Deputy Defense Secretary Alexander Vershbow arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on Tuesday October 20. READ MORE

After years of dithering, and despite Moscow's threats, agreement has been finalised for a project to bring non-Russian gas to Europe. READ MORE

Despite the scrapping of US eastern European missile defense plans, Vice President Biden's trip to eastern Europe presents fresh alternatives and confirms its security concerns are still a US priority. READ MORE

Turkey wants to help the EU to realise the Nabucco pipeline project by acting as a broker for securing natural gas supplies from Iraq and Qatar as well as Iran at a later stage, the country's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. READ MORE

In 2003 a team of Russian foreign policy and energy experts wrote a 70 page memo about the role of Gazprom, the state-owned gas monopoly, in Russia’s domestic politics and the country’s foreign policy strategy. The document was distributed to a limited number of consumers and was never published. It is in the possession of the Jamestown Foundation. READ MORE

The European Commission's annual progress report on Turkish membership says Ankara has improved its handling of human rights issues and the Kurdish minority. But it says that a lot more work needs to be done for it to become an EU member. The report is being met with little enthusiasm in Turkey as doubts over its bid to become a member continues to grow. READ MORE

Kazakhstan can give an impulse to the OSCE restructuring and balancing the three baskets of the Organization during its Presidency in OSCE in 2010, claimed the Head of the Foreign Policy Studies Department of Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies at the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bulat Auelbayev. READ MORE

Authorities in Tiraspol are watching the political deadlock in Chisinau with barely concealed satisfaction. Moldova’s political and constitutional crisis since April has further deepened the freeze on both tracks of negotiations on the Transnistria conflict: the international 5+2 format and the bilateral right bank – left bank dialogue. Tiraspol is in a position to argue irrefutably that negotiations can only resume after Moldova resolves its internal crisis and elects a head of state. READ MORE

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was "delighted" that the Polish had signed the EU's reform treaty, describing Warsaw's move as the "penultimate step" toward the treaty's implementation. READ MORE

Even the experienced political observers – those who monitor every step and word of Alexander Lukashenko – remain in the state of shock after he spoke to Russian journalists in Minsk. READ MORE