In the last two and a half years, Turkey’s progress toward European Union membership has been frozen. After successfully closing one of the 35 “chapters” in the EU accession process, no other chapter has been opened; France and Greek Cyprus have been actively blocking some... MORE

Moldova’s Alliance for European Integration (AEI), governing since 2009, has all along been wracked by rivalries, pitting the two smaller parties against the larger one. The lure of Europe, and fear of the strong Communist opposition, have barely kept the AEI together thus far. Meanwhile,... MORE

Since it participates in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, Russia has a vital interest in developments there. Therefore, Russia’s governmental and expert community reactions to the North Korean nuclear test on February 12 possess importance both for the six-party process and for... MORE

On February 4, a Georgian delegation led by Levan Davitashvili, the head of the National Wine Agency at the Ministry of Agriculture, held another round of trade negotiations with Gennady Onishchenko, the head of the Russian state consumer agency Rospotrebnadzor. After the negotiations, the officials... MORE

Ukraine has declared the Transnistria conflict a top priority issue of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Ukrainian chairmanship in 2013 (OSCE press release, February 19). Nominally, the OSCE has been in charge of handling this conflict since 1993. Ukrainian diplomacy harbors... MORE

On February 18–19, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and New Technologies Asset Issekeshev led a delegation of Kazakhstani government and business leaders to Japan. They signed a number of agreements with major Japanese companies, especially in the nuclear energy sector. These deals should... MORE

Widely considered the closest ally of Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, former Georgian Ambassador to the United States and current Ambassador to the United Kingdom Tedo Japaridze has put forward a draft agreement aimed at bringing together the two largest parliamentary factions—Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream (GD) and... MORE

In recent years, Kazakhstan has made an effort to deepen and expand cooperation with the world’s Islamic community. The focus has been on economic and cultural ties, but political and security issues have also been prominent due to the large number of internal and regional... MORE

Hugo Chavez’s reported life-threatening illness has repercussions beyond Venezuela and even Latin America. The prospect of a potential change in Venezuela’s leadership has led Russia to seek to ensure its strong position in Venezuela and its availability as a base for Russian activity throughout Latin... MORE

Despite the fulsome exchanges between Russia and China concerning their bilateral relationship, Sino-Russian military ties have, in recent years, been quite volatile. It now appears, however, that those ties are once again moving forward, largely due to shared perceptions of a U.S. threat. One key... MORE