Field Reports
PRESIDENT NAZARBAYEV DISSOLVES PARLIAMENT’S LOWER CHAMBER
By Georgiy Voloshin (11/16/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On November 16, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree dissolving the lower chamber of the country’s Parliament, thus responding to the request of a group of 53 Majilis deputies submitted a week earlier. As the representatives of this initiative group explained during a press conference, such a move had become inevitable in order to adjust to current international circumstances, with the second wave of the economic crisis threatening to bring down Kazakhstan’s financial system and cause irreparable damage to its economic prospects. The deputies believe that the dissolution of the Majilis will enable the entry into Parliament of a second party whose role would be to reinvigorate political debate and present original solutions that the presidential party might have previously missed or ignored.
AFTER RELEASE, TAJIK JOURNALISTS SEEK EXONERATION
By Alexander Sodiqov (11/2/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Two Tajik journalists who were recently convicted in separate trials on charges related to their professional activities have appealed their verdicts. On October 14, reporters Urunboy Usmonov and Mahmadyusuf Ismoilov were handed guilty verdicts by Tajik courts in the northern town of Khujand, but were freed following the verdicts. Despite their release, the two journalists have refused to accept the verdicts and vowed to push for full exoneration in higher courts.
AZERBAIJAN IN THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL
By Mina Muradova (11/2/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
For the first time in its history, Azerbaijan has become a member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) after winning the final vacancy on the 15-member body. Analysts speculate on how Baku will use this opportunity to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh which remains unsolved after over 20 years. Azerbaijan claimed the non-permanent seat, awarded to an Eastern European country, on the 17th round of balloting after it scored 155 votes from UN member states in the General Assembly – well above the required two-third majority of states present and voting.
NAZARBAYEV SUPPORTS PUTIN’S EURASIAN UNION BUT REMAINS CAUTIOUS
By Georgiy Voloshin (11/2/2011 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the last of the three presidents of the Customs Union member states – Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus – to react to Vladimir Putin’s recent article, published in one of Russia’s most read newspapers, about the prospects of creating a full-blown economic entity modeled after the European Union.
In his in-depth review of the economic integration among what in late 1991 became the Commonwealth of Independent States and later within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Community, Nazarbayev described the far-reaching goals of multilateral cooperation between former Soviet countries, with full respect for their national sovereignty and identity.
He also warned against any attempts to depict the ongoing process of “rapprochement” between Moscow, Minsk, and Astana, with the possible inclusion of other capitals, as a revival of the Soviet Union.
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Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, "Promise and Peril in the Caucasus," AFPC Insights, March 30, 2023.
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Putin's War In Ukraine and the Crimean War), 19fourtyfive, January 2, 2023
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Russia Needs Its Own Charles de Gaulle, Foreign Policy, July 21, 2022.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Rethinking Greater Central Asia: American and Western Stakes in the Region and How to Advance Them, June 2022
Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell Russia's Southern Neighbors Take a Stand, The Hill, May 6, 2022.
Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, Strong and Unique: Three Decades of U.S.-Kazakhstan Partnership, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, December 2021.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.