By empty (8/10/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

An Azerbaijani opposition leader announced on Thursday an initiative to call an international conference in Baku on September 12 to discuss the problems faced by the large community of ethnic Iranians in Azerbaijan. \"We plan to hold this event, which may take the form of a forum, with the participation of leaders of political parties and nongovernmental organizations. Representatives of Azeri communities abroad will also be invited,\" Etibar Mamedov, leader of the opposition National Independence Party, told a news conference in Baku.

By empty (8/8/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

More than 80 people have turned themselves in to police in Chechnya after Russian Anti-Terrorist Committee head Nikolai Patrushev called on members of armed groups to voluntarily surrender their weapons, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov told journalists in Grozny on Tuesday. According to reports released on \"August 8, 84 people have voluntarily surrendered to police and other law enforcement agencies. These are good figures if we bear in mind what category of citizens we are speaking about and how difficult it is to establish contact even with one [such] person, to persuade him to break away from his usual criminal environment, receive legal documents and take up a job in peaceful life,\" he said.

By empty (8/8/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In the wake of Monday\'s incident in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, when three Georgian policemen suffered after their vehicle came under fire, Georgia\'s Foreign Ministry blamed Russian peacekeepers for inactivity and reluctance to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the conflict \"The incident points yet again to a recent series of open provocations in the Tskhinvali district, staged in an apparent attempt to provoke a response from the Georgian side,\" the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, circulated late on Monday. \"All this has been unfolding against a backdrop of absolute inactivity on the part of the peacekeeping force and its command, although the fight against this kind of crimes in the conflict zone is documented in the December 6 1994 resolution of the Mixed Control Commission as the peacekeepers\' direct responsibility,\" the statement reads. The Georgian Foreign Ministry also said that the recent incident in the conflict zone, when a group of South Ossetian \"militiamen\" attempted to disrupt the work of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers, should be seen in the same context.