Officials in Kazakhstan are working to solidify international backing for the country’s early presidential election on April 3. So far, Astana has found the international community to be generally supportive.
US Special Operations Forces have permission to enter Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on a “case-by-case” basis when conducting counter-terrorism operations.
A controversial, opaque US defense initiative to make payments to Taliban fighters who renounce violence has been extended until September 2012. While a large, but unspecified amount of funding is devoted to the program, no one appears to be keeping track of how the money is being spent.
As the United States and Russia have strengthened ties since their “reset” in relations, one country that has witnessed significant developments between the two — in the form of deals and visits — is Kyrgyzstan.
The US government’s Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) has trouble accurately tracking the Pentagon’s convoluted efforts to source fuel for the US-led war in Afghanistan.
The United States and Kyrgyzstan appear to be on a collision course over potential surcharges on jet fuel consumed at a US military transit facility outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
Robert Blake, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, is scheduled to be in Uzbekistan on February 17-18 for the second Annual Bilateral Consultations between the United States and Uzbekistan.
Armenian diaspora leaders in the United States are responding with cautious optimism to an initiative by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s administration to create a second chamber of parliament, one that would give Armenians abroad more say in the shaping of public policy.
The United States intends to cut funding for assistance programs in most countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia, under the new budget proposed by the Obama administration on February 14.
Former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld describes the US government's handling of the events in Andijan, Uzbekistan, in 2005, as “one of the most unfortunate, if unnoticed, foreign policy mistakes of our administration” because it supposedly drove Uzbekistan into the arms of Russia.
