By Erica Marat (10/19/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Kyrgyzstan is about to hold presidential elections that will potentially mark the first peaceful and lawful transfer of power in the country and in the region. Most in Kyrgyzstan expect Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev to win the elections. The question, however, remains whether the elections will proceed without major violations and move Kyrgyzstan one step further in political development, or cause a deeper divide within the country into north and south.
By Niklas Nilsson (10/19/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Attention to the Eastern Partnership Summit held on September 30 focused largely on Belarus’ refusal to participate and the implications of the Timoshenko trial for Ukraine’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA). However, the summit also highlighted some of the problems inherent in EU engagement with its Eastern neighbors, and especially in the case of Georgia. While Georgia’s EU orientation has become stronger after the 2008 war, many of the reforms required from Georgia to start negotiations for a DCFTA conflict with Georgia’s own market liberalization reforms.
By Rafis Abazov (10/5/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
This fall several thousand students in Kazakhstan will enter universities of a very different type – research universities.
By Emil Souleimanov (10/5/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Mass demonstrations of ethnic Azerbaijanis protesting the drying up of Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, the Middle East’s largest water reservoir and the third largest salt-water lake in the world, recently struck the cities of Iranian Azerbaijan. Although information from the region is scarce, numerous reports state that hundreds of protesters have been beaten, arrested and mistreated by Iranian police and security forces.
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.
Sign up for upcoming events, latest news and articles from the CACI Analyst