On August 3, Belarusian television stations explained why the Belarusian authorities have refused to extend the accreditation of Swedish Ambassador Stefan Eriksson. On the program Panarama, Syarhey Husachenka stated first that it was a routine matter, and the Swedish ambassador had already spent a long... MORE

On July 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Transnistria is entitled to self-determination, implying secession from Moldova. Answering questions at the Kremlin-sponsored Camp Seliger Forum, Putin stated: “Many problematic spots have remained after the Soviet Union’s fall, and Transnistria is one of them. Only... MORE

By: Dario Cristiani, Michael W. S. Ryan, Camille Tawil, Jacob Zenn In this Special Report on the Libya Elections we examine the entrance of militant leaders into the political scene as the country recovers from several decades of Gaddafi's rule. This 2012 Quarterly Special Report features five articles and... MORE

For more than two decades Beijing has pursued a consistent policy in the South China Sea composed of two main elements: gradually strengthening the country’s territorial and jurisdictional claims while at the same time endeavoring to assure Southeast Asian countries of its peaceful intentions. Recent... MORE

On July 18, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev paid an official visit to Minsk. Medvedev’s visit was somewhat clouded by the July 4 penetration of Belarus’s airspace by a light Swedish plane that took off in Lithuania and dropped 1,000 toy teddy bears carrying human... MORE

Last week, the US Congress held one of its most comprehensive hearings in years regarding US policy toward Central Asia. The members and invited expert speakers discussed the diverse goals the United States is pursuing in the region and the obstacles to their realization (House... MORE

The veil of uncertainty obscuring the results of the latest official “5+2” talks on Transnistrian settlement, which took place on July 12-13 in Vienna, is getting thinner as new details about the meeting are being revealed. Apparently, the optimism with which Moldovan diplomats had entered... MORE

Moscow has marked the 20th anniversary of its “peacekeeping” in Moldova by multiplying obstacles to conflict-resolution (see EDM, July 27). State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin, reading out in Tiraspol a message on President Vladimir Putin’s behalf, promulgated a new political... MORE

Russian diplomacy is piling up new pre-conditions upon old ones for conflict-resolution in Transnistria. For the first time since 2003-2004 (when two parallel “federalization” projects collapsed), Russia is openly proposing again to turn Moldova into a federation or confederation. Moscow has reactivated those proposals on... MORE

On July 18, Circassians activists from several countries, including Russia’s North Caucasus, called on the Circassian and Caucasian organizations to focus on helping the Syrian Circassians. The Circassians in the North Caucasus celebrate August 1 as Repatriate’s Day, and the celebrations this year are bound... MORE