 RFE/RL Caucasus Report 02.07.2009 A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the countries of the South Caucasus and Russia's North Caucasus region.For more stories on the Caucasus, please visit and bookmark our Caucasus page . |
 Armenian Opposition Vows To Continue Probe Of Postelection Violence Levon Zurabian, who is a leading member of former President Levon Ter-Petrossian's Armenian National Congress (HAK), has announced that the HAK intends to form a committee that will continue to investigate the circumstances of the violent clashes in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008. More  Concerns Still Linger In Baku, Despite NGO Vote Following a wave of domestic and international protest, the Azerbaijani parliament on June 30 passed a watered-down version of legislation that restricts the activity of NGOs. Activists had worried the original legislation would effectively shut down the roughly 2,500 NGOs operating in Azerbaijan. But even as the removal of the bill's most stringent policies is being hailed as a success, concerns still linger about efforts by the Azerbaijani government to clamp down on civil society. More  Georgia Spells Out Conditions For Signing Agreement On Non-Use Of Force Representatives of Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the United States, plus the United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, gathered in Geneva for the sixth round of talks on measures to improve security and humanitarian conditions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the wake of last year's war that precipitated Russia's formal recognition of those two regions as independent states. More  Armenian Journalists Urge Release Of Iranian Colleagues Armenian journalists are signing a petition urging the release of their Iranian colleagues who have been arrested in the ongoing crackdown that followed Iran's disputed presidential election, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports. More  Will The 'Reset' Finally Begin? U.S. President Barack Obama hopes to kick-start Washington's moribund relations with Moscow when he travels to Russia for his first summit meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on July 6. But the two sides face serious divisions and few are predicting the visit will produce anything close to a breakthrough. More  Armenia Rated Poorly On Governance In Survey Armenia is still governed worse than most countries in the world despite improving its business environment in recent years, according to a global survey. More  Russian Soldier Requests Political Asylum In Georgia The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed that a Russian soldier is seeking political asylum in Georgia, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Azerbaijani Tempers Flare Over Iranian TV's Criticism Iran has lashed out at the international media in recent weeks for its coverage of the controversial June 12 elections and the massive street protests that followed. But Iran's own media is now coming under criticism in Azerbaijan, where a recent visit by the Israeli president prompted Iran's Sahar TV to launch a stinging attack on the Azerbaijani government -- in Azeri. More  Russia, Azerbaijan Make Energy Breakthrough A deal to restart the flow of Azerbaijani gas to Russia, beginning in January 2010, represents a breakthrough as both Moscow and the European Union court Baku in hopes of tapping its vast gas deposits to fuel favored pipeline projects to Europe. More  South Ossetian Authorities Target Opposition Financier In the month that has elapsed since the flawed parliamentary elections that yielded a new legislature subservient to President Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian authorities have taken further steps aimed at bolstering his position. More  Circassians Fear Adygeya May Become The Next Nalchik Participants at the congress Maikop of the Circassian public movement Adyghe Khase have expressed concern that ongoing police reprisals against young Muslims in towns close to the administrative border with Krasnodar Krai could drive some of the victims to join the Islamic underground. More  Commentary: Looking Beyond Georgia's Political Crisis Former Georgian parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze argues that in addition to the global financial crisis, her countrymen must contend with a total absence of accountability, the nonexistence of democratic checks and balances, and extravagant budget spending, all of which severely undermine the prospects for steady economic growth in the next few years. More  Wexler Says U.S.-Russia Relations 'Not Zero-Sum Game' U.S. Congressman Robert Wexler (Democrat, Florida) was in the Czech Republic this week to attend an international conference on the assets of Holocaust victims. During his time in the Czech capital, Prague, Wexler visited RFE/RL's headquarters, where he sat down for a broad-ranging interview with correspondent Gregory Feifer. More  In War-Torn Gori, Survivors Pick Up Pieces Georgia's Gori region endured the worst of last year's Russia-Georgia war as hundreds lost their homes and scores were killed. As Russia holds massive military exercises nearby, survivors worry that a new conflict could be on the way. More  Will Moscow Be Constrained To Cede The North Caucasus To Ramzan Kadyrov? In light of Ramzan Kadyrov's megalomaniac tendencies, his clear ambition to assume control of the "power" agencies in Ingushetia, and possibly also other North Caucasus republics, in effect relegating republic heads to mere economic managers while creaming off for his own purposes a chunk of the subsidies those republics receive from the federal center, is alarming. Any additional powers that Moscow formally bestows on him cannot be simply annulled if/when the crisis that served as the rationale for granting them in the first place is resolved. More Colonel Valmer Butba, who during the 1992-93 war and after headed a counterterrorism unit that sought to thwart attacks in Abkhazia's southernmost Gali district by Georgian guerrilla formations, was detained on June 26 in Gali by a group of armed men commanded by a senior Abkhaz Interior Ministry official after a weapon was discovered in his car. More  Frictions Fuel Fears Of New Conflict As Western countries strive to mend ties with Moscow badly frayed during Russia's brief war with