On 21-22 May 2004 the IISS Russia/ Eurasia Programme in collaboration with the Centre for Caucasus studies at the Rostov State University held a conference in Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia entitled, ‘Cooperation, Stability and Security in the Wider Caucasus Region’. This conference was the last regional workshop in the Carnegie Corporation funded project on Russian Regional Perspectives on Foreign and Security Policy.
The aim of the conference was to examine regional security challenges across both Northern and Southern Caucasus and to explore the potential role of European institutions in promoting stability, security and development in both regions. The 25 participants represented a number of the Russian regions which border the South Caucasus (including Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygeija, North Ossetia, and others), the three South Caucasus states (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), two unrecognised entities - Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as by international organisations and academic institutions from the region and beyond. Topics on the agenda included: the North-South Caucasus divide and regional identity, the role of the international community in providing security in the North and South Caucasus, prospects for resolution of the intractable conflicts in the region (Georgian-Abkhaz, Georgian-Ossetian, Armenia-Azerbaijani over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the conflict in Chechnya), the role of traditional Islam and neo-Wahhibism in the North Caucasus region, terrorist threats and regional stability and the prospects for inter-ethnic relations in the region. The IISS secured the participation of a number of senior officials with direct experience of the conflicts of the Caucasus. On the part of the Russian representatives, the key speaker was General Viktor Kazantsev, the former commander of the North Caucasus Military District and until recently Putin’s Presidential Representative in the Southern Federal District of the Russian Federation. Amongst the international participants were Ambassador Sergiu Celac of the International Centre for Black Sea Studies in Greece and Marian Staszewski, chief political advisor at the UN Mission on the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict. Dr John Russell from the University of Bradford, UK, spoke on possible scenarios for resolving the conflict in Chechnya. The conference was co-chaired by Senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia, Oksana Antonenko, and attended by Col. Christopher Langton, who spoke on trans-border threats in the region, and by Dr. Kathryn Pinnick. A pamphlet of selected conference papers will be available in September and a Russian language book of all the papers will be published by Rostov State University. For further information please contact Kathryn Pinnick, tel +44 (0)20 7395 9182 or email pinnick@iiss.org.
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