News Digest
SIX SAID KILLED IN GEORGIA VILLAGE ARMED ATTACK
By empty (1/27/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Six people were killed early on Tuesday when an armed gang attacked a Georgian village near the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, a senior police officer said. The attack was the first such serious incident since President Mikhail Saakashvili was sworn into office in the volatile Caucasus state Sunday. The armed group, numbering six or seven men, carried out their raid on the village of Lia after crossing the internal border from Abkhazia region which has had de facto independence from the central government since the early 1990s.GEORGIA\'S NEW PRESIDENT PUSHES UNITY BID
By empty (1/26/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
President Mikhail Saakashvili pushed ahead with efforts to unify Georgia on Monday, the day after his inauguration, signing a declaration on reconciliation in a church ceremony. Saakashvili has made the consolidation of a country riven by separatism and political disputes a key goal after the November ouster of longtime President Eduard Shevardnadze, and he said he intends to \"put an end to disunity in our society.\" The declaration is to be followed by the amnesty of 30 prisoners arrested after post-Soviet Georgia\'s first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, made an armed attempt to regain power from Shevardnadze in 1993, said lawmaker Eldar Shengelaia.NO AZERI GAS EXPORTS BEYOND TURKEY UNTIL 2010: STATOIL
By empty (1/26/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Gas exports from Azerbaijan are unlikely to reach continental Europe before 2010, according to Statoil, the Norwegian company that is developing a major Azeri gas deposit for export. Peter Mellbye, Statoil vice-president, told reporters on Friday (23 January) that the company does not believe that Azeri gas supplies will be exported beyond Turkey before the end of the decade, despite Greece\'s hopes to start importing Azeri gas by 2008 (see Global: 23 January 2004: Greece-Turkey Gas Pipeline Will Open Europe Up to Iranian and Caspian Exports). Statoil and BP are leading the development of Azerbaijan\'s offshore Shah Deniz gas field, which has reserves estimated at 1 Tcm.CHECHNYA ATTACK KILLS FOUR RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN
By empty (1/27/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A rebel attack on a Russian military convoy killed four servicemen and injured a further four on Monday as a U.N. envoy began new talks on conditions in and around the turbulent region.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.