News Digest
KYRGYZ PARLIAMENTARIAN SEES BUGGING SCANDAL AS EFFORT TO SET SOUTH AGAINST NORTH
By empty (1/19/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
General Ismail Isakov, chairman of the Kyrgyz lower house\'s State Security Committee, has told his parliamentary colleagues that, with one exception, the parliamentarians who discovered listening devices in their offices were all oppositionists from southern Kyrgyzstan. In Isakov\'s interpretation, the devices were planted on the instruction of President Aksar Akaev\'s closest supporters -- all northerners – in order to destroy their political opponents from the south. Isakov, a former deputy defense minister, also called on parliament to cut the National Security Service\'s budget by half on the grounds that taxpayers\' money should not be used to spy on their elected representatives.UZBEK JOB SEEKERS SQUEEZING LOCALS OUT OF WEST KAZAKH JOB MARKET
By empty (1/19/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Job seekers from Uzbekistan are squeezing local labor out of the job market in western Kazakhstan\'s Atyrau Oblast. Atyrau trade union official Kazym Batyrkhanov was quoted as warning that the oblast could face social tensions as a result. According to official figures, more than 33,000 Uzbek citizens are working in the city of Atyrau, but local authorities say that most job seekers from neighboring countries do not bother to register, so the actual number is probably much higher.FINAL STAGE OF U.S. TRAINING PROGRAM FOR GEORGIAN MILITARY GETS UNDER WAY
By empty (1/17/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The final, four-month phase of the Train and Equip program launched in the early summer of 2002 was formally inaugurated on 17 January. Thirty U.S.IRANIAN DIPLOMAT VISITS AZERBAIJAN
By empty (1/16/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh met in Baku on 16 January with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayat Guliev, Economic Development Minister Farkhad Aliyev, and President Ilham Aliyev. Topics discussed included the North-South Transport Corridor linking the two countries with Russia and the Persian Gulf; the still unresolved legal status of the Caspian Sea; regional-security issues, including the Karabakh conflict; and planned visits scheduled for 2004 by Aliyev to Iran and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to Azerbaijan. Aminzadeh told journalists after the talks that Tehran sees no need either for U.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.