News Digest
AFGHANISTAN SPLITS ELECTION DATES
By empty (7/6/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Afghan presidential and parliamentary elections will not be held at the same time, the government has said. Vote organisers told the Cabinet on Tuesday that a simultaneous vote was \"impossible\", President Hamid Karzai\'s spokesman, Jawad Ludin, said. But he stressed that presidential polls would go ahead by late October.RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN RELATIONS AT NEW LEVEL - SAAKASHVILI
By empty (7/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Relations between Russia and Georgia are reaching a new level, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told Interfax in an interview following his visit to Moscow. \"In general, I think that the relations between Russia and Georgia have developed favorably. We are entering a new level, where our relations should be predictable and stable,\" Saakashvili said.RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS ATTACKED IN ABKHAZIA
By empty (7/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Russian servicemen from the collective peacekeeping forces in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone came under fire on two occasions last weekend, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov told Interfax on Monday. The peacekeepers\' 221st post located outside the village of Saberio near the Abkhaz-Georgian administrative border was attacked late on July 3. \"The peacekeepers came under fire from the Georgian side of the border.AGA KHAN OPENS FIRST MICROCREDIT LENDER IN TAJIKISTAN
By empty (7/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Prince Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili movement, opened the first microcredit bank in Dushanbe on 5 July. Noting that the bank is intended to combat poverty in Tajikistan, Prince Aga Khan said that it will have an investment fund of $3 million and will provide loans to small businesses at 18 percent annual interest. The bank is only the third of its kind in the region; others are located in Afghanistan and Pakistan.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.