Field Reports
PRESIDENT SEZER IN BAKU – TO RESCUE BARMEK?
By Fariz Ismailzade (4/5/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Azerbaijani-Turkish relations have been threatened by the massive governmental attacks launched against the Turkish electricity company Barmek in the past month. Although these attacks have existed ever since Barmek was granted the license to operate the electricity distribution network of Baku and northern regions of Azerbaijan for a period of 25 years, the intensity and practical implications of these verbal attacks showed that local analysts’ fears regarding the real intentions of the government might be coming true.For a while, Azerbaijani experts believed that certain circles in the ruling elite lobby for the annulation of the contract with Barmek in order to replace it with the Russian electric monopoly RAO-UES.
FORTHCOMING KYRGYZ PARLIAMENTARY BY- ELECTIONS BECOME UNPREDICTABLE
By Nurshat Ababakirov (4/5/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The long determination of Rysbek Akmatbaev to get into the parliament, as he said, was to resume the work of his brother and Parliamentarian Tynychbek Akmatbaev, who was killed in a prison riot last year.Having registered him on 7 February, the Central Election Commission annulled his right on the grounds that Rysbek Akmatbaev has not lived for five consecutive years in Kyrgyzstan, which, according to the law, prohibits a person from being a candidate, Moreover, a court case regarding Akmatbaev’s involvement in the murder of law-enforcement officer Chynybek Aliev, was still being reviewed at the time of registration. The court eventually acquitted him because of lack of evidence.
DESPITE SCANDALS, GEORGIA’S OPPOSITION FAILS TO IMPRESS
By Kakha Jibladze (4/5/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
March has been a trial for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government. First, they scrambled to rescue a dubiously slow investigation into the murder of 28 year-old Sandro Girgvliani; high officials within the ministry of interior affairs were implicated in the crime and it took over a month before Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili ordered the arrest of four minor officials. In addition, three high-ranking employees implicated in the crime eventually resigned despite the fact they had not been charged.CONFLICT BREWS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS STRUCTURES IN AZERBAIJAN
By Gulnara Ismailova (3/22/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Regional office of the SMMC recently brought a court case against the SCWRF Chairman Rafiq Aliyev. Haji Sadi, SMMC representative in the southern regions of Azerbaijan, accused Aliyev of kindling religious intolerance in the southern regions, transforming the \"Sheikh Zahid\" sanctuary in Lenkoran into a place of pilgrimage, registering religious organizations without informing the SMMC, in violation of laws.The SMMC is accusing Rafiq Aliyev of making the historical monument of Sheikh Zahid into a place of pilgrimage, in order to transform it into a source of personal income.
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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.