Georgia, there are growing fears over a possible new conflict. A week ahead of a summit meeting between the U.S. and Russian presidents, the Kremlin is refusing to allow international monitors into the conflict area and holding major military exercises north of the Georgian border. More  North Caucasus Resistance Extends War Into Cyberspace For years, the ideologues of the Chechen resistance have used the Internet to communicate their ideas and their military successes in the ongoing fight against Russia to a broader audience both within Russia and abroad. Over the past 10 days, however, the resistance has gone one step further, hacking and temporarily disabling official sites in Daghestan and Chechnya and posting on them statements of responsibility for attacks on senior officials in Daghestan and Ingushetia. More  Azerbaijan's Proposed NGO Media Curbs Draw Fire Rights groups in Azerbaijan are warning that proposed restrictions on civil society will further curb democratic freedoms in the former Soviet republic. More  Ex-President Aushev 'Ready' To Lead Ingushetia As tensions rose in Ingushetia, ex-President Ruslan Aushev said he was ready to assume temporary leadership while current president recovered from injuries suffered from an assassination attempt. He was just the region's latest prominent figure to offer his help, as the Kremlin remained silent. More  Israeli President's Azerbaijan Trip Breaks New Ground As part of a strategy by Israel to improve relations with moderate, secular countries of the Islamic world, President Shimon Peres is visiting Azerbaijan on June 28. More  Karachayevo-Cherkessia Parliament Rejects United Russia's Proposed Senatorial Candidate Fourteen members of the pro-Kremlin United Russia faction in the Karachayevo-Cherkessia Republic (KChR) parliament have been reprimanded for rejecting the candidate proposed by the presidium of United Russia's General Council to represent the KChR in the Federation Council. More  Is The White Legion Back In Business? The White Legion, and a second such group, the Forest Brothers, continued their low-level attacks on both Russian peacekeepers and Abkhaz civilians until early 2004, when the new leadership of President Mikheil Saakashvili moved to demobilize and disarm them. More  Chechen Leader Seeks To Strong-Arm Ingush Leadership Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov traveled unannounced on June 24 to Magas, where he announced that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has tasked him with coordinating all counterterror activities in both Chechnya and Ingushetia following the assassination attempt on Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov two days earlier. More  Kadyrov Vows To Wipe Out Islamic Militants In an interview with the TV station Vesti-24 on June 23, one day after the assassination attempt on Ingushetian President Yunusbek Yevkurov, Ramzan Kadyrov vowed -- again -- to intensify the combined efforts of Chechen and Ingushetian Interior Ministry forces to wipe out "terrorists." More  A Fight To Preserve Georgian-Abkhaz Heritage Georgia's separatist Abkhazia has asserted its right to statehood, but a key aspect of its heritage is missing: language. Few Abkhaz have mastered their own language, preferring to use Russian. One exception is Lela Avidzba. Half-Abkhaz and half-Georgian, she's working to promote the use of the Abkhaz language. More Ingushetia's Ex-President Volunteers For Temporary Comeback Ekho Moskvy radio on June 24 quoted former Ingushetian President Ruslan Aushev as affirming his readiness to take over the republic's top post temporarily, until incumbent Yunus-Bek Yevkurov recovers from the injuries he sustained when a suicide-bomber rammed his car early on June 22. More  National Republics Resist Moscow's Demands Three of the four republics the Russian Constitutional Court has ordered to drop references in their constitutions to republic sovereignty and citizenship are dragging their feet. That reluctance reflects both the importance of these terms to many non-Russians, and the calculation that resistance to the center could yield dividends. More  Attack Against President Latest In Troubling Trend A resistance website reported the attack on Ingushetia President Yunusbek Yevkurov two hours after it occurred, but no one has claimed responsibility. However, its timing and the modus operandi suggest it was the work of the North Caucasus resistance. More  Still Plagued By Violence On the night of June 21, 2004, hundreds of armed Chechen rebels stormed the southern Russian city of Nazran, leaving a trail of destruction and death in their wake. The raid alarmed the Kremlin, which had boasted of bringing stability to the North Caucasus after a decade of war with Chechen separatists. Five years later, Moscow has done little to contain militancy from spreading through the region. More  Five Years Later, Repercussions Still Reverberate The multiple attacks on the Interior Ministry headquarters and other police buildings in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, five years ago constituted a significant milestone in the evolution of the Chechen resistance into a pan-Caucasus Islamic movement uniting young Muslims alienated by official corruption and arbitrary police brutality. More  The Perils Of 'Independence' It's not just Georgian rule the Abkhaz have a problem with. It's any outside influence. Nearly a year after Abkhazia used Moscow's backing to declare its independence from Tbilisi, Russian troops, cash, and clout are pouring into the territory -- and many Abkhaz are wondering whether they have simply exchanged one master for another. More  Russia's Long ‘Continuation War’ With Georgia Russia knows that securing outright international recognition for Abkhazia and South Ossetia will remain mission impossible in the foreseeable future. It is content to bide its time, muddying waters at the United Nations and other international bodies. More  Death Accelerated Transformation Of Chechen Resistance The death three years ago today of Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) President and resistance commander Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev was a milestone in the evolution of what emerged in 1994 as an almost exclusively Chechen fight for independence into a pan-Caucasian, multinational Islamic resistance movement. More |
