The Russian government has urged accelerated development of the country's Far East and pledged sizable investments for regions bordering China and the Pacific. However, some executives of Russia's state-controlled enterprises apparently prefer to rely on imported labor in their Far Eastern projects, prompting loud complaints... MORE

The United Russia party is holding a congress today, December 17, during which it will likely officially nominate First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as its presidential candidate, thereby formalizing a move that the party made jointly with three other pro-Kremlin parties a week ago... MORE

Analysts and observers both inside and outside Russia have pointed to President Vladimir Putin’s apparent choice of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to be his designated successor as a sign that Kremlin policy, at least in the realm of economics, may be moving toward... MORE

On April 12, Chief of the Turkish General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt said that a cross-border operation into northern Iraq was necessary to better fight the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It took eight months, over 200 Turkish casualties and several very important meetings... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin has finally designated First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his preferred successor. Almost immediately, Medvedev announced that he will ask Putin to be his prime minister "in the interests of the continuity of Putin's internal and foreign policies" (RIA-Novosti, December... MORE

Yesterday’s announcement by United Russia and three other parties that First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will be their candidate in the March 2008 presidential election, followed by President Vladimir Putin’s blessing of Medvedev’s candidacy, appears at first glance to mean that “Operation Successor” has... MORE

The Salafi-Jihadi ideology, the doctrine and constitution of al-Qaeda’s terrorists, is being re-evaluated by prominent Salafi-Jihadi ideologues. The same ideologues that previously sanctioned terrorist operations are now having second thoughts about the ideology behind many heinous terrorist acts. Last month Sayed Imam Abdulaziz al-Sharif, a... MORE

In November, Turkish journalist Fikret Bila published a book entitled Komutanlar Cephesi (“The Commanders’ Front”) based on interviews with eight retired Turkish military commanders (Detay Yayıncılık, 2007). Prior to its publication, extracts from the book were serialized in Turkish in Milliyet (see Eurasia Daily Monitor,... MORE

Russia has slipped into a distinctly anti-climactic mood since the December 2 parliamentary elections delivered exactly the result planned in the Kremlin. In hindsight the massive propaganda campaign appears to be overkill, leaving an aftertaste of Soviet manifestations of “unbreakable unity,” so even the triumphant... MORE