By Tigran Martirosyan (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Azerbaijan\'s President Heydar Aliyev recently mentioned that during peace talks in Paris in March 2001, he and Armenian President Robert Kocharian reached a deal that envisaged an equal exchange of territories between the two countries as part of a broader framework agreement to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Aliyev hence admitted for the first time the existence of so-called \"Paris principles\" of a settlement to the conflict, and accused Armenia of backtracking on the deal during the subsequent talks in Key West, Florida, in April 2001. The Azerbaijani interpretation of the deal entailed that Armenia would surrender a strip over its southern district of Meghri, offering Azerbaijan direct access to Nakhichevan and from there to Turkey, in return for Armenia\'s sovereignty over the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

By Hooman Peimani (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Sudden independence in 1991 imposed on the five Central Asian countries a transitional process from the Soviet command economy to a type of market economy. Today, their economic systems have all the negative characteristics of the two systems while lacking most of their positive ones. They suffer from numerous problems with a direct social impact, including declining living standards, high unemployment and increasing poverty.

By James Purcell Smith (8/28/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND:  In July 2002, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Administration decided to drop efforts to seek dialogue with reformist forces in Tehran, and instead, to look for democratic changes in Iran.