South Ossetia into retirement. The JCC’s single purpose and relevance was as a tool for freezing the Russia-Georgia conflict in South Ossetia. In this aspect alone the JCC had proven its... MORE
MOSCOW “LIFTS” THE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ON ABKHAZIA
On March 6 Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a unilateral decision by Russia to lift the economic sanctions against Abkhazia. The Ministry also requested the Commonwealth of Independent States Executive Committee to ask CIS member countries to lift those sanctions as well. At the... MORE
MOSCOW BACKTRACKING IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH GEORGIA ON BORDER AND CUSTOMS CONTROL
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s February 21-22 Moscow visit, nominally for a multilateral Commonwealth of Independent States summit, centered on carefully prepared bilateral talks by the Georgian delegation with outgoing president Vladimir Putin and ministerial counterparts. The visit succeeded in ameliorating the atmosphere of Georgia’s relations... MORE
BLOODY CRACKDOWN ENDS ARMENIAN POST-ELECTION UNREST, FOR NOW
The unrest sparked by Armenia’s February 19 presidential election, praised by the West but considered fraudulent by many Armenians, could have hardly had a worse denouement. At least eight people were killed and more than a hundred others wounded on the night of March 1-2,... MORE
RUSSIAN SOFT-POWER INCREASING IN AZERBAIJAN
Following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, political analysts predicted that the Kremlin would step up its efforts to conquer the hearts and minds of people living in the post-Soviet region. This “soft diplomacy” has long been a powerful tool for Western democracies, and it is... MORE
ARMENIA IN TURMOIL AFTER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PRAISED BY WEST
Armenia is facing its most serious political crisis in years in the wake of the February 19 presidential election that was controversially won by Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian. Tens of thousands of supporters of his main challenger, former president Levon Ter-Petrosian, have been holding daily... MORE
BADRI PATARKATSISHVILI DIES IN LONDON
Georgian billionaire and frustrated business king of the country, Badri Patarkatsishvili, died today (February 13) in London of a reported heart attack. Patarkatsishvili had left Georgia on November 3, 2007, after bankrolling political protests against the government and instigating unrest through his fully owned Imedi... MORE