Field Reports
IS KYRGYZSTAN FRIENDLY TO FOREIGN INVESTORS?
By Aziz Soltobaev (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On September 6, 2005, Italian businessman Giorgio Fiacconi was arrested and put in jail. The financial police accused Fiacconi of embezzlement, on charges leveled three months earlier, and of violating an order not to leave Bishkek. Fiacconi left Kyrgyzstan and was arrested upon his return to the country.ASTANA RULES OUT RUSSIAN-KAZAKH UNIFICATION
By Marat Yermukanov (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In its October 3-9 issue, the Russian business magazine, little known in Kazakhstan, stated, though without reference to any particular source, that the Kremlin was contemplating a scheme of unification of Russia with Kazakhstan. The article signed by Oleg Anissimov said the unification of the two states with the total area covering 80% of the former Soviet Union, with Putin as president, would ensure the reelection of Vladimir Putin in the 2008 presidential voting and give Nursultan Nazarbayev more political security in his new position as vice-president of the would-be union state. The author argues that recent developments, particularly frequent talks between Nazarbayev and Putin, as well as the appointment of Igor Finogenov, the former director of the Nomos Bank, as advisor to the Russian finance minister point to the beginning of unification between Kazakhstan and Russia.NEW CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS UNDERWAY IN KYRGYZSTAN
By Nurshat Ababakirov (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
At the constitutional meeting, President Kurmanbek Bakiev spoke against immunity for the president, prime minister and parliamentarians, connecting it to the growth of corruption. However, several parliamentarians expressed their anxiety over the possibility of this amendment being used to remove or at least to manipulate them. The Speaker of the Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament) Omurbek Tekebaev and other parliamentarians regarded the President’s remarks as populist, because during Akaev’s rule immunity was also rolled back, and it was mainly used to remove some parliamentarians, leading to the neutralization of the parliament, instead of fighting corruption.WORLD KAZAKH COMMUNITY BOOSTS THE IMAGE OF ASTANA
By Marat Yermukanov (10/5/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Congress of the World Kazakh Community, held in Astana on September 29, received modest coverage in Kazakhstani media. On the eve of the event, analysts strongly doubted that delegates to the Congress would be able to hammer out a viable resolution on problems of the resettlement of ethnic Kazakhs and ways of interaction between the Kazakh government and the world community of Kazakhs.Delegates to the Congress used the occasion to admire the booming western-style new capital of their ancestral country.
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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.