Kazakhstan’s Bid for the UN Security Council
By Johan Engvall
December 14th, 2015, The CACI Analyst
Since independence, Kazakhstan’s foreign policy – and its multilateral relations in particular – has expressed a clear logic: to develop a role as a respectable international citizen that can be a pragmatic partner with all quarters of the globe. The decision to launch its bid for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for 2017 can be seen as the ultimate commitment to this role. At the same time, seeking a UNSC-seat is but one part of an increasingly urgent need to assert Kazakhstan’s sovereignty and statehood and to counter the Western notion of the country as being under Russia’s thumb.
The EU and Central Asia: Developing Transport and Trade
By S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell
December 10th, 2015, The CACI Analyst
A number of initiatives have combined to make the development of continental transport and trade across the heartland of Eurasia a reality rather than a mere vision. Some of these have been external, while many have been internal to the region. Yet Europe, which launched the visionary TRACECA program in the early 1990s, is largely absent from the scene today. Yet if Europe works with Central Asian states, it stands to benefit greatly from this process. This would involve work to make the transport corridors more attuned to market logic; to promote the development of soft infrastructure; to pay attention to the geopolitics of transport and support the Caucasus and Caspian corridor; and not least, to look ahead to the potential of linking Europe through Central Asia not just to China, but also to the Indian subcontinent.
- Central Asia
- TRACECA program
- Silk Road
- Kazakhstan
- China
- India
- Caucasus
- One Road One Belt OBOR
- Afghanistan
- Grader port
- Zhezkazgan Beinenu rail link
- Arkalyk Shubarkol rail link
- Pakistan
- TAPI Pipeline
- Aqua port
- Georgia
- Batumi port
- Poti port
- Turkmenistan
- EU Kazakhstan Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
- European Union
- Eurasian continental trade
Russia's Gazprom to deepen its presence in the Georgian market?
By Natalia Konarzewska
December 7th, 2015, The CACI Analyst
After meeting with Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller in Milan on September 25, Georgia’s Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze announced that the parties discussed increasing Russia’s transit of gas to Armenia and opened a possibility for Georgian commercial entities to buy additional volumes of Russian gas. In October, Kaladze reiterated that Tbilisi wants to diversify its natural gas routes and suppliers through imports from Russia and possibly Iran. No details about the eventual increase of gas shipments from Russia have so far been revealed. Yet the prospective agreement has already caused controversy among Georgian political opposition, which questions Gazprom’s reliability as a gas supplier, and raised concerns in Azerbaijan, which is Georgia’s largest gas provider.
What does the friction between Russia and Turkey mean for Armenia?
By Eduard Abrahamyan
December 3rd, 2015, The CACI Analyst
The Turkish Air force’s downing of a Russian Su-24 warplane on November 24, has deteriorated relations between the two states, already tense after Russia’s increasing military engagement in the Syrian conflict. The incident represented the first direct clash between Moscow’s and Ankara’s interests in the Middle East and could potentially extend the geography of the enduring standoff between Russia and the West. Yet it has been met in the West with some understanding of Russia’s concerns. Turkey’s response to Russia’s consistent violations of its airspace coincided with an anticipated accord between Armenia and Russia on the establishment of a joint missile air defense system that will be deployed during a visit of Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu to Yerevan.
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