Eurasia

Macedonia and Greece must use the window of opportunity before the December EU council to strike a deal on their name spat that continues to block Skopje’s Euro-Atlantic integration, Swedish Foreign Minister said on Tuesday. “This has to be dealt with bilaterally” Carl Bildt, whose country is currently running the …

Russia will host a large-scale military drill next year. “Exercises will be held in the east of our country in 2010,” the Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukovas said. The drills, dubbed “Vostok 2010”, would be held from late June to early July, with involvement of servicemen from Siberia and Far East …

The opposition New Kosovo Alliance, AKR, is accusing the Alliance for Future of Kosovo, AAK, for manipulation in polling stations in the Gjakova municipality during Kosovo’s local election.

Georgian State Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili transferred the state strategy on national minorities today to Azerbaijani State Committee for Religious Organizations Chairman Hidayat Orujov.

Macedonia’s top officials have decided that the country should stay actively involved in the negotiations about its name. The talks meant to bring closer the positions of Skopje and Athens on this issue are being conducted under the UN patronage.

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic protested on Monday at a conference in Brussels because the Kosovo Albanian delegation did not have UNMIK signboards on its table. Dacic considered the missing UNMIK signboards from the tables as an attempt to prejudge the status of Kosovo.

Novi američko-evropski prijedlog ustavnih promjena u BiH bitno se ne razlikuje od butmirskog paketa, izjavio je jučer Sulejman Tihić, predsjednik SDA, nakon sastanka sa Stjuartom Džonsom i Larsom Valundom, pomoćnikom zamjenika američkog državnog sekratara, odnosno političkim direktorom u Ministarstvu vanjskih poslova Švedske.

The Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat declared that the key to the Transnistrian conflict is in Chisinau. The „Solution is in Chisinau and it depends directly on the living conditions, rights and freedoms citizens from the right bank of the Nistru River will have”, Filat said.

More than 1.2 million Moldovans will enjoy a simplified border crossing regime with Romania within an area of up to 50 km of the frontier under the Convention on Small-Scale Border Traffic signed by Vlad Filat and his Romanian counterpart Emil Boc in Bucharest last week.

Plans to open more negotiation chapters in the EU accession negotiations are being thwarted for political reasons and Turkish leaders are fuming. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, speaking to the Daily News in Spain, says it’s not understandable. ‘We are criticized by the Europeans for not being fast enough, but …