Week 21-27 Nov.: A letter of protest. Or more.

A tense week in the region of South Caucasus.

The results of the -so called- Presidential elections in South Ossetia are still under dispute.
One thing is for sure: the great looser is (ex) President Kokoity. "His" candidate failed and his suggestion that a woman cannot be a President in South Caucasus might only have helped Alla Jioyeva to gain more votes.
Not to mention the open support of the partially already de-legitimized Dmitry Medvedev to candidate Anatoly Bibilov.

Waiting for the South Ossetian knot to be untied, let's turn to the other fronts of tension.
Iran-Azerbaijan relations were recently complicated by a crossing accident. Akbar Gasanpur, a 20-year- old soldier, was killed at the border between the two States, presumably after having tried to cross unproperly, last month. An Iranian letter of protest followed.

And again, last week, a plot, allegedly generated in some conservative circles of Iran, brought to death an Azerbaijani journalist, Rafig Tagi. He was stabbed by two assailants and lately died in hospital. Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani last month called for his death for a critical article he had written about Iran Government.
An investigation will follow.
Iran has already officially denied any involvement, but still such rumours won't help mutual relations and perceptions.

And talking about bad mutual relations, Azerbaijani-Armenian ones cannot simply be ignored.
Daily claims of violation of the ceasefire went on for all the week, as in the last three months, almost.
The alarming stage of low intensity conflict is consolidating, and as such it is not sustainable.

In Venice

University Ca' Foscari, "Caucaso e Asia Centrale vent'anni dopo il crollo dell'URSS"
http://62.149.217.252:8092/asiac/space/start/Programma%20ConvegnoDEF.pdf

Sorry!

Too busy!

Week 31 Oct.-6 Nov.: The need of enlightenment

There are few words as pleasant as enlightenment.
There are few people pleasant as enlightened ones.
And there are few places where enlightened people are needed as the Caucasus.

It's deep dark between Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan.
It's actually worse than darkness, it's, as suggested before, a low intensity conflict.
The last casualty was buried on the 4th, in Ganja. And this is what the Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan reported for the month of October: 64 violation of the ceasefire, 3 killed, 3 wounded. It's definetely a war bulletin.

The Minsk Group co-chairs Ambassadors Bernard Fassier of France, Robert Bradtke of the United States, and Igor Popov of the Russian Federation and Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk (Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office) presented their annual report, stating that "Co-Chairs also reiterated that there is no military solution and that political will by the sides is essential for them to make the difficult decisions required to move beyond the unacceptable status quo and achieve peace." (http://www.osce.org/mg/84738)
With a bit of enlightenment...

A light is shining, on the other side, at the end of the tunnel of Russian accession to WTO.
Ten days after USA ok, on the 21st October Europe gave its green light.
And the pressing on Georgia grew more and more.
During this week, apparently, and agreement was achieved, with the relief of the parties, and partners.
But before commenting it, let's wait for the last stages of accession.
And let's see how pragmatic and how enlightened it is.