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.
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.
Experts in Baku are welcoming US President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint longtime Caucasus hand Matthew Bryza as ambassador to Azerbaijan. But many are cautioning that Bryza’s arrival is unlikely to break existing diplomatic logjams.
The White House's nominee to be the next American ambassador to Kyrgyzstan says she is confident that the new government in Bishkek will allow Washington to operating the Manas Transit Center, not far from the Kyrgyz capital, “for as long as we need it.”
The president of Armenia has all but accused the vice president of the United States of lying about a phone conversation the two men had, reigniting a controversy about the Armenian government's motivations in pursuing a rapprochement with Turkey.
Matthew Bryza, President Obama's controversial nominee to be the next American ambassador to Azerbaijan, had his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on July 22. He defended himself against allegations of bias in favor of Baku and asserted he would be an even-handed advocate of US policy in the Caucasus. His critics did not appear reassured, however.
For more than six years, the Pentagon paid fees to the Turkmen government for the use of the Central Asian nation’s airports. However, officials in Washington either won’t or can’t say just how much was paid to Ashgabat from 2002-2008. All that they will say is that such payments made to Turkmenistan were inadvertent.
Whether by words or by her mere appearance, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s July 5 visit to Tbilisi will serve to reassure Georgian officials that Washington still values its strategic partnership with Georgia, analysts say.
A heated political debate in Armenia over a joint statement by US President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicholas Sarkozy about the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process has overshadowed preparations for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s July 4-5 visit to Yerevan.
