Georgia has been struggling with a number of ethnic and regional problems since it gained its independence from the Soviet Union and is currently working to settle these problems. However, even the recently created Ministry of Reintegration that deals with these matters has problems with how to handle these issues.After the elections in October of last year, the Georgian Dream coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili formed a government and decided to focus on the settlement of the regional issues of the country and reconcile with Armenia and Russia. Holding that the Abkhazia and South Ossetia issues could be resolved by getting along with Russia, the Tbilisi administration is also w...
When terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party's (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan called on the PKK to lay down arms during the Nevruz festivities in Diyarbakır, debates about the settlement process became hotter and many people started to put forward the idea that the settlement of the PKK issue will play into Turkey's hands in both domestic and foreign policy in the short term. The expectation that having solved its 30-year-old terror problem through peaceful methods, Turkey will be able to solve its foreign policy issues with a new momentum is closely associated with the interests of not only Turkey, but also of neighboring countries and international organizatio...
Polls and public research done in Armenia throughout the presidential election campaign appeared to confirm that the winner of this most recent election would in fact be the then-current president, Serzh Azati Sarksyan. In order, however, to properly understand the coming period in Armenia, it is important to examine the other prominent candidates from this race who, compared to previous election periods, enjoyed greater popularity with the public and more power on the national political stage.For example, the leader of the Heritage Party, Raffi Hovhannisyan, has taken a close interest since 2011 in national problems, even implementing different protes...
The presidential elections that will be held in 2013 in the South Caucasus are particularly important for regional politics. In the lead-up to elections, the relevant states are concerned with domestic problems rather than foreign issues. Azerbaijan and Armenia suspended the solution process in respect to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to have greater time and energy to spend on domestic politics. The new government in Georgia is now focused on domestic stability for a more constructive foreign policy.Another important development in the region in the lead-up to several presidential elections is the discussion over the Eurasian Union, an ambitious initiative sponsored by Russia in the...
The presidential election in Armenia, expected to end with the re-election of incumbent Serzh Sarksyan, is unlikely to have a significant impact on the country's relations with Turkey, experts say.“It is hard to say that Sarksyan will follow a new policy in the event of his victory. It seems like he will continue to pursue the same policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and will maintain the same expectations from Turkey for 2015, the centennial of the events of 1915,” Mehmet Fatih Öztarsu, an analyst at Konya-based Strategic Outlook, told Today's Zaman.The presidential election in Armenia will be held on Feb. 18 and will be the first of this year's pres...
