Taklama

On the 29th of April, Abkhazian Minister of Defence Mirab Kishmaria announced during a press conference that a number of very high ranking officers of the Abkhazian army had been dismissed from active service into the reserve forces. The list includes Col. Gen. Anatoli Zaitsev, who is Chief of the …

Most independent observers will agree that President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government have their flaws. No one was happy with the November 2007 crackdown of opposition demonstrations, the attack on Imedi TV and its take-over by government-friendly owners, the unfair advantages enjoyed by government candidates in election campaigns and especially …

On the 15th of March, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov gave a press conference on the ongoing peace talks with Armenia over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Mammadyarov claimed that the latest draft proposal discussed by the parties proposed to resolve the conflict in two phases:

• The first phase would witness …

Three weeks ago, the Georgian investigative journalist Vakhtang Komakhidze requested asylum in Switzerland. Komakhidze worked for the Reportiori studio, which has been responsible for several government-critical documentaries. One documentary revealed that the attack on two buses in the village of Khurcha on the day of the 28 May 2008 parliamentary …

The 12 December 2009 Abkhazian presidential election left many things as they were - Bagapsh won a second term and the composition of the cabinet is not likely to change radically. But since Alyksandr Ankvab was elected Vice President under Bagapsh, there was one vacancy: the Prime Ministership.

Today Bagapsh appointed …

On 12 December 2009, Sergei Bagapsh won a second term in the Abkhazian presidential election - Alyksandr Ankvab, the current Prime Minister, will become Vice President. Before the pair will be inaugurated on 12 February, I want to take a look back and argue that Bagapsh's re-election was probably the best …

The list of countries who recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia has been increasing ever so slowly over the course of the last two years - at the rate of about one country every six months - so that the question arises: who's next?

Belarus was long seen to be the country that …

On 3 January the Georgian Public Broadcaster launched its third channel, the First Caucasian Channel. It will broadcast in Russian, and cover news from the wider region. For the moment though, it is only available on its website.

Given time and enough resources, and if the Georgian government ensures that …

On 23 December the Council of Europe published the report of the Council's Anti-Torture Committee on its visit to Abkhazia from 27 April to 4 May 2009. Caucasian Knot reports that the publication is controversial, because Abkhazia claims that it had been agreed beforehand that the report would only be …

In my post on the Prigorodny District I mentioned the fact that part of the District had been transferred from Ingushetia to North Ossetia following Stalin's 1944 expulsion of the 'guilty' Ingush people to Central Asia. I've found a very useful map of the North Caucasus on Wikipedia (uploaded by …