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Top News StoryThe Age Unified stand on atomic Iran THE five major nuclear powers are working on a joint statement that aims to show unusual unified resolve and put fresh pressure on Iran not to resume nuclear fuel research, United States officials and diplomats said on Friday. Iran, making a confrontation increasingly likely, has defied the international community with its threat to resume atomic fuel research and development on tomorrow, after shelving it more than a year ago at the West's insistence.In an effort to put new pressure on Iran, the US, Britain, France, Russia and China were working...

Moscow, Jan. 14 (AP): Russia's Defence Minister on Friday defended his country's military contacts with China, insisting that the cooperation would not upset the security balance in the Far East despite Japanese concerns about Beijing's moves to boost its defence capability. Defence contacts between China and Russia "have developed, are developing and will develop, I can assure you of that," Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart. Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, Moscow and Beijing have developed what they call a strategic partnership, pledging commitment to a "multipolar world" - a term that highlights their...

An increasingly assertive Moscow appears to be revising the organizational forms it has used to dominate the post-Soviet space. While a growing number of influential Russian policymakers and pundits speak in favor of relegating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to the dustbin of history, the notion of Russia's "sphere of strategic interests" is definitely here to stay. Roughly encompassing most of post-Soviet Eurasia, this "sphere," the Kremlin says, will be fiercely guarded against all hostile incursions. The latest sign that the Russian leadership is dead serious about protecting what it regards as its geopolitical backyard is the programmatic article...

Russia and EurasiaOne area where secular Muslim societies and moderate Islam coexist and thrive with Christians and Jews is in the former Soviet areas. NATO should maintain and expand the Partnership for Peace with the Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan. However, the recent developments in Uzbeki­stan cause concern. Russia to a large degree has been behind the hard line undertaken by Islam Karimov’s regime after the tragedy in Andizhan. Russian dezinformatsiya operations may be behind the paranoid belief in Tashkent that the U.S. was behind the Andizhan riots, and even that there are contacts between the U.S. and Tahir Yuldash,...

On 14 November 2006 in Moscow, Presidents Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and Vladimir Putin of Russia signed an Alliance Treaty. The rapid passage from the Treaty on Strategic Partnership signed in Tashkent by these two states in June 2005 to the Alliance Treaty, however, symbolizes not so much a new level of bilateral relationships but rather a new “defensive” measure taken by Uzbekistan against the background of a perceived growing western “offensive” on this state. BACKGROUND: Uzbekistan’s falling into Russia’s embrace was preceded by a chain of events that, on the one hand, have led to Uzbekistan’s recent isolation from...

Among Russia’s intensified endeavors to consolidate its hegemonic position in the CIS, one that has received scant attention in the West, is Russia's attempt since April 2005 to establish an international naval task force or operations group called CASFOR in the Caspian. CASFOR would allegedly defend against terrorism, arms and drug trafficking, and supposedly modeled after BSEC’s Blackseafor. But it is planned as a conventional naval force inappropriate to such missions, generating suspicion that its intention is to subsume naval forces of riparian states within a Russian command structure and prevent them from obtaining Western support for developing their own...

In the long name of new Byelorussian law, which will be punishing for “deeds directed against a person or social security,” there is a one extra word. This word is “person”, and it definitely doesn’t belong there. In reality, in Byelorussian state a person does not exist for already a long time as a value, which has to be protected from anything. This person will handle all the difficulties by himself. Everyone knows a quality to live through difficulties is an integral part of Byelorussian national character (as well as Russian one). The person is a hardy creature. However, the...

The Ukrainian government, which owes its victory in the last elections, among other things, to the international observers, now almost rejected the participation of one of those observer missions. On Tuesday, according to the Foreign Ministry spokesman it appeared that international observers from the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), supervised by its executive head Vladimir Rushaylo are not needed in Ukraine. This statement allowed the opposition to claim that without the international observers from the CIS massive voting fraud would take place during the elections, in spite of the fact that President Yushchenko had invited observers from almost every corner...

Ukraine abstains from inviting the CIS Watchdog Mission for observing the Ukrainian parliamentary election in 2006. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Vassyl Fylypchuk claimed this to a news conference today. He stressed that the unilateral political orientation of the CIS Mission leadership in the course of observing the presidential election in Ukraine in 2004 resulted in a biased and ideologized approach and gave distorted, far from objective, conclusions. This caused principal differences between conclusions of watchdog missions from CIS and other international organizations, and proved the necessity of a significant revising of principles and organizational bases of its activities. V.Fylypchuk noted...

