Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Georgia’s Once Powerful Former Ruling Party Is in Danger of Fragmentation
United National Movement (UNM), Georgia’s once powerful political party, which spent nine years (2003–2012) in power, is in serious trouble. The start of December 2015 brought new revelations of the party’s internal power struggle and fragmentation, which turns out to be much deeper than previously believed. On December 3, the...
Russian, NATO Maritime Deployments Intensify off Syria
Despite differing political agendas in Syria’s ongoing civil war, Russia and the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are now sending significant naval forces to Syria’s Mediterranean coastline. The eastern Mediterranean is becoming crowded, as ten countries, in addition to Russia and Turkey, currently have...
Hard Choice for Kazakhstan as Russia-Turkey Spat Deepens
On November 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared economic sanctions against Turkey. Four days earlier, the latter had downed a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the border with Syria after it illegally entered Turkish airspace, according to both Ankara and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The sanctions package prohibits the...
Moscow’s Economic Sanctions Against Turkey Will Have Negative Impact on North Caucasus
Moscow’s reaction to the downing of a Russian military jet over Turkey has been unusually harsh. In his address to the Russian parliament on December 3, President Vladimir Putin continued his diatribe against Turkey’s leadership. “If anybody thinks that after having committed a cowardly military crime—killing our people—they will get...
Central Asian Countries React to Latest US Overtures in Security Sphere
In early November 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry toured all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. It was the first such visit by a top United States diplomat to the region, long regarded by Russia as its backyard and “sphere of privileged interest.” Kerry’s regional tour was also marked by the launch of a comprehensive C5+1...
Kazakhstan Looks to India, Iran for Access to the World’s Oceans
Since achieving independence in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, landlocked Kazakhstan has sought to end its geographical isolation by fostering relations with neighboring countries. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan’s national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) and India’s Ministry of Railways signed a memorandum...
Belarus Navigates a Multipolar World
The bombshell of late November was the postponement of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visit to Moscow, where he was supposed to have met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The official reason given—that both sides were too busy to meet—is rather dubious. Indeed, Putin’s schedule did not prevent him from going...
Turkey and Russia Strive to Mend Strained Relations During G20 Summit
This past week (November 15–16), in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, Turkey hosted the G20 summit for the first time. Though normally devoted to high-level political discussions of global economic issues, the recent string of terrorist attacks in Paris (November 13) and elsewhere induced this year’s gathering of G20 leaders to...
Whither Russo-Japanese Relations?
Although Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be visiting Japan this year or anytime soon (see EDM, October 9) and currently no agenda even exists for any such visit, Tokyo appears so desperate for reconciliation with Moscow that it has agreed to continue discussing the status of the disputed Kurile Islands and overall normalization of...
Russia Seeks Further Expansion of Military and Political Influence in Armenia
On November 9, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov traveled to Armenia. The visit was agreed upon shortly before. The next day, President Vladimir Putin ordered the government of Russia to start negotiations with Armenia on establishing a joint regional air defense system (Pravo.gov.ru, November 11). Preliminary consultations...
