Caucaz

What’s Behind China’s Strategic Partnership With Georgia?

With Western powers distracted by the war in Ukraine, China appears to be making cautious moves to cement its position in the wider Black Sea region.

The strategic partnership agreement released by Beijing and Tbilisi on July 31 surprised many in Georgia and in the West. While this diplomatic advance comes amid traditionally warm relations between China and Georgia, which signed a free trade agreement back in 2017, the reasons for and timing of the strategic cooperation document’s release highlight the fluid geopolitical situation in the South Caucasus; China’s attempts to advance its position in the unstable region; and, more importantly, Georgia’s efforts to maneuver between the collective West and the East, especially ahead of the crucial decision by the EU on whether to grant Tbilisi its long-coveted candidate status.

Kyrgyzstan brings back 95 ISIL wives, children from Syrian internment camps

The country’s third repatriation was carried out with the help of the US, the UN and the Red Cross.

The government of Kyrgyzstan has said 95 wives and children of ISIL (ISIS) fighters have been repatriated from internment camps in Syria.

“The humanitarian mission on August 30, was carried out to repatriate citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic staying in a camp in northeast Syria,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.

Armenia PM Warns of Escalating Tensions: New War With Azerbaijan ‘Very Likely’

In a recent development, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a stark warning about the escalating tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, raising concerns over the potential outbreak of a new war. The two nations have a long history of conflict over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with efforts toward a lasting peace treaty showing limited progress. Diplomatic mediation by the European Union, United States, and Russia has yielded few results, leaving the situation highly volatile and complex.

It’s Karimov Era 2.0 for Muslims in Uzbekistan

A new wave of arrests in Uzbekistan have centered on religious lectures, songs, and social media posts, calling up memories of the not-so-distant Karimov era.

On May 31, a 57-year-old woman from Navai region was sentenced to three years of restricted freedom for liking a social media post in 2018, when she was in Turkey. The video she “liked” on the Odnoklassniki.ru social media platform was a religious speech in Uzbek delivered by a person named Rafik Kamalov.

WILL AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN EMERGE?

The creation of an independent and sovereign state of Kurdistan is a topic that has a long history and different visions for the implementation of this project.

The territory currently occupied by the compact Kurdish population is about 500 thousand km2. They live at the crossroads of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran, as well as in a number of neighboring countries, not counting the diaspora elsewhere. In terms of population, approximately 8.1 million Kurds live in Iran (10% of the population), 5.5 million in Iraq (17%), 1.7 million in Syria (9.7%) and 14.7 million in Turkey ( 18 %).

LATENT CONFLICTS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS: AN ETHNO-SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Introduction

The current socio-political situation in Russia and its development trends are the object of close attention of both federal and regional authorities. Politicized ethnicity, which is taking on ever more aggressive forms, threatens the Russian community with ethnoseparatism, secession, interethnic conflicts, and ethnopolitical crises.