Obama, Merkel Speak With 'One Voice' On Iran
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama have condemned the Iranian government for cracking down on citizens who have questioned the results of the June 12 presidential election, which President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is said to have won. READ MORE
Palestine to Punjab, Bosnia to Baku: A Tour of Security Challenges Facing Europe and America with Carl Bildt
Sweden’s top priorities for its European Union presidency include signing a global climate agreement at Copenhagen, managing the political ramifications of the once-in-a-generation economic crisis, and building the infrastructure needed to reflect the EU’s growing global clout. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt outlined the EU’s plans to tackle urgent foreign policy challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran while simultaneously ushering in an era of deeper European integration with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. READ MORE
Landslide election victory for Iran's hardline president
Incumbent Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad has resoundingly won a hotly-contested election but his rival Mousavi has alleged widespread irregularities during Friday's polls. READ MORE
Kazakhstan’s Strategic Significance
The decision by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to award Kazakhstan the chairmanship of the organization for 2010 underscores a growing recognition of the country’s regional and continental importance. Kazakhstan is a strategic linchpin in the vast Central Asian-Caspian Basin zone, a region rich in energy resources and a potential gateway for commerce and communications between Europe and Asia. READ MORE
The Nabucco Carrot and U.S.-Iran Engagement
For years, analysts have argued that the Nabucco natural gas pipeline -- a U.S.-backed effort to transport gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey, thus bypassing Russia -- needed to accept gas from Iran if it was to be economically viable. But Iranian involvement in the project, which is intended to reduce European energy dependence on Russian gas exports, has been anathema for U.S. policymakers: Washington's efforts to thwart Iran's ambitions have so far overridden its desire to thwart Russia's. READ MORE
Russia Is Not Able to Play a Significant Part in Iranian Gas Transit to Europe
The attempts of Russia to participate in Iranian gas supplies to Europe will hardly be successful. This point of view was sounded by the Senior Researcher of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations Ivan Danilin. READ MORE
Europe Could Draw Gas Through Iran-Armenia Pipeline
If Teheran manages to agree with Brussels, gas for the “Nabucco” pipeline could flow from Iran to the EU, comments Armenian analyst Armen Hanbabian for Deutsche Welle.
Today the Iran-Armenia pipeline has a regional importance and is in a way an alternative to the supplies of Russian gas by the pipeline via Georgia. But the Iran-Armenian pipeline could also transport “blue fuel” from Iran to European countries. Moreover, if Teheran manages to agree with the European countries, then gas for the “Nabucco” pipeline could flow from Iran, considers the expert Armen Hanbabian. READ MORE
Euro-Atlantic factor
Moscow is still going to persuade its partners in the OSCE to realize by means of this organization an ambitious reform of the system of international security.
Appearance in Washington of the new administration has agitated the hopes on softening confrontation with Moscow. In some political narrators’ opinion, the presidents Obama and Medvedev, both representing the first generation of politicians, developed after the Cold War, can manage to do what their predecessors did not. This optimism strengthened still more after a presentation of the US vice president Joe Bayden on recent Munich conference, where he stated that in Russian-American relations it came time to press the button "reset". READ MORE
