By empty (8/17/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Elchin Gambarov, an attorney representing Ruslan Bashirli, leader of the opposition youth group Yeni Fikir, was quoted on 17 August by echo-az.com as saying that Bashirli was systematically beaten the day following his arrest earlier this month in such a way as not to leave marks on his body. Bashirli was taken into custody on 3 August shortly after returning from a visit to Tbilisi during which -- to judge from video footage shown on Azerbaijani television -- he accepted money from men identified as Armenian intelligence agents and pledged to destabilize the political situation in Azerbaijan.By empty (8/16/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he hopes that a decision on the 15 Uzbek refugees being held at a pre- trial detention center in the Kyrgyz city of Osh will be made in compliance with UN conventions in a letter to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was inaugurated on August 14, 439 Uzbek refugees who fled to Kyrgyzstan after a May uprising in the southern Uzbek city of Andizhan have already been flown to third countries. The Uzbek authorities accuse the 15 remaining refugees of being involved in serious crimes and demand their extradition. Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency has so far granted refugee status to 12 of them.By empty (8/16/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Presidential fury completed Monday full circle of the oil and gas sector of Turkmenistan when the head of Turkmengeoligia was removed from his job. State minister and chairman of state concern Turkmengeologia, Orazmuhammet Agageldiyev, was removed through a presidential decree because of ‘serious drawbacks’ in his work. He has been replaced by Ishanguly Nuriyev, who would be on probation for a period of six months.By empty (8/15/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Russian embassy in Tbilisi has described as a provocation the seizure of a cargo for Russian peacekeeping forces in the zones of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian- Ossetian conflicts. \"On August 12, Georgian officials stopped two trucks of the Collective Peacekeeping Force and the Joint Peacekeeping Force, carrying cargo for the peacekeeping battalions, despite the fact that both vehicles had signs identifying them as belonging to the peacekeeping battalions, as well as accompanying documents,\" The Russian embassy in Georgia said in a statement on Friday. \"This action violates existing agreements.The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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