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.
Uzbekistan is squeezing Washington for more money to transport military supplies along the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). On February 1, just days after Uzbek leader Islam Karimov met with NATO representatives in Brussels, Tashkent announced it was raising transit fees for goods headed for Afghanistan via Uzbek railroads.
Georgia leads all countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the money it spends on lobbyists in Washington, DC, according to a review of US government records.
The US Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General (DoD OIG) is conducting an audit of transit operations on the Northern Distribution Network.
The governments of Kyrgyzstan and the United States are set to sign an amendment to the Manas Transit Center’s leasing agreement that will enable the purchases of aviation fuel directly from a Kyrgyz state-owned enterprise.
Amid ongoing protests in Egypt, a US State Department warning about a terrorist threat “against American interests” in Azerbaijan has placed the government in Baku in an awkward situation. Senior members of the governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party have criticized the US action, while law enforcement agencies have questioned the basis for the alert.
In a boost for Kyrgyzstan’s economic revival efforts, Russia has abolished an export tax on fuel. Imposed during the last days of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration, the Russian fuel tariff was widely seen as a trigger for political upheaval that buffeted Kyrgyzstan in 2010.
A new tax dispute over fuel supplies at a strategically important air base in Kyrgyzstan is looming. US diplomats are concerned that potential wrangling could impede the war effort in Afghanistan.
