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All parties involved in the South Ossetia conflict should work to ensure freedom of movement and other basic cooperative mechanisms without status or other political preconditions, so as to reduce the risk of instability and meet basic local needs.

The number of Islamists in Kyrgyz and Kazakh prisons is small but growing, in both size and political significance.

Oil and gas are proving as much a burden as a benefit to Central Asia. The three oil and gas producers in the region – Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – are showing signs of the “resource curse” under which energy-rich nations fail to thrive or develop distorted, unstable economies.

The European Union is not living up to its potential as a geopolitical actor in Central Asia. The level of EU interest has been low, and Brussels is doing little to shape developments in a region that has mostly seen marked declines in its economic fortunes, political freedoms and social development in recent years but remains of considerable strategic significance.

Instability in the South Caucasus is a threat to European Union (EU) security. Geographic proximity, energy resources, pipelines and the challenges of international crime and trafficking make stability in the region a clear EU interest. Yet, the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts have the potential to ignite into full-fledged wars in Europe’s neighbourhood.