Russian officials have reiterated pledges to pursue pro-active Far Eastern energy policies, backed by sizable investments. Moscow would invest up to $100 billion to develop new natural gas deposits in the next five years, Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, announced. Many of these new deposits are located in Eastern Siberia and Russia’s Far East. READ MORE

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment for Afghan police and soldiers to take charge of security nationwide by 2014 and urged his international backers to distribute more of their development aid through the government. READ MORE

OSCE Foreign Ministers meeting in Almaty reached consensus on holding a summit in Astana this year and reinforcing OSCE assistance to Kyrgyzstan, said the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan's Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev. READ MORE

The OSCE failed to agree on sending an international police force to Kyrgyzstan in the wake of June's ethnic clashes between that may have killed 2,000 people. A decision on the matter is expected next week. READ MORE

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, are currently involved in a diplomatic dance over resuming talks on Tehran's nuclear program. If the talks do indeed come to fruition, Ashton could assume the negotiating role previously played by her predecessor, Javier Solana. While Solana's diplomatic efforts ultimately did not bear fruit (.pdf), the circumstances that hampered his attempts to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff -- namely, the lack of U.S. participation and Iranian perceptions that the country had little to gain by talking with Europe -- have since improved and could be capitalized on by Ashton. READ MORE

Transatlantic Taskforce on Development Blog Series. READ MORE

The enhanced Eastern vector of Ukrainian policy yet more likely misleads, rather then gives a direct reply – where does Ukraine go? READ MORE

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan met  with his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski who is paying an official visit to Armenia upon the invitation of E. Nalbandyan. The meeting launched in face-to-face format and continued with the participation of delegations, MFA reported. READ MORE

Turkey’s increasingly messy entanglement with Israel is forcing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to change tack on his overall foreign policy vision vis-à-vis the Middle East. He continues to garner much respect and support on Arab streets and among radical groups or countries in the region with his increasingly angry remarks toward Israel. READ MORE

Relations between republics of South Caucasus play an important geopolitical role for Russia given that this near-border region is ethnically close to citizens of Russia's south and is highly integrated into Russia's economy. On one hand, establishment of new states in the territory of Soviet republics drastically changed relations between them making it possible for the West to set up a base to put pressure on Russia's south. We considered Georgian-Turkish relations and it is much more important how Georgia and Azerbaijan, two close neighbors, communicate. READ MORE