Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey signed a new agreement dedicated to launching the Lapis Lazuli transit corridor during a pentalateral meeting at the seventh Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), held on November 15, in Ashgabat (Azernews, November 15). The finalized document was... MORE

Georgia recently carried out one of the most significant counter-terrorism operations of the past several years. On the evening of November 21, several special forces units armed with heavy weaponry pulled up in armored vehicles to an apartment complex in the Tbilisi district of Isani.... MORE

The news that, on November 20, the US State Department had approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Georgia (Dsca.mil, November 20), caused euphoria in the South Caucasus country. Tbilisi is looking to buy from the Pentagon 410 of the missiles and 72 launch... MORE

On November 5, a cargo train from Kokshetau, North Kazakhstan, carrying 30 containers of wheat, arrived in the Turkish harbor city of Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast. What made this event so notable was that this was the first train from Kazakhstan to use the... MORE

Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani presidents—Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Ilham Aliyev, respectively—held a trilateral summit in Tehran, on November 1. They stressed the necessity to complete the Resht–Astara railway as soon as possible, with a view to developing the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC). The NSTC... MORE

Ilia II, the patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), met in his Tbilisi residence, on November 2, with Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk (Russia). Metropolitan Hilarion is one of the most influential hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). He is a member of... MORE

The November 1 tripartite summit in Tehran among the presidents of Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan appears to have opened the way to resolving one of the most neuralgic problems of the post-Soviet era: the delimitation of the Caspian Sea among the five littoral states, the... MORE

The Russian Caspian Flotilla conducted several military exercises in the Caspian Sea over the last two months—part of drills connected to the summer training period. More than 20 warships, support vessels, minesweepers, amphibious boats and landing craft were involved (Mil.ru, October 10, 14 ). Moreover,... MORE

On October 21, Georgia held its first municipal elections since the 2014 regional self-governance reforms, which were supposed to transfer more powers to local governments (Matsne.gov.ge, May 2, 2014). Subsequently, the importance of this year’s municipal elections was much greater than any of the previous... MORE

In the Gali district of the Russian-occupied separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia, the local administration is launching a campaign to oust ethnic Georgians who refuse to officially change their identity. Gali is located in the southeastern part of Abkhazia. Ethnic Georgians constitute an absolute majority... MORE