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland is risking further strains in relations with Russia by throwing open Cold War-era archives that include a 1979 Soviet retaliation plan that envisaged nuclear strikes on western European cities in the event of a war with NATO. The map foresaw the nuclear annihilation of Poland and was dotted with red mushroom clouds over the German cities of Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart and the site of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It was revealed Friday by Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, a staunch anti-communist who went into exile in Britain in the 1980s to oppose Poland's Moscow-backed communist...

MOSCOW: A senior Russian official hit out Tuesday at the US and NATO presence in the former Soviet Central Asian states, accusing Washington of inflaming tensions in the volatile region on Russia's border and undermining local efforts to boost security there. Igor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Security Council, painted a critical picture of US influence from Baghdad to Kabul and highlighted the case of the Central Asian states.

MOSCOW. (Zhanna Zainchkovskaya, Director of the Migration Studies Center, for RIA Novosti) - Russia will not be able to develop the vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East without immigrant workforce. Even the optimistic UN forecast predicts the Russian population will drop to 138 million by the year 2025. Without immigration the able-bodied population may decrease by almost 20 million people. This will cause serious problems. The domestic workforce will not be able to cope with Russia's economic development. Even today, we need several million more workers to implement the President's task of doubling the GDP. Under the...

MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russian people described Belarusian and Kazakh presidents, Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev, as the most popular political leaders in the neighboring countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). According to a survey conducted by the Expert Community national institute, 52% of respondents favored Lukashenko, who the U.S. State Department has branded "the last dictator in Europe" and whose country now faces the possibility of sanctions being imposed by the European Union. A total of 47% opted for Nazarbayev, who has something of a reputation in Western countries as a strongman reformer overseeing a...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov.) Washington has officially announced its readiness to join the talks on the settlement of the long and slowly developing Transdnestr conflict. The self-proclaimed republic is trying to protect its independence from the encroachments of Moldova. The U.S. State Department has also expressed a desire to become a major player on another "field of contention" in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - South Ossetia. This enclave is trying to gain independence from Georgia, especially after the bloody clashes of the early 1990s, when both sides lost thousands of lives. To make a...

The official Chisinau is in possession of documents indicating that weapons from Transnistria were supplied to Iraq, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin stated to Russian journalists who are paying a 5-day-long working visit to this republic on the Moldovan leadership's invitation. "We have sent to Russia a file with documents on the directions of arms exports from Transnistria. According to the data available with us, 13 Transnistrian industrial enterprises manufacture armaments continuously. We have a document from the Presidential Office of Saddam Hussein's certifying that weapons from Transnistria used to be imported to Iraq. Now we are scrutinizing this", Voronin...

CHISINAU. Oct 27 (Interfax) - Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev thinks that armaments from Russian stockpiles in Transdniestria might have been shipped to Chechen militants and, probably, Beslan. "Unfortunately, as far as we know, some armaments from the Russian depots in Transdniestria have been sent to Chechnya and some allegedly went to militants in Beslan," he told the Russian press in Chisinau on Thursday. "We must finally eliminate this source of arms for separatists and terrorists," he said.

The decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council has thrown into sharp focus relations between Iran and Russia. Moscow may soon have to choose whether to back Iran or align itself with the US and the European Union (EU) in reining in Iran's nuclear intentions. Russia appears ready to co-operate with both the USA and Iran in order to boost its trade relations with the two countries. Although Russia is also a leading oil exporter and therefore unlikely to be intimidated by Iranian threats to reduce oil sales, the...

Oil rich Venezuela scared of the same fate as Iraq, is planning some extreme measures to confront United States in case it is attacked. Venezuela is fast spreading arms, money and military training tactics to left-wing groups in Ecuador and six other Latin American countries. According to some international think tanks, the plan is to rage insurgency from outside Venezuela in case Venezuela is attacked and occupied. According to media sources, left-wing groups in Ecuador and six other Latin American countries have received training in urban guerrilla war tactics from Venezuela this year, The Miami Herald reported Oct. 22, citing...

SUKHUMI, September 30 (RIA Novosti) - The president of Abkhazia, a self-proclaimed independent republic on Georgian territory, said he would not agree to the deployment of U.S. and EU peacekeeping forces in the region. "The CIS peacekeeping troops were sent to the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone in line with the May 14, 1994 agreement on a ceasefire and the disengagement of forces," Sergei Bagapsh said, responding to a proposal by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to involve the United States and the European Union in the peacemaking process. "Abkhazia does not plan on making any amendments to the document." "No other countries...

Where it's moved to is not my problem," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said with evident pleasure when asked about the future of a U.S. military base in Uzbekistan, which authorities have ordered vacated within months. "It's not like I have to move it myself," Ivanov said. Ivanov is an extremely proud man, and he will not have forgotten the slight humiliation he suffered back in 2001. On the eve of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, Ivanov declared that he could not admit even in theory the possibility of a NATO troop presence on CIS territory. Less than a week later...