News Digest
ARMENIAN OPPOSITION URGED TO END PARLIAMENT BOYCOTT
By empty (8/16/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Galust Sahakian, who heads the parliament faction of Prime Minister Andranik Markarian\'s Republican Party of Armenia, told RFE/RL\'s Armenian Service on 13 August that in recent weeks he has met with unnamed opposition leaders in an attempt to persuade them to abandon their six-month boycott of parliamentary proceedings. The 24 opposition parliamentarians declared that boycott in early February to protest what they termed the majority\'s \"illegal\" refusal to debate proposed constitutional amendments that would pave the way for a referendum of confidence in President Robert Kocharian. Sahakian said renewed opposition participation in the legislative process could contribute to finding \"solutions to issues that could become dangerous for our state in the near future.HIV/AIDS POSES INCREASING THREAT IN TAJIKISTAN
By empty (8/16/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Azamjon Mirzoev, the director of Tajikistan\'s AIDS prevention center, has announced that Tajikistan must implement the World Health Organization\'s (WHO) HIV/AIDS treatment protocol. Against a backdrop of rising infection rates, Tajikistan\'s Health Ministry has appealed to the WHO for implementation support, Mirzoev said. He went on to note that while 119 HIV/AIDS cases were recorded between 1991 and 2003, 109 new patients have been identified in the first half of 2004 alone.TAJIKISTAN SEEKS RETURN OF HELICOPTER FROM AFGHANISTAN
By empty (8/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Tajikistan has asked the government of Afghanistan for assistance in recovering a helicopter that former Drug Control Agency head Ghaffor Mirzoev is accused of having rented out illegally in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Ambassador Muhammad Dovud Panjsheri confirmed the receipt of a request from Tajikistan\'s Foreign Ministry for help in returning the Russian-made MI-8 helicopter. The Foreign Ministry request notes that in 2003 Tajikistan\'s Olympic Committee, which Mirzoev headed at the time, leased the helicopter to an American company in Afghanistan.OSCE SETS UP ELECTION OBSERVER MISSION IN KAZAKHSTAN
By empty (8/13/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The OSCE announced in an 11 August press release that it has set up an election observer mission to monitor 19 September parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan. OSCE Ambassador Robert L. Barry of the United States will head the mission, which includes a 12-member team based in Astana and Almaty, as well as 16 long-term international observers throughout the country.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.