JOURNAL OF CENTRAL EURASIA STUDIES
Year:2008 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

The Color Revolutions in some of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), namely the survivor states of the former USSR, occurred in the third millennium. Some developments in Georgia in 2003, which were called the velvet revolution or the rose revolution, changed the government of Georgia without bloodshed leading to transformations in Eurasia region. This article focuses on the results and effects of the presidential election which was held on January 5, 2008 in Georgia as well as on its impact on U.S. and Russian interests. Many analysts evaluated that the re-election of Saakashvili was a step in the way of democracy in Georgia, although another group expressed that the condition was not easy and there were signs of political instability. They predicted that it would affect Georgia’s relations with the NATO. The author of the paper seeks to examine the causes and parameters of Russia’s war on Georgia and how the war ended finally.

In recent years, China has been motivated to invest in oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea. This motivation is indicated by participation or operation of the Chinese companies in the huge projects of exploration of oil and gas as well as in the construction of a pipeline in Central Asia. As an example, the China - Kazakh oil pipeline can be considered as the biggest Chinese investment in the region. This project will play a crucial part in the future of energy supply to China. There are some elements influencing Chinese motivation to exploit Caspian Sea’s energy resources. The first element is instability in the energy market and high rates of dependence on main energy producers such as the Persian Gulf ones. Because of these problems, China tries to diversify its energy resources. The next element is good economic, diplomatic and military relationship between China and the littoral states of the Caspian Sea (Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) that help to secure energy transit to China.

Central Asia is a land - locked region, which has no access to the world’s high seas, but in terms of natural resources, especially petroleum, natural gas and rare metals is very rich and has an important status in the world. For exporting these materials to world markets, the region is faced with some problems including banking and insurance systems, customs duties and laws, electronic commerce, and other legal and formal problems. Thus, it should be mentioned that Central Asia is under consideration of those countries which need to have access to this region. On the other side, exporting available resources from Central Asia to markets will bring revenues and incomes and in return, they pay it for importing goods and services they need. Two important transportation infrastructures, which are rival, has been established including “Transit Corridor of Europe, the Caucasus and Asia” (TRACECA) in west - east direction and the other “North - South Transit Corridor” (NSTC) in north - south direction.

The EU neighborhood policy is a road map that will depict the perspective of European Union’s relations with its neighbors. The membership of the neighbors in the Union is impossible, because they are confronted with deep domestic and foreign problems, and on the other hand EU’s security, political and economic interests in these countries lead to offering of the EU neighborhood policy. Georgia is a country with strategic location that has its own problems. Georgia also possesses transit routes for transportation of Caspian energy resources to the West. So protection of Georgia’s security is one of the EU’s political interests. In the framework of neighborhood policy, EU pursues its policies for which there are major opportunities and challenges ahead.

Circassians are one of the ethnic groups in the South - West of the Caucasus who speak Circassian language which is one of the branches of the north-east Caucasus languages (Ebrian - Caucasian). This ethnic branch includes the Caucasian ethnic Abkhaz - Adygian group, which are nowadays divided in three republics in the north Caucasus Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay - Cherkessia and Adygeya. By using the title Circassia, we mean historical geography of Circassians that in the last 300 years has become the center of contention among Iran, Russia and Ottoman Empire. In the history, Circassians have always played a slavish role and Iranians and Ottomans have abused them. In this case, these people had the opportunity to penetrate the Iranian and Ottoman Courts and had a significant influence on the same historical events. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, their tendency to independence in this region started and Circassians entered a period of dispute. One of the largest struggles during these years was the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia in which Circassian military forces, battled against Georgia.

The wave of Islamic radicalism in Central Asia and separatism threaten China’s neighboring autonomous and Muslim - populated Xinjiang region. There is much evidence indicating that the threat is clear - cut, though in Xinjiang Muslim dissidents are not much strong because of increasing suppression of Chinese people. In this article, the main question includes what is China’s main security and political concern in Central Asia which resulted in China’s expanding relations with these countries in 1992-2005. This article not only focuses on China’s major security and political concerns, but also underlines the fear of fundamentalism, radicalism, and terrorism especially Islamic radicalism in Central Asia.

West Asia is a critical geopolitical region of Eurasia. This region is a geographical center of crisis in all aspects. It is also an artificial term invented by the United States instead of the Greater Middle East. This geographical concept coves two regions stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian / Central Asia. This region is recognized as the Arab Middle East, too. In the Persian Gulf, the extensive and complicated issues between Iranians and Arabs are not derived from the period of the presence of Britain, France and Germany. In recent years, Arabs and Iranians still see that a dense propaganda in their region has been steadily growing hostility against each other and it could be ended to a result to leave for dominating trans-regional powers on regional affairs by ignoring regional self - confidence and respect. This paper tries to answer the following question: Have the trans-regional powers worked for resolving disputes in the regional countries which help to create peace and cooperation; or have they worked for instigating political and territorial disputes considering that it will ensure continuation of their domination on military affairs, selling of weaponry and political intervention.

Structural changes in international relations since the end of the Cold War have brought the globe in a transitional phase with new characteristics. The new era and conditions have made regional cooperation on different zones of the globe more important, so as success of a country in playing effective and constructive role in its peripheral area can be an introduction for its successful entrance on global arena. At the same time, it should be considered that success in regional policies is not only a function of the possibilities of each country of a region but also depends on participation of all regional countries in the process of regionalism. Regionalism means to use the potentials of a region towards integration which becomes possible in the framework of a regional system. Regional system represents the mechanism of interactions in a region and the process of influence of internal and peripheral variables on regionalism. Since ECO is the most important and comprehensive regional organization for Iran as its member, we are to examine in this article the possibility of regionalism in the framework of ECO through giving theoretical standards. So we will take into consideration effective variables - geographical, political, security, socio-cultural, and intervening systemic - in a comparative manner for ECO.