Azerbaijani Parliament Deputy Speaker called for increased Russian role in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Baku on Saturday. READ MORE

Over the past decade, Russia has made repeated attempts to demonstrate its growing power to the world. There are two main objectives behind these attempts: to obtain international recognition as a superpower and to coerce other states into partnership. Both goals are based on the political elite’s belief that Russia should be included on that list a priori by virtue of its huge territory, nuclear arsenal and economic potential. READ MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Azeri capital for an official two-day visit on Thursday. READ MORE

Kyrgyzstan’s top officials are against the deployment of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) 52-member Police Advisory Group. The OSCE can still “gracefully” cancel its decision to send the group to Kyrgyzstan, said Security Council Secretary Alik Orozov. READ MORE

Special representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office Bolat Nurgaliev has said the Transnistrian conflict will be included in the agenda of the OSCE Summit of Heads of State and Government which will take a place in Astana in December, 2010. READ MORE

Ten years ago the Chinese government began the Western Development Program, which covered 11 administrative units including Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. READ MORE

Most observers at the moment are in the dark as to the causes and the instigators of the riots in the Osh and Jalalabad regions of Kyrgyzstan, which have been ongoing since 10 June. READ MORE

with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the President of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski READ MORE

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that Russia’s foreign policy when it came to was “schizophrenic.” I would argue that it is less a case of schizophrenia, and more a reflection of the fact that Russia does not have a singular foreign policy, but multiple foreign policies. READ MORE

Chancellor Angela Merkel used a visit to Berlin by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Monday to raise concerns about press freedoms in his country. Yanukovych was hoping to drum up German investment in Ukraine. READ MORE