Liz Fuller writes the Caucasus Report blog for RFE/RL.
On 3 February, the Chechen resistance website chechenpress.com posted a statement by President Aslan Maskhadov's envoy Umar Khambiev announcing that Maskhadov issued instructions to his forces on 14 January to observe a unilateral cease-fire until the end of February. According to Khambiev, that command was intended as a goodwill gesture that could pave the way for unconditional talks aimed at ending more than five years of fighting.
Many have said that Zhvania will be hard to replace 3 February 2005 -- Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania died early today due to an apparent gas leak in an apartment. RFE/RL Caucasus analyst Liz Fuller looks back at Zhvania's career.
Iranian fishermen reel in sturgeon on the Caspian Sea More than 13 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea have still not reached agreement on dividing the sea and its resources among themselves.
The long-awaited draft power-sharing agreement between Chechnya and the Russian federal government is finally ready for signing, Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Djabrailov announced on 18 January -- almost two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin dubbed it the logical next step in the process of "normalizing" Chechnya following the adoption in a controversial referendum of a new constitution for the region.
In the late summer of 2004, British parliamentarian David Atkinson, who succeeded Terry Davis as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's (PACE) rapporteur for Nagorno-Karabakh, was tasked with completing a report begun by Davis for the assembly on the situation in the disputed region.
In order not to risk jeopardizing any rapprochement that has been achieved, the participants in what has come to be known as the "Prague process" of ministerial level talks under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group on approaches to resolving the Karabakh conflict have until now abided by a gentlemen's agreement not to divulge to the press the specific topics under discussion.
Ramzan Kadyrov (center) at his father's funeral in May Since the death of his father, Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, in a terrorist bombing on 9 May, 28-year-old Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has emerged as the most powerful and the most feared man in Chechnya despite his lack of formal education and the alleged involvement of his security force in the systematic abduction, torture, and execution of Chechen civilians.
Can the opposition unseat President Ilham Aliyev? Having failed in his year-long campaign to induce fellow opposition party leaders to back a single candidate in the October 2003 Azerbaijani presidential election, in late December 2004 Ali Kerimli, 39, chairman of the progressive wing of the divided Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, launched a new appeal to those same colleagues to join forces to contest the parliamentary elections due in November 2005 as a single opposition bloc. Specifically, Kerimli hopes to forge a broad opposition coalition that will field one candidate only in each of Azerbaijan's 125 constituencies. But another joint body has already emerged with the proclaimed aim of promoting free elections and fielding candidates in every constituency. And the Azerbaijani authorities may be mulling a diabolical and ingenious move to split the opposition vote even further.
Mikheil Saakashvili: No friend of journalists? While the new Georgian leadership that came to power in November 2003 has tackled many of the negative phenomena that characterized the Shevardnadze era, one sphere in which conditions have not improved markedly is journalism -- at least in the estimation of many journalists.
When President Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled Georgia's new government 10 months ago, he stressed two factors: ministers' relative youth and their extreme professionalism. Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania for his part characterized his cabinet as "a united team of professionals who think alike," according to Reuters on 17 February.
Ten years ago, on 11 December 1994, the Russian Army rolled into Chechnya on orders from Russian President Boris Yeltsin in a bid to overthrow then Chechen President Djokhar Dudaev, who had proclaimed Chechnya's independence from the Russian Federation three years earlier. That military intervention heralded almost a decade of war in which Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov estimates that 250,000 Chechen civilians have been killed, and the Chechen capital, Grozny, has been largely destroyed. Russian troop deaths over that period are estimated at between 15,000-30,000, compared with the 14,453 Soviet troops killed between 1979 and 1989 in Afghanistan.
Former Abkhaz Prime Minister Raul Khadjimba, who refuses to accept the 11 October ruling by Abkhazia's Central Election Commission that his rival, Chernomorenergo head Sergei Bagapsh, won the 3 October presidential ballot with 50.08 percent of the vote, proposed to Bagapsh on 17 November that they should both agree not to participate in a repeat presidential ballot that outgoing President Vladislav Ardzinba called for on 29 October. But Bagapsh, who has already scheduled his inauguration for 6 December, immediately rejected that proposal as "unacceptable for us," Caucasus Press reported.
Former Prime Minister Khadjimba voting on 3 October Several people were injured, one seriously, on 12 November when supporters of Abkhaz presidential candidate Sergei Bagapsh forced their way into the building in Sukhum that houses the government and presidential offices, proclaiming Bagapsh the winner of the 3 October ballot to elect a successor to outgoing President Vladislav Ardzinba.
In an exclusive interview on 9 November with RFE/RL's Armenian Service, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that he and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov made "serious progress" during their four rounds of talks on approaches to resolving the Karabakh conflict. Oskanian said it is now possible to begin a second stage of talks building on what was achieved earlier, and that Azerbaijan has signaled its readiness for such talks. "Armenia has already given its positive answer and is ready to resume the negotiations [as early as] tomorrow," Oskanian said.
Aslan Maskhadov has sent a telegram to George W. Bush congratulating him on his reelection to a second term as U.S. president, chechenpress.info reported on 5 November. Maskhadov characterizes the United States as a country that embodies for all mankind the principles of democracy and human rights. He said that in their unequal struggle, the Chechen people derive inspiration from the values proclaimed by the U.S. founding fathers. He hailed President Bush personally as embodying "the lofty principles that are fundamental for all those who battle against tyranny."
In a statement released on 4 November and summarized by Turan, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry expressed the hope that Washington's policy towards Azerbaijan will continue unchanged in the wake of President George W. Bush's reelection.
Senior defense officials in Georgia and Armenia appeared convinced that given their respective countries' geopolitical significance, no changes were likely in bilateral relations with the United States, whatever the outcome of the 2 November U.S. presidential election. Georgian Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze told journalists on 2 November that relations between Georgia and the United States are "fundamental" and that both U.S. presidential candidates support the idea of further developing relations with Georgia, especially in the sphere of counterterrorism, Caucasus Press reported.
Since masterminding the hostage taking in the south Russian town of Budennovsk in the summer of 1995, radical Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist acts that have claimed hundreds of Russian lives. His ill-fated incursion into Daghestan in August 1999 in the wake of an unsuccessful attempt to sideline Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov served as the rationale for the Russian leadership to launch its second war against Chechnya in October of that year under the pretext of combating terrorism.
With less than two months left before the municipal elections scheduled for 17 December, Azerbaijan's ruling Yeni Azerbaycan Party (YAP) is already set to preserve its control over local councils across the country.
Acting on a proposal from Alu Alkhanov, head of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, Dmitrii Kozak, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin named last month as his envoy to the South Russia Federal District, named Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov on 19 October as his adviser on security issues.
Load more
