By empty (6/10/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The three UN observers and their interpreter who were taken hostage in the Georgian-controlled sector of the Kodori Gorge on 5 June have been released following negotiations on 9 and 10 June between the Georgian leadership and the kidnappers. The multimillion-dollar ransom the kidnappers reportedly demanded was not paid. As on three previous occasions, the Georgian authorities agreed not to make any attempt to apprehend the kidnappers, who have been given the chance to leave the gorge.

By empty (6/12/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

According to the results of the 13th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (CFM ECO), Bekzhassar Narbayev, ex-vice foreign minister of Kazakhstan, ambassador of Kazakhstan in Pakistan, has been elected the secretary general of that organisation, a report circulated by the information and analysis department of MFA of RK says. For the first time a representative of a post-Soviet state has been appointed for a higher position in the ECO. In the meeting that took place on 11 June in Bishkek, delegations of the Provisional government of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, RK, KR, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, ECO secretary general took part.

By empty (6/9/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The head of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), Said Abdullo Nuri, told journalists on 9 June that the recent arrest of the party\'s deputy chairman, Shamsiddin Shamsiddinov, was a mistake. According to Nuri, the warrant used to arrest Shamsiddinov carried the name of another person. Nuri also asserted that a lawyer hired by Shamsiddinov\'s relatives had not been allowed to meet with his client, and that there are unconfirmed reports that Shamsiddinov has twice been beaten in custody.