News Digest
THREE KAZAKH OPPOSITION PARTIES FORM ELECTION COALITION
By empty (7/21/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Kazakhstan\'s three opposition parties - the Communist Party, Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan and Ak Zhol (the Bright Way) - have announced that they are forming a coalition. \"We have agreed to consolidate our forces for the period of the election campaign, coordinate our activities and support each other,\" Ak Zhol co-chairman Alikhan Baimenov said at a news conference in Almaty on Wednesday. Parliamentary elections have been set for September 19 in Kazakhstan.RUSSIA DENIES SENDING ADDITIONAL ARMOR TO SOUTH OSSETIA
By empty (7/21/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Major General Givi Iukuridze, who is the Georgian Armed Forces chief of General Staff, told the independent television station Rustavi-2 on 20 July that Russia is deploying 20 armored personnel carriers from the Roki tunnel to South Ossetia\'s Djava Raion. Speaking after a meeting with Saakashvili, parliament speaker Nino Burdjanadze and Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, Iukuridze denied Russian assertions that agreement was reached on providing the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia with additional armor. Saakashvili alleged in Batumi earlier on 20 July that Moscow plans to give the additional vehicles to the South Ossetian authorities.EXPERTS SAY GENERAL STAFF CHIEF\'S DISMISSAL NOT RELATED TO NORTH CAUCASUS SETBACKS
By empty (7/20/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Duma Security Committee member Gennadii Gudkov (Unified Russia) said that the dismissal of Army General Anatolii Kvashnin as chief of the General Staff is not connected with the dismissal on 19 July of many top military officials serving in the North Caucasus, NTV reported. Gudkov said that the policies the General Staff followed under Kvashnin\'s leadership since 1997 harmed Russia\'s national interests. Gudkov noted that during Kvashnin\'s term, \"we left our bases in Cuba and in Vietnam, put forward no serious conditions regarding Russian bases in the Transcaucasus, and failed to negotiate any [favorable terms] in exchange for NATO\'s expansion toward our borders.AZERBAIJANI JOURNALIST ABDUCTED, THREATENED
By empty (7/19/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Aydin Guliev, who is chief editor of the opposition daily \"Baki khabar,\" told a press conference in Baku on 19 July that he was abducted late on 17 July near his home by four masked men who gagged him, put a sack over his head, and drove him around the city for several hours, warning him repeatedly to abandon his journalistic activities and criticizing him for not serving \"his state and Islam.\" Eventually the four men drove Guliev to the city outskirts where he was beaten and then released. Guliev said on 19 July that he has never published any anti-Islamic materials.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.