News Digest
CENSUS FINDINGS COULD NECESSITATE AMENDING POLITICAL SYSTEM IN DAGHESTAN
By empty (10/10/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Census takers in Daghestan have discovered 15 ethnic groups that previously have been classified as Avars, to whom those groups are related. The Avars hitherto constituted the largest ethnic group in Daghestan, numbering approximately 500,000, or 27 percent, of the republic's total population. The newly discovered ethnic groups together total 150,000, which might mean that the Dargins, who in 1989 numbered 280,431 persons, have now overtaken the Avars as the republic's largest ethnic group.FOREIGN MINISTRY AGAIN DEMANDS GEORGIA EXTRADITE CHECHEN MILITANTS
By empty (10/10/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Foreign Ministry has addressed a note to Georgia demanding the immediate extradition of eight suspected Chechen militants, ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko told Interfax. Georgia sent five Chechens to Moscow last week but suspended the extradition of eight more at the request of the European Court of Human Rights, to which the detained Chechens had appealed. Yakovenko said that at his talks in Chisinau on 6 October with President Vladimir Putin, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze promised that the eight Chechens would be extradited to Russia.FSB, FPS DELEGATIONS HEAD TO TBILISI
By empty (10/10/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A Federal Security Service (FSB) delegation headed by FSB First Deputy Director Vladimir Pronichev arrived in Tbilisi on 10 October for talks with Georgian security officials on boosting bilateral cooperation. A Federal Border Guard Service (FPS) delegation also arrived in the Georgian capital the same day for related talks aimed at strengthening control over the Russian-Georgian border. Also on 10 October, FPS Director Colonel General Konstantin Totskii claimed that further group of Chechen militants is preparing to enter Russia from Georgian territory.NATIONAL POLICYMAKERS WANT ISLAMIC CLERICS TRAINED AT HOME
By empty (10/10/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
At a conference in Moscow on cooperation between government and religious organizations on 10 October, Viktor Zorkaltsev, chairman of the State Duma's Committee on Public and Religious Organizations, called for creating a center in Russia for the training of Islamic clerics in order to provide Russia with greater "spiritual security" and to limit the training of Russian citizens in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries. Zorkaltsev said that Russia's concept of national security includes defending the country's spiritual and moral heritage and its historical traditions. Speaking at the same conference, presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District Kirienko called for providing basic scholarly training in Islam within the borders of the Russian Federation.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.