Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
EXTRANEOUS CONSIDERATIONS IN THE WAY OF GEORGIAN AND UKRAINIAN MAPS AT THE NATO SUMMIT
In on-the-record interventions and, especially, at off-the-record policy conferences, German officials lay out a whole collection of arguments against Membership Action Plans (MAPs) for Georgia and Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit. Several West European governments share some of those arguments to some degree or... MORE
RUSSIA’S GAZPROMNEFT PLANS CRUDE OUTPUT HIKE
Russia's state-run oil firm, GazpromNeft, has disclosed ambitious plans to hike its oil production level, which would require taking over new assets. In its drive toward becoming the country's leading oil firm, GazpromNeft appears to be relying on its parent company Gazprom, currently chaired by... MORE
CRACKDOWN IN TIBET WILL BOOST ROLE OF SCO
Although the international community has condemned Beijing’s crackdown against rioters in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the Russian government was among the first to show its active support for the Chinese authorities. The riots began March 10, and the subsequent crackdown has caused dozens of civilian... MORE
KURDISH DEMONSTRATORS CLASH WITH TURKISH SECURITY FORCES DURING NEWROZ
Over a period of four days from March 21-24, two people were killed and several hundred injured in clashes with Turkish security forces, as hundreds of thousands of Kurds took the streets to celebrate the Kurdish New Year of Newroz. No reliable figures are available... MORE
RUSSIA’S THREATS TO UKRAINE, GEORGIA ARE CHALLENGES TO U.S., NATO
Representatives of the Russian government and the Kremlin are multiplying their threats to Ukraine (as well as to Georgia) ahead of next week’s NATO summit, where Membership Action Plans (MAPs) for the two countries will be considered. Moscow realizes more clearly than some NATO governments... MORE
IT TAKES TWO RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS TO TANGO WITH U.S.
Pushing his ballot into the ballot box during Russia’s shamelessly fixed presidential elections on March 2, Dmitry Medvedev announced that he was feeling good because spring had arrived. At that moment, the statement appeared perfectly senseless, as the weather in Moscow happened to be pretty... MORE
KREMLIN MOVES AGAINST U.K. INTERESTS IN RUSSIA
Following last week’s raids on the Moscow offices of TNK-BP, the 50/50 joint venture between British Petroleum and three Russian oligarchs, the Federal Security Service (FSB) filed industrial espionage charges against Ilya Zaslavsky, a TNK-BP employee, and his brother Alexander, who heads the Alumni Club... MORE
CYPRUS: TOWARD REUNIFICATION OR A MORE CORDIAL SEPARATION?
On March 21, the leaders of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots agreed to restart comprehensive negotiations to reunify the divided island and, in a symbolic gesture, to reopen the Ledra Street crossing in Nicosia, which has been closed for nearly 45 years. Speaking after their... MORE
NATO MEMBERS STATING THE CASE FOR GEORGIAN AND UKRAINIAN MEMBERSHIP ACTION PLANS
The German government’s all-out, public campaign against Georgian and Ukrainian Membership Action Plans (MAPs) risks splitting NATO ahead of the alliance’s April 2-4 Bucharest summit. Germany alone has embarked on such a public crusade, in the avowed expectation that other NATO countries would follow Berlin’s... MORE
GAZPROM MAKES INROADS INTO SOUTH AMERICA
On March 17 Gazprom International Business Department head Stanislav Tsygankov signed an agreement on natural gas exploration in Bolivia with Santos Ramirez, president of the Bolivian state-owned petroleum company Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) in the presence of Bolivian President Evo Morales (Bolivian Information Agency,... MORE