On October 27 Kazakhstan officials announced plans to turn Almaty into an international financial center. The proclamation came as no surprise to anyone familiar with the decision-making process within the higher echelons of power in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev himself had raised the plan during... MORE

Almaty, Kazakhstan's former capital city, has been drawn into the bitter debates between Kazakh nationalists and the Russian-speaking community. Recently a resident of Almaty sued the popular Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty Kazakhstan for spelling the name of the city as "Alma-Ata," ignoring the officially... MORE

Visiting Tajikistan on October 16-17 to mark the ratification and entry into force of a military basing agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin observed that relations with Tajikistan exemplified Russia's "comprehensive approach" to dealing with post-Soviet countries. That approach entails coordination of the military-security and economic... MORE

The Speaker of the Kazakhstan Majilis, the lower house of the Kazakhstan Parliament, announced his resignation on October 18 in protest over what he termed crude violations of electoral process in Kazakhstan's September parliamentary elections. Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, who went public with his complaints of executive... MORE

On October 15 the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan banned activities by al-Qaeda, the Islamic Party of East Turkestan, the Kurdish People's Congress, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Law enforcement sources did not give plausible explanations for singling out these particular organizations as forces threatening... MORE

The removal of Craig Murray, the United Kingdom's ambassador to Uzbekistan, has emerged as the culmination of a series of events linked to his critique of the government of Uzbekistan. The actual causes belli centered upon allegations Murray made in an internal memo circulated within... MORE

On October 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the now legal Russian military base in Tajikistan. One day earlier in Dushanbe, Putin and Tajikistan President Imomali Rakhmonov exchanged the instruments of ratification for the April 1999 agreement that conferred basing rights on the Russian Army... MORE

Recent developments clearly indicate that China and Russia are stepping up their efforts to claim a larger share of Kazakhstan's energy sector. The growing appetite of Kazakhstan's giant neighbors comes at a time when prices for gas and diesel oil in Kazakhstan, the second largest... MORE

The government of Kazakhstan is targeting the three Baltic states as possible avenues for closer relations with the European Union. In the first years of Baltic-Kazakhstan relations, the Kazakh side invariably stressed the priority of mutual economic interests. This over-cautious attitude was partly prompted by... MORE

Since the deployment of U.S. and coalition forces to Ganci airbase at Manas, Kyrgyzstan has been keen to develop its case for increased U.S. security assistance. Numerous agreements have been signed and revised, keeping alive the current tenuous and controversial security relationship between the two... MORE