Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
MILINKEVICH FACES NEW TASKS
The leader of the United Democratic Forces of Belarus (UDF), Alyaksandr Milinkevich, has signed an agreement with the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front. According to the leader of the initiative group for the formation of the movement "For Freedom," Viktar Karnienka, the agreement is... MORE
KREMLIN SIGNS POWER-SHARING TREATY WITH TATARSTAN
In early November Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the State Duma a draft of a power-sharing treaty between the federal government and Tatarstan, an autonomous republic in the Volga region. Power-sharing agreements between Moscow and Russian regions were common under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s,... MORE
ROMANIAN PRESIDENT CONCERNED BY EUROPEAN DEPENDENCE ON RUSSIAN ENERGY
Interviewed in the current issue of the weekly Moskovskie Novosti (November 17), Romanian President Traian Basescu follows up on his remarks at a Jamestown Foundation conference in Washington (see Jamestown press release, August 3), calling for a Caspian-Black Sea-focused European energy supply strategy. No European... MORE
MOSCOW HOSTS THREE SECESSIONIST LEADERS
Sergei Bagapsh, Eduard Kokoiti, and Igor Smirnov, Russian-installed leaders respectively of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria, conferred with Russian government officials in Moscow on November 16-18, held a joint news conference, and were featured extensively on Russian state television channels. All three made it clear... MORE
GAZPROM RESHUFFLE FOLLOWS WARNINGS OF DOMESTIC GAS SHORTAGE
As Russia faces a natural gas shortage and the government mulls higher domestic prices for 2007, the gas monopoly Gazprom fired its top executive in charge of domestic supplies and some exports to the Commonwealth of Independent States. Following a government report that Russia could... MORE
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL ASIA: TIME FOR CHANGE?
On November 10 John Ordway, U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan, attempted to play down speculation that the Republican defeat in the U.S. mid-term elections could presage changes in Washington’s priorities in Central Asia. In fact, basing his assessment on the continuity of U.S. foreign policy in... MORE
PRO-OSSETIAN AUTHORITIES EMERGING IN SOUTH OSSETIA
The Tbilisi-backed Union for National Salvation of Ossetians (UNSO) conducted its own referendum and presidential election in South Ossetia on November 12, as an alternative to the referendum and election conducted that day by the Moscow-installed authorities (see EDM, November 15). Residents of villages with... MORE
STRENGTHENING THE “EASTERN VECTOR”: ANKARA HOSTS TURKIC SUMMIT
Leaders of Turkic nations are meeting today, November 17, in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya. This first summit of Turkish-speaking peoples in five years appears to reflect Ankara’s ongoing rethinking about its international identity. Increasingly frustrated with the mounting hurdles on the path of... MORE
KAZAKH, UZBEK PRESIDENTS CONFER OVER LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN KYRGYZSTAN
On November 3 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid an informal visit to Uzbekistan. The trip came as a complete surprise inside Kazakhstan, as it had not been announced in advance and looked like a spontaneous decision. Nazarbayev had been touring South Kazakhstan and he arrived... MORE
KYRGYZSTAN’S NEW CONSTITUTION PROMISES SUBSTANTIAL, LONG-TERM CHANGES
Kyrgyzstan has become the first Central Asian country to endorse a constitution that proclaims a parliamentary state system and significantly trims the president’s powers. This achievement is the result of popular demand, voiced through almost week-long demonstrations organized by the “For Reforms” opposition bloc. According... MORE