By Asel Murzakulova (3/31/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On March 23-24, President Kurmanbek Bakiev initiated a national civil forum in Kyrgyzstan through the Kurultai of Consent, a traditional form of public gathering, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Tulip Revolution. On March 17, the opposition held an alternative Kurultai on the eighth anniversary of the “Aksy- events”, when six people were killed during antigovernment manifestations. The two events signify an emerging type of interaction between government and opposition and a struggle for improving their public legitimacy, a resource clearly lacking for both sides.
By Stephen Blank (3/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The U.S. has started to formulate and implement more comprehensive policies for Central Asia.
By Vahagn Muradyan (3/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Turkish-Armenian protocols signed last year in Zurich raised concerns that the perspective of Georgia’s decreased significance as a transit country for Armenia may boost nationalist demands around the Armenian minority in Georgia and cause new instability. While the protocols may not materialize in the foreseeable future, thus never inducing visible change in Yerevan’s policies, developments observed since the activation of Turkish-Armenian negotiations suggest that in case of full normalization Yerevan may attempt more assertive policies to uphold the cultural rights of Armenians in Georgia, without supporting their political demands and calls for autonomy.
BACKGROUND: Armenian policies towards Georgia have been traditionally shaped by two factors: interest in safe transit for the Armenian and Armenia-bound goods through Georgia, and the situation with the Armenian minority in Georgia’s Samtskhe–Javakheti region with the accompanying issue of preserving the Armenian cultural heritage in Georgia.
By Dmitry Shlapentokh (3/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Dmitry Rogozhin, Russian representative to NATO, and General Boris Gromov, a general who fought in Afghanistan, recently published an open letter about NATO in The New York Times. NATO was presented as an alliance lacking a will to fight, where especially the Europeans members were ready to cut and run in Afghanistan. They concluded this would be a great disaster and that the West should remember that the USSR had defended “Western civilization” at large in Afghanistan.
The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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