Not too long ago, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was held in the highest regard by President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration, in large part because Astana chaired the group in 2010. Now, the OSCE is an object of Kazakhstan’s contempt.
The volume of narcotics flowing out of Afghanistan to Central Asia and Russia appears to have decreased slightly over the past year. But the stockpile of opiates that traffickers already have on hand is sufficient to supply users in Central Asia and Russia for 15 years, according to a leading drug-control expert in Kyrgyzstan.
Russia has reportedly blocked a U.S. plan designed to help stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan through Central Asia in a sign of Moscow's continued wariness about Washington's intentions in a region often thought of as "Russia's backyard."
There were full-page newspaper ads in New York City, films in Paris, and commemorations and marches from Argentina to Latvia. Twenty years after a massacre of ethnic Azeri residents in the Nagorno-Karabakh village of Khojaly, Azerbaijan is pressing a campaign to have the 1992 slaughter recognized as an act of genocide.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party appears to be recalibrating its Iran policy and increasingly distancing itself from the more vocal support it previously gave the Iranian regime. As the two powers tussle over Syria, Iraq and other issues, analysts warn that their rivalry for leadership in the Middle East is only likely to sharpen.
The Central Asian states -- Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- are important to Russia as buffers from the Islamic world and Asia and as energy and economic partners. Kazakhstan is already integrated with Russia and is part of the customs union with Belarus.
The former Soviet republics in the Caucasus -- Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan -- have very different attitudes toward Russia's resurgence. Armenia depends on Russia for its security and is one of Moscow's most loyal allies.
Don’t look now, but Vladimir Putin, the man who wants to reclaim the Russian presidency in March, seems to be losing touch with one of his key constituencies – nationalists.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has asserted that his recent visit to the United States raised US-Georgian strategic ties to a “new level.” American officials have been much more reticent on bilateral defense issues, raising questions about what exactly was discussed in Washington.
As the European Union, the United States and a host of other nations gear up to cut Iran off, Armenia is pursuing joint projects with Tehran that could potentially open new conduits to the outside world.
