For Kazakhstan and its President N. Nazarbayev the OSCE Chairmanship in 2010 is a prestigious project. At the moment East and West take care of a great and primarily reach in resources state of Central Asia. READ MORE

NATO comes out with a new strategic concept once every ten years, like a child that outgrows its old clothes and needs new ones. The great paradox of these regular changes is that NATO's original "zone of hostility" has been shrinking geographically over the past 20 years while its zone of activity has continued to expand. In fact, all of NATO's past concepts simply provided a formal rationale for what it had been doing for a few years anyway, even if this extended beyond NATO's official competence. READ MORE

Energy supply should dominate the EU's overall security objectives for the immediate future, given its dependence on Russia. READ MORE

The Russian authorities are seeking a major détente with the West. A draft of a revised foreign policy doctrine was leaked and extracts published by Russky Newsweek in Moscow this month. The document was prepared by the foreign ministry and envisages closer political cooperation with the US and the West in exchange for much needed Western capital and technologies to kick-start Russian modernization in all fields, including defense. The document was prepared by the foreign ministry in February and provisionally approved by President, Dmitry Medvedev. READ MORE

Let's be generous and call the frantic diplomatic maneuvers that have been taking place this week over Iran's nuclear program a "negotiation," Tehran-style. READ MORE

Kyrgyzstan’s recent upheaval and the  war in Afghanistan have obscured the fact that other important developments are occurring in Central Asia. For example, Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), announced in March that the Russia-dominated security group and the United Nations would henceforth cooperate in countering terrorism, transnational crime (including illegal arms trafficking), and in settling conflicts. READ MORE

Kosovo's precedent cannot be used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as historical facts do not permit this, Turkish Center for Strategic Studies head Celal Cem Oguz said A round-table on "Kosovo and the Nagorno-Karabakh: Differences and Contradictions" was held at the Azerbaijani Presidential Center for Strategic Studies with the participation of Cem Oguz and Turkish professors from Bilkent University. READ MORE

On 18 May in Vilnius, Lithuanian and Georgian Ministers of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis and Grigol Vashadze signed regulations of the Lithuania-Georgia Commission for the European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and, thus, paved the way for activities of the Commission. READ MORE

NATO is ignoring the security concerns of its Central and East European members to such an extent that several of those countries are pursuing separate bilateral security arrangements with the United States, says a report issued by a group of experts on the eve of the presentation of a major new proposal on strategy for the alliance. READ MORE

How the OSCE concept of promoting comprehensive security through co-operation and dialogue could also be an inspiration for Asia is the focus of an OSCE Conference with the Organization's Asian Partners - Japan, Korea, Thailand, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Australia - that started in Seoul. READ MORE