Liz Fuller writes the Caucasus Report blog for RFE/RL.
Last year's violence in Tbilisi focused attention on the extent to which the initial wave of democratization that followed the Rose Revolution had rolled back. A year later, the Georgian opposition is still angry and pressure on President Mikheil Saakashvili is again mounting.
The Declaration On Regulating the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict signed by the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia can be regarded as a victory for Armenia in three key respects
The announcement that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Moscow at the invitation of the Russian president to discuss ways to resolve the Karabakh conflict has fuelled speculation about an imminent breakthrough in the peace process. Russia's foreign minister has said the two sides have reached agreement on all but two or three key points and that there is "a very real chance" of resolving the conflict.
On October 30, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accepted the allegedly voluntary resignation of Murat Zyazikov from the post of president of the Republic of Ingushetia, who turned a blind eye to egregious corruption among his subordinates that has further impoverished a region already heavily dependent on federal subsidies that has an unemployment rate of 67 percent.
The brief August war between Georgia and Russia served to highlight the destabilizing potential of unresolved conflicts in the Caucasus and thus lent a new urgency to ongoing efforts to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The internationally sponsored talks on the aftermath of the August war between Georgia and Russia broke down at the opening session in Geneva as the result of disagreements over procedural issues.
Under pressure from the international community, the Armenian parliament set up an ad hoc commission in June to investigate the March clashes in Yerevan between supporters of the defeated opposition presidential candidate and security forces that resulted in 10 deaths. As the commission prepared to issue its results, however, it has pushed back the deadline to incorporate the findings of yet another commission.
The president of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic recently met for the first time in his three years in office with representatives of the Balkar minority, who have long alleged discrimination at the hands of the Kabardian majority, to which Kanokov belongs. Though the president denies the Balkars are discriminated against, ethnic tensions are mounting in the republic.
On October 13, 2005, some 150-200 young local Muslims launched multiple attacks on police and security facilities in Nalchik, capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic. The attackers killed 35 police and security personnel and 14 civilians, but lost 92 of their own. Many of the survivors were apprehended and are currently on trial. Nevertheless, the Islamic resistance across the North Caucasus is today stronger, more organized, more ideologically cohesive, and more deadly than it was three years ago.
There is little doubt that the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party will win a huge majority in today's parliamentary elections in Chechnya. RFE/RL analyst Liz Fuller argues that the election campaign has been stage-managed down to the smallest detail and widespread falsifications are likely.
Georgia's human rights ombudsman has warned the country that the present leadership has brought Georgia to the edge of an abyss, and that without "dramatic change," catastrophe is inevitable. "Remaining silent and taking no action at this juncture is tantamount to a crime," he declared.
Azerbaijan and Belarus are both authoritarian regimes in which opposition political parties, while guaranteed freedom to function by the constitution, are routinely harassed, sidelined, and deprived of access to the media.
Two events over the past three weeks -- the landmark visit to Yerevan on September 6 by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and the resignation on September 19 under pressure of parliament speaker Tigran Torosian -- have again focused attention on possible fissures within Armenia's coalition government.
The shooting death of Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the website ingushetiya.ru, has served to focus attention both within Russia and abroad on the catastrophic breakdown in law and order in Ingushetia since the election in 2002 of Murat Zyazikov as president. Whether popular anger at Yevloyev's killing will serve as the catalyst for the emergence of a structured and effective opposition movement remains unclear, however.
Azerbaijan is central to Russian aspirations to preserve the maximum influence over the South Caucasus. The international community's primary interest in that region is Caspian hydrocarbons, and Azerbaijan is the key to their export to international markets. In seeking to diversify export options for its oil and gas, Azerbaijan's leaders have therefore been constrained to balance the unequivocal support of the West for the construction of pipelines that bypass Russian territory, with the need fo
The five proposed members of the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Pact have no shared objective or vision that would serve as an incentive for setting aside their differences.
In a move that analysts believe heralds an intensification of the rivalry between President Serzh Sarkisian and his predecessor Robert Kocharian, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) is seeking to oust parliament speaker Tigran Torosian and replace him with a longtime Kocharian loyalist, Hovik Abrahamian.
By formally abjuring the use of force, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has fulfilled a key precondition for the implementation of the outstanding provisions of the August 12 cease-fire and three additional points agreed on September 8 during talks in Moscow between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The Azerbaijani authorities have accused Islamist militants from neighboring Daghestan of being behind a bombing at a mosque in Baku last month. But would militants from the North Caucasus bomb their co-religionists? Could someone else be responsible, in an attempt to sow ethnic discord?
In the late 1990s, Chechen fighters under the command of Ruslan Gelayev regularly crossed the border between Chechnya and Georgia and established a rear base in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge. But that Chechen presence dwindled following Gelayev's death in February 2004. Until now, there have been no reports that the resistance has spread south from Daghestan into Azerbaijan.
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