فصلنامه مطالعات آسیای مرکزی و قفقاز
پیاپی 69 (بهار 1389)

Nagorno-Karabakh is an autonomous region situated in the vicinity of Armenia borders and the west of AzerbaijanRepublic. Although this region is controlled by Armenians, neither Armenia nor any other country in the world recognize KarabakhRepublic. The region has been the scene of conflict between two republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia since their independence. The aim of this article is to analyze the dimensions and levels of intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in accordance with Geopolitical Crisis concept and its fundamentals. As to the findings of the research, non-adaptation of geographical borders with ethnic, religious and cultural borders in Caucasus region; communist leader's political approach to Soviet republics and ethnic groups; strong positions of the conflict parties to each other; the factor of foreign actors competition; the balance of power relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan Republic and at least Armenian's negative historical mentality and fear of blockade, are the most important factors intensifying Karabakh crisis.

Presidents of EU and its six eastern neighboring countries - including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia – signed a declaration that has been known as “Eastern Partnership” in May 2009, in order to build the framework of their future relationships. Before the year 2001, these countries did not enjoy a peculiar position in the EU’s foreign policy; but military operations in Afghanistan, increased their pivotal role to ensure NATO continued presence in this country. Considering Russia’s attempts in the past years to regain its former power, and pursuing a more aggressive policy, which sometimes clashes with western interests, the " Eastern Partnership initiative " can threaten Russia’s interests in the region, in the long term. Indeed it is possible to evaluate this initiative in the frame of the utilization of EU’s soft power to ensure the regional countries support of EU policies

According to strategic resources, the past century has been named the "Oil Century "; and this century will possibly be named the "Water Century." With the attention paid to the social, economic and ecological developments, the majority of the world’s countries will have a crisis pertaining to this matter. Even in the past century, struggles over water have been major parts of a country’s policy in most regions. This has been also a matter of importance in the regions surrounding Iran. This article tries to answer the following questions: what will the global overview of the water crisis in the following decades? What are the main causes of this global crisis? What is this crisis’ importance for Iran? What are the causes of this crisis in the Central Asia? What solutions can be proposed to address this situation? Therefore, this article will try to highlight the root - causes of this crisis in Central Asia, by referring to the reports of international institutions while assessing the global overview of the water crisis and its causes; this article will also answer the questions raised and propose solutions to address this crisis. The main assumption in this article is that with changes in the economical, ecological and social areas, the water crisis will be considered more important in the following decades and have a major influence on most countries’ policy and especially in the regions surrounding Iran.

China’s neighboring of and shared borders with Central Asian countries, coupled with its rapid economic growth, has imposed certain conditions on the relations between China and the aforementioned countries. The bilateral relations between China and the regional countries are not exempt from Beijing’s global economic policies. In addition to common geopolitics and the importance of this region for China, Beijing has given much importance to the continuation and expansion of its relation with the regional countries in the economic area. China's goal is to preserve social and political stability in the country, especially in the bordering regions like Xin Jiang. USA’s influence in the Central Asia after the 9/11 has been an undesirable reality for the Chinese and its general strategy concerning the neighboring countries. All these factors have influenced China’s foreign policy and its goals and interests in Central Asia. Therefore, this article has been trying to explore and explain the different aspects of China’s foreign policy in Central Asia.

Central Asia is heir of Silk Road economic dynamics and bridge of correlation between Europe and East Asia and also north and South of Asia. Today Central Asia is an important region, because it is rich of energy resources. This region after collapse of the Soviet Union has gained geo-strategic, geo-political and geo-economic dimensions. This is why Regionalism in Central Asia has been prominent. Central Asia is a recognized "Region". Notwithstanding the fact that regionalism in Central Asia has not yet gained. This article will survey dimensions of challenges and obstacles of regionalism in Central Asia.

Coming to power of the modernist disciples of Arbakan 's political school under the guise of Justice and Development Party (JDP) in 2002 elections, ushered a new political revival in Turkey. The formulation of Strategic Depth Doctrine by Ahmet Davutoğlu, as the architect of the Turkey 's new foreign policy, led to radical changes in its foreign relations. Ameliorating relations between Turkey and the Russian Federation are among these developments, which is unprecedented during the 500 years history of fragile relations between the two countries. Based on the Constructivist theory, this article, tries to answer the question that what are the motives for amelioration of Moscow-Ankara relations despite their old mutual misunderstanding? And what are the manifestation of this change in different fields? According to the main hypothesis, “the shift in the attitude of Turkey 's new political elite towards foreign policy, has transformed Turkish foreign policy and created radical changes in its relations with the Russian Federation”. In order to answer the aforementioned questions and testing the hypothesis, this article first reviews the Constructivist theory and its linkage with foreign policy and then while studding approaches adopted by Justice and Development Party in the field of foreign policy and comparison adoption with the main assumption of the constructivist theory, explores the shift in Moscow-Ankara relations in the four areas: political, security and defense, economic, social-cultural, as well as the impacts of Georgia’s August 2008 crisis on the relations between the two countries.

The discovery of Oil, Gas, and its diverse utilization has had a major role in the transformation of industries, and acknowledged as a central basis for social development. In these conditions, future of energy resources and how to organize it's production, transportation and usage have been the major goals and challenges of the producers and consumers of energy; it has also helped to shape bilateral, regional and international relationships between countries. In the past decade, the energy security has caused the increasing of strategic importance in relations between producing, consuming and transit routes. Among regions blessed with energy resources, the Caspian and Caucasian regions have a major part in providing the energy needed on a global basis, and it is possible to increase this part by encouraging regional cooperation. This article, basing on energy resources and regional cooperation, proposes the following theory: after the Georgian crisis in August 2008 and considering the changes in global and regional processes, new conditions have aroused in Caucasus, that its major component is the weakening of contrasting and competitive approaches and strengthening the cooperative and transactional approaches. On such basis and with regard to the changing views of regional countries’ leaders, the concept of energy can be considered an appropriate groundwork in creating ties between the producing, transporting and consuming countries. This article claims that the realization of this matter is only possible by the adoption of an appropriate policy regarding regional cooperation in order to better utilize the resources and by giving utmost priority to long-term goals as opposed to short-term goals.