CONF.- Cooperation and Integration for Central Asia, June 2007, Tajikistan

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies

CONF.- Cooperation and Integration for Central Asia, June 2007, Tajikistan

Posted by: Boyko <boyko@uni-altai.ru>

The international conference "Cooperation and Integration Projects for
Central Asia: Comparative Analysis, Opportunities and Prospects" will
be held in Khudjand (Tajikistan) 26-28 June 2007. It is organized by
the Center of Geopolitical Studies at Russian-Tajik Slavonic
University (Dushanbe), Alexander Knyazev Public Foundation (Bishkek),
Central Asia and Caucasus Institute (Moscow), Center for Regional
Studies "Russia and the East" (Barnaul) in partnership with the
Information Agency "Ferghana.ru", newspaper "Business and politics"
(Dushanbe), and the Center for media assistance (Dushanbe).

Central Asia is the region, historically and civilizationally emerging
and developing as ethno-cultural and confessional coherency and the
receptacle of political entities in geographic space between
Slavonic-Christian, South Asian, East Asian and Arab worlds. In late
XX the concept of Central Asia has been interpreted in accordance to
geopolitical considerations - in most narrow notion it is reduced to
formula of five post-soviet republics, whereas the extended view
frames this region as including the territories of some other states,
which are "interfered" or similar with each other on ethnical and
other dimensions. Some new cooperative/integrative schemes are
elaborated - these are different by space and political format and
suggest the solution of certain objectives, corresponding to the
interests of out-of-region power centers. The developing of analytical
projects is followed by practical activities, which are causing
competitive situation, feeding natural intra-regional contradictions
as well the whole set of new threats for regional security.

The assessment of the given situation by expert circles, including the
representatives of different academic schools and think-tanks from the
countries of region and outside might get the answers for the long
list of questions arising in this context.

The preliminary list of problems to be discussed at the conference:

1. Central Asia: general framework, definitions and criteria of
political geography

2. Objective pre-requisites for cooperation and integration in region
and factors preventing it

3.The main external players and motivation of their interests in
cooperation and integration with Central Asian countries

- Russia;
- USA and their trustworthy partners (Turkey, Pakistan);
- China;
- EU;
- islamist integrists (the establishment of caliphate, etc);

The main cooperation and integration projects:

- post-soviet unities, in which the core component is Russia (OACS
and EurAsEC);
- SCO as cooperative project of RF and PRC;
- US project of GCA;
- projects based on ethnical criteria: Turkish initiatives for
Turkophone countries of region, concept of Arian unity (Iran,
Afghanistan, Tajikistan);
- the making of caliphate and other integrist schemes of islamist radicals

4. The main factors of cooperation/integration (pro and contra):
- economical and resource-rooted:
- communicational;
- cultural-civilizational;
- geopolitical;
- Afghanistan (state, society, military-political reality) in Central
Asian context

It is expected that conference will be attended by many noted experts
from Central Asia, Russia, China, USA, