Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
ASTANA PLAYS RUSSIAN CARD IN ENERGY TALKS WITH EUROPE
Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov visited Baku on April 4, his first foreign tour since being appointed as head of the government in January. The trip followed the “EU Troika–Central Asia” meeting of foreign ministers in Astana on March 29, which was part of belated... MORE
ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTER REPLACES DECEASED PRIME MINISTER
Armenian President Robert Kocharian has appointed his longtime influential associate, Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian, as prime minister, formalizing the latter’s status as Armenia’s second-most powerful leader. The appointment, officially announced on April 4, has been widely anticipated ever since the sudden death on March 25... MORE
KYRGYZ OPPOSITION, PRESIDENT REFUSE TO NEGOTIATE TO PREVENT MASS DEMONSTRATIONS
With only one week left until Kyrgyzstan’s two main opposition blocs, “United Front” and “For Reforms,” plan to stage a large-scale demonstration to remove Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev from office, neither the president nor the opposition are willing to start negotiations. Meanwhile, Kyrgyz experts and... MORE
MOSCOW PRESSURING KAZAKHSTAN TO FRUSTRATE WESTBOUND ENERGY TRANSPORT PROJECTS
Kazakhstan is apparently facing Russian pressure to stay out of Western-supported energy projects and maximize the transit of Kazakh oil and gas via Russia. In recent days, President Nursultan Nazarbayev and other officials seem suddenly to be turning a cold shoulder to proposals for Kazakh... MORE
OPERATION BITE CAPTURES RUSSIAN ATTENTION
The tentative alliance between Russia and the West on the Iranian nuclear issue that seemed to emerge last month may be fizzling out and replaced by a renewed controversy over Iran and Ukraine. Russian officials have been accusing Washington of preparing a sneak attack on... MORE
RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN PURSUE ENERGY PARTNERSHIP
During a visit to Kazakhstan on March 30, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Kazakh officials signed a protocol to keep Kazakh crude oil shipments flowing via the Atyrau-Samara pipeline at 15 million tons per annum. Fradkov also said that Kazakhstan was seeking to increase... MORE
A NEW DAY FOR TURKMEN ENERGY
Even before the late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov was buried last December, foreign government delegations were scrambling to meet with his successor, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, either to get reassurance that earlier energy contracts would be honored or to angle for new ones to exploit the world’s... MORE
YUSHCHENKO RULES TO DISSOLVE PARLIAMENT
Yesterday, April 2, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree dissolving parliament, which the parliamentary majority immediately rejected. Yushchenko’s opponents -- the ruling coalition, consisting of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions (PRU), the Socialists, and the Communists -- believe that Yushchenko had no... MORE
RUSSIA SUSPICIOUS OF “BLOCS” IN CENTRAL ASIA
On March 27 a joint meeting of representatives from the Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and members of the OSCE Center in Dushanbe discussed security measures with the Tajik government. Saidmumin Yatimov, Tajikistan’s first deputy foreign minister, described the... MORE
READING AND MISREADING MOSCOW’S POSITIONS ON KOSOVO
On March 30 in Brussels, the meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union’s 27 member countries showed for the first time some cracks in the EU’s common front regarding conflict resolution in Kosovo. The EU collectively, as well as the United States... MORE