PRO-RUSSIAN POLITICIAN ACTS AS POWER-BROKER IN GEORGIA POST-ELECTION CRISIS
By Blanka Hancilova (11/19/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: While the Georgian opposition leads public protests against the rigged November 2 parliamentary elections, President Eduard Shevardnadze keeps ignoring calls for his resignation. Besieged in the capital city, Shevardnadze instead chose to seek the backing of regional strongman Aslan Abashidze, leader of the Adjara Autonomous Republic in southwestern Georgia. The call on Abashidze’s support is not an unprecedented development – in a significant move, Shevardnadze visited Abashidze in Batumi in November 2001 as he was challenged by street protesters who demanded the resignation of several members of his government.UZBEKISTAN’S TRADE POLICY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE POOR STRATA OF POPULATION
By Jahangir Kakharov (11/19/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The Uzbek Government in December 2001 agreed to an IMF staff-monitored program (SMP) with a number of key economic reform policies to be carried out, including reforms of the agricultural sector, enhancing market competition, and narrowing the gap between the over-the-counter (OTC) exchange rate and the parallel market rate. Some analysts argue that the implementation of the SMP was not quite successful. The main goal of SMP – achieving foreign exchange convertibility by eliminating the gap between OTC rate and black market rate was de facto attained by mid-2003.THE ERK PROTEST SETS OUT A PRECEDENT FOR KARIMOV TO REVISE RELATIONS WITH POLITICAL OPPOSITION
By Erica Marat (11/5/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The political opposition was eliminated in Uzbekistan shortly after Islam Karimov was elected president in 1992. The political power is centralized and free media is virtually non existent. Erk was the first political party that formed in Uzbekistan in the late days of the Soviet regime, in the late 1980s.ASSESSING THE SAUDI-RUSSIAN SUMMIT: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING?
By Mark N. Katz (11/5/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Saudi Arabia and OPEC have long sought to regulate world oil prices through adhering to production quotas. OPEC has frequently called upon the major non-OPEC producers (which include Russia, Mexico, and Norway) to “do their part” to support oil prices by cutting back on production when OPEC does so. Instead of complying with this request, however, the major non-OPEC producers have maintained or even expanded their production.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.