Latest Articles about South Caucasus
ARMENIA, EU TO LAUNCH “ACTION PLAN” ON CLOSER TIES
Next month the European Union and Armenia will sign a five-year action plan related to the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) program that enables EU neighbors to establish preferential relations with the 25-country bloc. The development will be hailed by the authorities in Yerevan as an... MORE
AZERBAIJAN BECOMING POPULAR DRUG TRAFFICKING ROUTE
Last week the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan broke up a transnational network funneling illegal drugs from Iran toward Europe via Azerbaijan. Two citizens of Azerbaijan were arrested in relation to this case, and authorities confiscated 19 kilograms of hashish from them. They had... MORE
SAAKASHVILI’S PARTY WINS LOCAL ELECTIONS AMID STANDOFF WITH RUSSIA
As expected, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s National Movement party won Georgia’s October 5 local elections by a landslide. Held amid Tbilisi’s sharpest confrontation with Moscow in a decade, the elections provided an opportunity for the ruling party to tout its tough stance toward Russia in connection... MORE
SOLANA BLINKS, DEEPLY
The European Union’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, opined in a European Parliament hearing that international recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia could set “a precedent” adversely affecting Georgia in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With some trepidation Solana imagined, “We... MORE
RUSSIA’S ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WARFARE FAILING TO SUBDUE GEORGIA
Russia’s economic and psychological warfare against Georgia is intensifying in the wake of, and notwithstanding, the release of four Russian military intelligence officers who had been caught in flagrante in Georgia. Arrested on September 27 and indicted for espionage and subversion, the four officers (a... MORE
RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN ROW COULD SERIOUSLY SOUR RUSSIA-WEST RELATIONS
The latest crisis in the chronically uneasy relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi is not likely to fizzle out any time soon, as the positions of the two sides appear to be irreconcilable. This poses a painful dilemma for the West: do the United States and... MORE
ARMENIAN OPPOSITION ATTACKS “CRIMINAL ELEMENTS” IN GOVERNMENT
Armenia’s main opposition forces have opened a new front in their standoff with the government, launching a joint movement against what they claim is the growing role of “criminal elements” in the country’s political life. Influential Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian and other leaders of the... MORE
PUTIN COMMENTS REVEAL DESIRE FOR REGIME CHANGE IN TBILISI
The ordeal of four Russian military intelligence officers arrested in Georgia on September 27 and charged with espionage (see EDM, October 2) ended when the men were expelled to Moscow on Monday, October 2. Speaking on the condition of confidentiality yesterday in Moscow, a high-ranking... MORE
TBILISI NEUTRALIZES ALLEGED RUSSIAN SPY RING, GAINS POLITICAL MILEAGE
The arrest of four Russian military intelligence officers and eleven alleged accomplices in Georgia on September 27-28 is part of Tbilisi’s ongoing efforts to neutralize a purported Russian spy network in Georgia. Two weeks earlier, on September 6, Tbilisi claimed to have averted a coup... MORE
SAAKASHVILI’S U.N. ADDRESS TRANSFORMS DISCUSSION ON POST-SOVIET CONFLICTS
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s September 22 address to the United Nations General Assembly has transformed the terms of international discussion on the post-Soviet “frozen” conflicts. After Saakashvili’s address, hardly any international actors other than Moscow’s ad-hoc supporters could any longer defend Russia’s “peacekeeping” and “mediation”... MORE