Latest Articles about South Caucasus
DEZINFORMATSIYA ALIVE BUT TRANSPARENT
Two forgeries now circulating in Europe and North America bear the classic imprint of Soviet disinformation, presented, however, in modern-looking packaging developed by Modest Kolerov’s department of the presidential administration in the Kremlin. One of these forgeries attempts to portray Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as... MORE
GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT SHOWS RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS THE DOOR, BUT QUESTIONS REMAIN
On Tuesday, July 18, the Georgian parliament passed a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The resolution, adopted overwhelmingly amid harsh anti-Russian rhetoric, declares that Russia’s so-called peacekeeping operation itself poses a major obstacle to a political settlement... MORE
DEVELOPMENT AID CAN BE GEARED TOWARD CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN ABKHAZIA
Georgia is preparing to exercise its sovereign right to demand the termination of Russian “peacekeeping” operations on its territory and their replacement with genuine international peacekeeping missions. Concurrently, Tbilisi is redoubling efforts to unfreeze not the conflicts as such (these are not and never were... MORE
FSB CLAIMS GEORGIA PLANNING “PROVOCATION” DURING G-8 MEETING
On July 9 Oleg Alborov, secretary of South Ossetia’s security council, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb as he opened his garage door. Officials in the breakaway Georgian republic immediately accused the Georgian special services of carrying out this assassination. As the simmering conflict between... MORE
GEORGIAN COURTS, MEDIA, CRITICIZED FOR UNPOPULAR DECISIONS
As top Georgian leaders conducted diplomatic trips abroad, the domestic political situation at home heated up. President Mikheil Saakashvili returned from his July 3-6 visit to the United States with declarations of support from the Bush administration. Parliamentary Chair Nino Burjanadze was not as fortunate,... MORE
BTC PIPELINE COULD MAKE CEYHAN AN ENERGY HUB
On Thursday, July 13, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will be inaugurated at a ceremony in Ceyhan, Turkey. More than 40 high-level officials from some 30 countries plan to attend (Trend.az, July 11). President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia have already... MORE
ARMENIA’S GREEK-OWNED TELECOM OPERATOR PUT UP FOR SALE
Greece’s Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) is pressing ahead with the surprise sale of its commanding share in Armenia’s national telephone company, ArmenTel. Four companies and consortiums, two of them Russian, have already been short listed to take part in a tender called by the Greek... MORE
SUKHUMI’S ANTI-GEORGIAN STANCE JEOPARDIZES INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INITIATIVES
The promising movement toward reopening railways to link Russia, Georgia, and Armenia via Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region is now in jeopardy. The $300 million project to restore the Abkhaz section of the Russo-Georgian railway after it was cut in 1992-93 appears to have stumbled over... MORE
EXPULSION OF TURKISH ELECTRICITY COMPANY PROMISES GEOPOLITICAL LOSSES FOR AZERBAIJAN
After months of mutual accusations, arrests, investigations, and political statements, the Turkish electricity company Barmek has broken its contract with the Azerbaijani government to manage electricity supplies for Baku, the capital, and the northern regions of the country. “I did not want to do it,”... MORE
STATEMENT BY OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS SPARKS DEBATE IN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
On June 22, during a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, the Minsk Group co-chairs announced the main principles of the Karabakh peace process. The accompanying statement described these principles as “a set of core principles that [the co-chairs] believe are fair, balanced,... MORE