Tuesday, 29 December 2015 00:00

Armenia's constitutional referendum

By Armen Grigoryan

December 29th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

Armenia’s constitutional referendum has stimulated a debate about the future of the country’s political regime, including the issue of succession after President Serzh Sargsyan’s second and last term in office. The ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) is seeking to secure its position in the long term, which will in essence pave the way for a formal multi-party system with a de facto strongman rule, similar to Russia and several other post-Soviet states. The opposition viewed the referendum as another opportunity to contest the government at the polls. However, Armenia’s current economic, social and foreign policies are unlikely to change.

am-ref2015

Published in Analytical Articles
Sunday, 27 December 2015 00:00

Azerbaijan, islamism, and unrest in Nardaran

By Emil Aslan Souleimanov

December 27th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

On November 25-26, Azerbaijani law enforcement carried out a special operation in Nardaran, a township on the northern edge of the Absheron peninsula located 25 kilometers northeast of the capital’s center. The purpose of the special operation was to break the backbone of the Muslim Unity group, a purportedly militant Shiite organization. The context and implications of the Nardaran events have received little attention in Western media, despite the concerns raised both within and outside the region about Azerbaijan finding itself on the brink of religiously inspired civil unrest.

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Published in Analytical Articles

By Natalia Konarzewska

December 7th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

After meeting with Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller in Milan on September 25, Georgia’s Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze announced that the parties discussed increasing Russia’s transit of gas to Armenia and opened a possibility for Georgian commercial entities to buy additional volumes of Russian gas. In October, Kaladze reiterated that Tbilisi wants to diversify its natural gas routes and suppliers through imports from Russia and possibly Iran. No details about the eventual increase of gas shipments from Russia have so far been revealed. Yet the prospective agreement has already caused controversy among Georgian political opposition, which questions Gazprom’s reliability as a gas supplier, and raised concerns in Azerbaijan, which is Georgia’s largest gas provider.

ali-mar

Published in Analytical Articles

By Eduard Abrahamyan

December 3rd, 2015, The CACI Analyst

The Turkish Air force’s downing of a Russian Su-24 warplane on November 24, has deteriorated relations between the two states, already tense after Russia’s increasing military engagement in the Syrian conflict. The incident represented the first direct clash between Moscow’s and Ankara’s interests in the Middle East and could potentially extend the geography of the enduring standoff between Russia and the West. Yet it has been met in the West with some understanding of Russia’s concerns. Turkey’s response to Russia’s consistent violations of its airspace coincided with an anticipated accord between Armenia and Russia on the establishment of a joint missile air defense system that will be deployed during a visit of Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu to Yerevan.

tr-am-ru

Published in Analytical Articles
Friday, 20 November 2015 00:00

A new boost for the Southern Corridor?

By Stephen Blank

November 20th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

In early October Frontera Corporation announced that it had discovered 3.8 trillion cubic meters (TCM) of gas in Georgia’s Kakheti region. Although the discovery needs to be confirmed and the precise amount of gas determined; this discovery has major potential benefits of both an economic and geopolitical nature for Georgia, Azerbaijan and Europe. But there are lurking dangers as well, especially as the Georgian government recently voiced its intention to sign an agreement with Gazprom for Russian gas and diversify away from its exclusive reliance on Azerbaijan, despite that country’s utter reliability over several years and lack of designs upon Georgia.

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Published in Analytical Articles

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Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.

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Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.  

Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.

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Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.

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