By empty (2/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Talks in Tbilisi on 18 February between visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and senior Georgian officials failed to defuse any of the major sticking points in bilateral relations, Georgian and Russian media reported. The visit was blighted from the beginning by Lavrov\'s refusal to lay a wreath at a monument in Tbilisi to Georgian troops killed during the offensives launched again the unrecognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the early 1990s. Lavrov told journalists that, contrary to normal diplomatic procedure, that event was not included in the preliminary schedule of engagements until the day before his visit.

By empty (2/18/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

President Vladimir Putin said after his meeting in the Kremlin on 18 February with visiting Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Hojatoleslam Hassan Rohani that Iran has no plans to develop nuclear weapons. Putin said that \"recent actions of the Iranian side\" have convinced Russia that Iran does not intend to produce nuclear weapons. \"This means that we will continue our cooperation in all spheres, including the nuclear sphere,\" Putin added.

By empty (2/18/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In his annual address to the nation before a joint session of parliament on 18 February, President Nursultan Nazarbaev hailed Kazakhstan\'s achievements over the past 10 years and proposed the creation of a Central Asian union. Nazarbaev stressed that the preceding decade has seen Kazakh citizens\' wages, salaries, savings, and pensions rise significantly. \"For the first time in our history, we have created an independent state constructed on the principles of Western democracy, taking into account the experience of leading East-Asian states and the specific features of our society, with its many ethnicities and faiths,\" Nazarbaev said.