Field Reports
GEORGIAN-NATO RELATIONS RECEIVE BOOST FROM BRUSSELS
By Kakha Jibladze (3/7/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On February 27, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels. The meeting followed a generally positive report from a NATO assessment team that spent five days in Tbilisi. According to Scheffer, while the “road” to NATO is “long and winding,” Georgia is “on track.KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS RUSSIAN ASSISTANCE TO MODERNIZE ITS ARMY
By Marat Yermukanov (3/7/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
After ten years of widely publicized military reform, Kazakhstan’s defense industry is almost non-existent. The deplorable state of the country’s defense system challenges the ability of Danial Akhmetov, newly appointed defense minister, to heal the wounds left by the crisis in the army.On February 16, a Russian-made MiG 31B interceptor jet fighter of the Kazakhstani Air Force crashed under unknown circumstances six kilometers north of Qaraghandy in Central Kazakhstan.
KYRGYZ MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, PARLIAMENT WANT TO LEGALIZE POLYGAMY
By Erica Marat (3/7/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Since then, Kyrgyzstan’s gender representation records has drastically worsened, placing the country behind all other post-Soviet states. In fact, Kyrgyzstan today is comparable with countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, where parliaments do not feature a single female representative.The recent initiative by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Justice to remove polygamy from the criminal code, and make it a matter of moral judgment, is partly a result of poor female representation in the governing structures.
PROPERTY RIGHTS ROW TARNISHES GEORGIAN GOVERNMENT’S IMAGE
By Kakha Jibladze (2/21/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In December 2006, opposition leader Kakha Kukava, an MP with the Conservative party, started a campaign against alleged property violations on behalf of a group of business people in downtown Tbilisi who reportedly were forced to “give” their property to the government.The issue took on additional weight once the opposition television station Imedi broke the story of the Tbilisi city mayor’s office seizing apartments that the previous government had given to famous Georgians. Soon after, the city also started to seize and destroy small businesses and kiosks around the city.
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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.