By empty (1/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin contradicted the official Kremlin line that the Chechen war was over and won but reaffirmed France\'s desire to work with Moscow to create a \"new international order.\" \"Chechnya is in a state of open war, with its daily quota of dramas and its risks of destabilisation for neighbouring countries, from Turkey to Iran,\" de Villepin said, addressing a group of students in Moscow where he also met his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov. Moscow has consistently referred to the fighting in Chechnya, where it poured in troops to put down a separatist insurgency in October 1999, as an \"anti-terrorist operation\" and not a war, and has for several months insisted that the situation in the southern republic has been \"normalized.

By empty (1/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Meeting with representatives of the ethnic Uzbek communities of southern Kyrgyzstan on 23 January, Askar Akaev promised that Uzbek language and culture will be given great significance in the future, as will the languages and cultures of all the country\'s other nationalities. Akaev was promoting the Assembly of the Peoples of Kyrgyzstan and touted the importance of interethnic harmony for the country\'s economic development. In an apparent reference to frictions between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 2003 over border issues, Akaev noted that one of the tasks of the current Year of Social Mobilization is to promote good relations with all neighboring countries through public diplomacy.

By empty (1/23/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The omnibus budget bill passed by the U.S. Senate on 22 January allocates not less than $75 million in direct aid to Armenia and a further $5 million in humanitarian assistance to the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.