Liz Fuller writes the Caucasus Report blog for RFE/RL.
Recent media reports in Georgia and the West have fueled speculation that a second round of military conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi could resume as early as the spring. But Georgian officials point to one main reason why this is unlikely: the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership signed early this year.
Visits to Yerevan by EU special envoy Ambassador Peter Semneby over the past week suggest that the EU is aware of the potential for new bloodshed and seeks at all costs not only to prevent it, but to bring about a rapprochement between Ter-Petrossian and the authorities.
In recent weeks, the opposition to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has aligned in two main camps. Both are demanding new presidential elections, but they differ on timing and tactics, with one demanding gradual and the other more immediate political change.
The global financial crisis has already caused the downfall of any number of successful and influential bankers. But the dismissal of Mukhtar Abliyazov, until recently chairman of Bank Turan-Alem (BTA), Kazakhstan's largest privately owned bank, is unique in that it raises the possibility of a new round of political infighting within the upper echelons of the country's leadership.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that PACE has become the hostage of a paradigm it adopted in good faith in 2000-01, when the South Caucasus states were accepted as Council of Europe members on the assumption that the respective governments were sincere in their commitments to democratization.
Republic of Ingushetia President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov is already facing a serious challenge to his authority from many Ingush who expressed approval and optimism at his appointment just three months ago.
In late December, 47 Russian State Duma deputies added their signatures to an appeal by their fellow deputy, Mikhail Zalikhanov, to the Constitutional Court and the Prosecutor-General's Office arguing that recent legislation on land enacted by the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic parliament is unconstitutional and violates the rights of the Balkar people. But most of them have since withdrawn their support, and a number of organizations from the KBR have demanded Zalikhanov be ejected from the federal legislature.
If Putin was counting on Daghestan's president to quash the Islamic resistance, which staged more than 70 separate attacks in 2005 that killed dozens of police and military personnel, he miscalculated: despite the deaths of successive leaders and dozens of rank-and-file fighters, Daghestan's Shariat jamaat not only still exists, but continues to target with deadly regularity those it considers infidels and traitors.
The oldest Islamic resistance group in Daghestan claims that its propaganda campaign is proving successful, and more people now believe the Caucasus can survive without Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on January 20 paid an unannounced visit to Ingushetia. The Russian leader described the security situation in the republic as "difficult," and pledged nearly 30 billion rubles in economic aid.
A year ago, Mikheil Saakashvili was reelected president, just two months after a peaceful opposition demonstration was forcibly dispersed. Since then, a disastrous war with Russia has raised questions about his political judgment and mental stability, as several of his former closest allies went into opposition.
Following the passage of a federal law on self-government in Chechnya and Ingushetia, Chechen human rights organizations have demanded that the border between the two republics be formally delineated to return to Chechen jurisdiction some districts that have been part of Ingushetia since 1934. But the Ingush are reluctant to cede that territory.
After violent clashes in March, seven prominent opposition figures are on trial in Yerevan on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. But for many in Armenia, the charges are regarded as highly unsubstantiated.
In the 100 days since his inauguration as Karachayevo-Cherkessia's president, Boris Ebzeyev has angered the Circassian minority by violating an unwritten agreement on the distribution of top posts among various ethnic groups. That anger contributed to the decision last month to ask Moscow to create a separate Circassian republic comprising those districts of the North Caucasus where Circassians are a majorit
Meeting in Moscow a month ago, the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia signed a joint declaration reaffirming their shared commitment to resolving the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict exclusively by diplomatic means, through political negotiations mediated by the OSCE's Minsk Group, and taking as the basis for further discussion the principles presented to the conflict sides in November 2007 in Madrid at the annual OSCE foreign ministers meeting.
Georgia's third prime minister in a year, Grigol Mgaloblishvili, has announced the dismissal of the ministers of defense, foreign affairs, and education -- the fifth cabinet reshuffle in a little over a year.
The NATO foreign ministers' decision not to offer Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine should not have surprised anyone. Nor should their reaffirmation of the provision enshrined in the final document of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest that those two countries will at some unspecified future date join the alliance. But the fact remains that both Georgia and Ukraine still fall short of basic NATO standards in terms of both political reform and military readiness.
More than last month's utterly predictable presidential ballot, more even than the November 2 meeting in Moscow between the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, a recent interview by the acclaimed Moscow-based Azerbaijani writer and film director Rustam Ibragimbekov has galvanized and polarized Azerbaijan's political elite and intelligentsia.
Two recent developments in Chechnya reflect the extent to which republic head Ramzan Kadyrov can still impose his will on Moscow to rid himself of any figure whom he perceives as a potential threat to his authority.
The Ingush opposition reacted with jubilation to the dismissal on October 30 of the republic's ineffective and discredited president, Murat Zyazikov. And they have expressed their approval of and support for Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the career military-intelligence officer selected by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as Zyazikov's successor. But there has been no noticeable decline since Yevkurov's appointment in the number of attacks by the armed resistance on police and security forces in Ingushet
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