Liz Fuller writes the Caucasus Report blog for RFE/RL.
Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov (left) and Vartan Oskarian (file photo) Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov made headlines on 17 May by claiming that Armenia is prepared to agree to the return of seven districts of Azerbaijan bordering on the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR).
U.S. President George W. Bush's pronouncements during his 9-10 May visit to Tbilisi were significant primarily for what he did not say. As anticipated, Bush expressed praise and approval for the November 2003 Rose Revolution; for the aspirations of the Georgian people to build on that foundation a new and democratic state; for the new Georgian leadership's success in cracking down on corruption and implementing badly-needed reforms; and for President Mikheil Saakashvili personally, whose "spirit, determination, and leadership in the cause of freedom" Bush singled out for special menti
On 2 May, the leaders of the Yeni Siyaset (New Policy, aka YeS) election bloc adopted a declaration entitled "From Authoritarianism to Democracy," which is intended to ensure that the parliamentary elections to be held in November are truly free and democratic.
Georgian Premier Noghaideli is pushing for a Russian withdrawal by 2007 (file photo) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's 25 April statement after talks in Moscow with his Georgian counterpart Salome Zourabichvili that Russia could begin withdrawing troops from its two remaining military bases in Georgia before the end of this year is being hailed as a breakthrough in bilateral relations.
How much has GUUAM's face changed since this 2002 summit, which included (from left)Azerbaijan's Heidar Aliyev, Georgia's Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma, and Moldova's Vladimir Voronin? 27 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Following Viktor Yushchenko's election late last year as Ukrainian president and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's espousal of an unequivocally pro-Western foreign policy orientation, many observers anticipated that the long-awaited summit of the GUUAM alignment in Chisinau on 22 April would herald a new era in that body's activities.
Is Basaev next? The reprisals that some anticipated would follow the killing on 8 March of Chechen leader and resistance forces commander Aslan Maskhadov have not taken place -- yet. A 20 April commentary posted by the website ari.ru attributed the comparative lull in hostilities in recent weeks to the statutory 40-day mourning period prescribed by Islam, which ended on 17 April.
20 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The success of the 17 April referendum on subsuming the Taimyr and Evenk autonomous okrugs into Krasnoyarsk Krai is likely to encourage those Russian officials who favor holding a similar referendum on abolishing the current status of the Republic of Adygeya (RA) by subsuming it into Krasnodar Krai, within which it constitutes an enclave.
At present, at least two youth organizations in Azerbaijan have hopes of spearheading regime change that will result in the advent to power of a truly democratic leadership. But while one of those movements focuses on the short term and has voiced its intention to support a specific bloc in the run-up to the parliamentary elections due in November, the other takes a longer-term view.
8 April 2005 -- The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, will meet in London on 15 April to discuss new proposals drafted by the OSCE Minsk Group for resolving the Karabakh conflict, a Moscow correspondent for RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported on 5 April quoting Yurii Merzlyakov, the Russian Minsk Group Co-chairman. Merzlyakov did not give details of the new peace plan, other than to warn that it will require mutual concessions from both sides. Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian warned last week that "painful" concessions are unavoidable (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 31 March 2005). The London talks will also determine whether Armenian President Robert Kocharian will meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev in Moscow next month on the sidelines of a Council of Europe summit in Warsaw.
Can the opposition topple President Ilham Aliyev? With seven months still to go before the November parliamentary elections, two new election blocs have already emerged in Azerbaijan and a third is expected to be formally unveiled this week. The two most recent alignments both highlight the role that individual personalities, rather than ideologies, continue to play in Azerbaijani politics.
Roza Otunbaeva, leader of Kyrgyzstan's Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) movement, made the transition to the political opposition after a career that spanned both the latter years of the Soviet Union and the first decade of Kyrgyzstan's independence.
Kulov talking to opposition supporters after his release on 24 March Feliks Kulov, former Kyrgyz vice president, Bishkek mayor, and chairman of the opposition party Ar-Namys, was released on 24 March from the Bishkek jail where he had served four years of a combined 17 year sentence on charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.
Saakashvilli (file photo) It took Mikheil Saakashvili a little over two years from the time he resigned as justice minister in the late summer of 2001 to emerge as the leader of an opposition alignment that succeeded in tapping popular disaffection with the corrupt and inept Georgian leadership and forcing the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze. Numerous prominent members of the former leadership are now disgraced or in pretrial custody. But a handful of them have recently joined forces with other opposition bodies with the aim of duplicating Saakashvili's success by precipitating the ouster of what they term a government of "dilettantes" and holding pre-term parliamentary and presidential elections.
A member of the Russian special forces after Maskhadov's death last week The death on 8 March of Chechen President and resistance commander Aslan Maskhadov has not resulted in the split within the ranks of the resistance that some Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen officials predicted. On the contrary, within 36 hours Akhmed Zakaev, Maskhadov's envoy in London, announced in a statement posted on chechenpress.co.uk, that Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev (or Saidullaev), chairman of the Sharia Supreme Court, will serve as president and military commander until such time as free elections can be held in Chechnya. Senior field commander Shamil Basaev pledged his support for Sadulaev on 10 March.
Deputies in Georgia's parilament voted unanimously on 10 March to call on the government to effectively blockade the bases if the two countries do not agree on their removal by mid-May.
Aslan Maskhadov in 2003 Chechen leader and resistance commander Aslan Maskhadov was killed on 8 March in a special operation in Tolstoi-Yurt, north of Grozny, Russian agencies reported, citing Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian federal forces in the North Caucasus. Maskhadov's envoy in London, Akhmed Zakaev, confirmed Maskhadov's death in a telephone call to RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service later on 8 March.
Aslan Maskhadov (file photo) Aslan Maskhadov supplied extensive answers on 4 March to questions submitted two weeks earlier via the Internet by RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service. The Russian text of the interview was also posted on 4 March on the pro-Maskhadov website chechenpress.co.uk.
Over the 10 months since the killing of his father, pro-Moscow administration head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov, Ramzan Kadyrov, 28, has emerged as the most influential and the most feared man in Chechnya.
Zurab Noghaideli (file photo) Much of the discussion about Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's choice of former Finance Minister Zurab Noghaideli to succeed Zurab Zhvania as prime minister has focussed on the balance of power between rival factions within the top leadership. But the choice of Noghaideli also suggests that Saakashvili is aware of the extent to which Georgia's future depends on continued and accelerated economic growth.
Troops outside Azerbaijan's presidential palace during the May 1992 crisis In the run-up to, and the years immediately following, the collapse of the USSR, private armies played a key role in political developments across the South Caucasus. Tengiz Kitovani's National Guard was instrumental in ousting Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in late 1991. Soon afterward, together with Djaba Ioseliani's Mkhedrioni, Kitovani's group triggered wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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