Analytical Articles

The past years have seen increased conflict-related violence in the North Caucasus, which in conjunction with economic instability and social insecurity has endangered the Russian administration of the region. Amid official claims that the insurgents are close to elimination, the Russian government for the first time since the start of the second Chechnya war in 1999 initiated a peace-building project in the region. The project is officially named Peace to Caucasus and aims to bring peace and stability to the volatile region. However, it has so far shown a weak performance and is unlikely to develop into a platform for peace-building.

In early April, Uzbekistan hosted the most recent EU-Central Asia ministerial meeting, where a high-level delegation from Brussels met with the foreign ministers of all five Central Asian countries and took the opportunity to hold one-to-one bilateral meetings with each of them. For the first time, energy has appeared in a significant place in the formal definition of the agenda for discussion at this level and in this forum. While the preparation and overall tenor of the meetings reflect a somewhat better sense of purpose on the part of Brussels, the EU’s policy remains plagued by difficulties of goal definition and bureaucratic coordination.

The dust has yet to settle entirely following the leadership controversy last August which pitted the putative leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Doku Umarov, against a group of erstwhile colleagues in Chechnya’s rebel organisation. Umarov’s steadfast refusal to relinquish his leadership position has not prevented his opponents in Chechnya from restructuring themselves politically and militarily. The leaders of this anti-Umarov constituency command sizeable support and can call upon the services of a number of militarily gifted field commanders. Conversely, support for Umarov within the Chechen organisation appears to be insignificant; is there a way for Umarov to redress this state of affairs?

A milestone has been reached in Afghanistan. For the first time in almost a century, Afghanistan’s regional trading network is up and running after the Soviet border split the region in 1917 and Afghan tradesmen are now trading with partners in all directions. Recent data from Afghanistan’s Central Statistics Organization (CSO) suggests that Afghanistan’s licit trade with the Central Asian republics is now surpassing trade with Pakistan and India. The U.S. State Department ingeniously reorganized itself already in 2005-2006 into a South and Central Asia Bureau to promote these ties. Reality has now caught up with bureaucratic administration, but the process of building further on it leaves much to be wanted.

The recent SOCAR-DEPA gas deal demonstrated Greece’s and Azerbaijan’s political support for ITGI at the highest level. The gas sale contract to Greece via Turkey implies the official opening of the Southern Corridor, and that the long-awaited strategic choice of SOCAR and the Shah Deniz Consortium will likely be ITGI and TAP. Thus, the Southern Gas Corridor could open with these two projects instead of Nabucco. The EU should encourage the ITGI and Nabucco consortia to cooperate in securing Azerbaijani gas for both projects so that the Southern Corridor can start with ITGI southward in a first phase and then follow Nabucco's planned route northward to Austria in a second phase.

On April 1 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that it lacked jurisdiction with regard to a claim filed by Georgia in August 2008, concerning acts of cleansing and discrimination of ethnic Georgians before and during the Georgia-Russia war. The Court’s unusually strong emphasis on procedural requirements, along with divided views among its members, suggests that the Court had difficulties tackling the political dimensions of the case. The ICJ nonetheless dismissed Russia’s argument that no dispute exists between Georgia and Russia –opening up to future deliberations on the merits of the case and confirming Tbilisi’s arguments that Russia is a conflict party rather than a peace broker in the region.

Since independence, Kazakhstan has actively experimented with education reforms in order to train its own specialists for the country’s rapidly expending economy. With the establishment of the Nazarbayev University and the introduction of several legislative measures giving it a special independent status, Kazakhstan's government intends to create a globally competitive higher education institution. Opinions on the project are divided. Some believe that the establishment of a new education institution where internationally and locally recruited faculty would teach most of the subjects in English and supervise world-class research projects is a leap forward for Kazakhstan's education system. Others are quite skeptical, claiming it would be better to spend more money and time reforming the existing university system.

Russian authorities have recently announced that around 70,000 persons of various professional backgrounds will serve during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, a Northwest Caucasian seaport city with a population of 350,000 in the Krasnodar province. Within this number, an army of 25,000 volunteers, predominantly young men and women coming from all over Russia, will be established. This and other factors, coupled with the increased activities of the Western wing of the self-proclaimed Caucasus Emirate raise a range of security concerns ahead of the upcoming Olympics.

Over the last several months, the commodities trading giant Glencore has been hinting at a possible IPO – the most anticipated since Goldman Sachs went public in 1999. The company is one of the largest private firms in the world, with an estimated annual turnover of US$ 48 billion. But beyond trading, Glencore also owns and operates significant mining assets in politically “risky” environments, including Kazakhstan. Glencore’s talent in political risk management relies on its ability to recognize national and regional government interests and to construct a company around those interests that ensures the firm can operate in the country with minimal friction.