New Kazakh Ambassador has been appointed to North Korea, the Kazakh presidential press-service reported today.

• October 18, 2012

Nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed on Wednesday to closely cooperate on North Korean nuclear issues, foreign ministry officials here said.

• October 17, 2012

General William M. Fraser III, current Commander of United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), arrived in Turkmenistan for consultations, the U.S. Embassy in Turkmenistan reported.

• October 17, 2012

Kazakhstan has announced the signing of a new regional agreement on the transit of goods. Kazakh Ambassador to Azerbaijan Serik Primbetov has stated that Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey are preparing an agreement on the transit of goods by rail via the being built route of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars.

• October 17, 2012

Paul Pryce
EGF Affiliated Expert on Conflict Management and the OSCE Institutions

Since the outbreak of initial hostilities in November 1990, the Transnistrian conflict persists. While numerous initiatives have been proposed over the past two decades both by external actors and by the parties to the conflict, the de jure Moldovan government and the de facto Transnistrian authorities, little progress has been made to secure a more lasting peace. Click here to read more.

• October 17, 2012

Visiting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday said that her government had changed its policy and was willing to start negotiations on selling uranium to India.

• October 16, 2012

Two North Korean government officials told a top U.S. official dealing with North Korea that the hermitic Stalinist state would not continue on its path to denuclearization, as promised in 2005, until the United States ends what it sees as America's hostile policy to the DPRK.

• October 16, 2012

Turkmen and Russian Presidents Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation at the initiative of the Russian side, the Turkmen government said on Tuesday.

• October 16, 2012