‘Current Affairs – Perspectives from the Region’ (Aktualniye Temi: Vzgliad iz Regiona)

Since 2008, our Georgian and Abkhaz partners have commissioned each other to research certain aspects of the conflict in order to engage in joint analysis and a series of public debates, to promote a new way of thinking about the conflicts in the "new realities" following the August 2008 war and subsequent recognition by Russia of Abkhazia as an independent state. Summaries of this research are available on International Alert’s publications page, on themes of:

• An agreement on the non-resumption of hostilities;
• The impact of international governmental and non-governmental peacebuilding initiatives;
• The politics of non-recognition;
• The de-isolation of Abkhazia through social, economic and cultural initiatives.

From 2011 we are starting a series of shorter analytical pieces on current affairs to offer different perspectives on events in the region as they unfold. The first theme to be published in July 2011 is on the significance of the recent Georgian parliament’s resolution recognising as ‘genocide’ the forced deportations of Circassian peoples during the Russian-Caucasus war of 1763-1864.