Nothing justifies the appalling bomb attack at Moscow Airport, killing 35 innocent people awaiting friends coming in from their flights, and injuring many more. It feeds a cycle of violence from which it is increasingly difficult to escape. But the attack - by a suicide bomber identified this morning as from the North Caucasus region - is a tragic consequence of the war Russia would rather we

Araz Azimov, deputy foreign minister of Azerbaijan, said yesterday (2 November) that the Eastern Partnership, the EU's initiative for developing relations with its Eastern neigbours, was not adequate to address the geopolitical challenges in the Caucasus.

Last week, Russia extended its lease on a military base in Armenia, a former Soviet republic, until 2044, strengthening its presence in the South Caucasus energy transit region.

One perennial riposte to condemnation of terrorism is to point to salient counter-examples of state brutality. Those who may wish to defend what happened in Moscow yesterday will have little difficulty in crafting suitable soundbites. Russia has exercised imperial dominance over the Caucasus for over two centuries, under tzarism, Stalinism and authoritarian neoliberalism alike. Often the

A train carrying over 200 refugees from the Caucasus residing in Poland was blocked yesterday (15 December) at the German border, Polish media reported. The refugees were on their way to protest to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg about poor living conditions.

As NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels to discuss relations with Georgia and Russia for the first time since the 2008 conflict in the Caucasus, Giorgi Baramidze, deputy prime Minister of Georgia, outlined the situation in his country in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

"The process of normalising Turkish-Armenian relations which has been observed [since the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008] is the most important element of Turkey's new policy towards the Caucasus," writes Maciej Falkowski, a researcher at the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (CES), in an October paper.

Natalia Estemirova by Tanya Lokshina Russian human rights activist determined to expose torture and abuse in Chechnya. The leading Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova knew better than anyone the risks entailed in her work in the turbulent North Caucasus. She has died at the age of 50 after being abducted from outside her home in Grozny, capital of Chechnya, last Wednesday: she was fou...

In It’s Time to Engage the Caucasus we described a potential logistics route through the Caucasus region in lieu of the problematic and troublesome Pakistan routes (especially through Khyber).  The recommended route involved transit from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus Strait in Turkey, and from there into the Black Sea.  From the Black Sea

The Journal of Central Asian and Caucasian Studies (JCACS) is a scholarly peer reviewed journal which is published in Turkish and English twice per year. Articles are interdisciplinary in nature covering the economic, political, social and anthropological life, culture and history of nations of the region of Central Asia. Eurasia and the Caucasus. These include Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Afgha...