Field Reports
MANDATORY COURSE ON ISLAM INTRODUCED IN TAJIK SCHOOLS
By Alexander Sodiqov (9/1/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Beginning on September 1, 2009, schoolchildren in Tajikistan will for the first time be required to take a mandatory class on Islam called Knowledge of Islam (Ma’rifati Islom). In an interview with Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service on August 18, the senior Tajik education official Mahmud Shoev said the Ministry of Education will present a textbook on the subject and train some 400 literature and history teachers to teach the class. The course will first be taken by students in the eighth grade in Tajik-language schools and will be expanded to Uzbek- and Russian-language schools in September 2010.
ARMENIA’S RELATIONS WITH EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS LARGELY UNAFFECTED ONE YEAR AFTER MARCH VIOLENCE
By Vahagn Muradyan (9/1/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On August 22, Parliamentary Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan summoned the members of the ad hoc inquiry committee for the March 2008 post-electoral violence. He reminded them that September 15 is the deadline for the committee's final report on the circumstances around the clashes between opposition protesters and security forces in the aftermath of the contested presidential election in February 2008. While stressing that Armenia is primarily accountable to its own public, the Speaker noted the importance of meeting the expectations of impartiality and objectivity demanded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
STAVROPOL TWO YEARS ON: POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS IN ETHNIC RELATIONS
By Drew Foxall (9/1/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)
This summer’s second anniversary of the 2007 ethnic riots in Stavropol has coincided with the cessation of Russian anti-terrorist operations in Chechnya and a subsequent growth of interest in the theme of conflict resolution in the North Caucasus. Based on the violent experience of the two Chechen Wars, some observers have defined the North Caucasus as a whole as a tinderbox of primordial ethnic conflict just waiting to explode. However, this is far from the daily reality experienced by residents in Stavropol Krai, the largest ethnic Russian territory in the North Caucasus.
HIGH-PROFILE DEATH RAISES QUESTIONS IN TAJIKISTAN
By Alexander Sodiqov (8/19/2009 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On July 11, 2009, Lieutenant General Mirzo Ziyoev, formerly a prominent rebel turned government minister was killed. A joint statement by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the National Security Committee (GKNB) released the next day suggested that militants led by Shaykh Nemat Azizov, “an active member of the international terrorist group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)”, killed Ziyoev. According to the statement, Ziyoev joined Azizov’s band comprised of former opposition fighters and foreign drug traffickers in late June 2009.
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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.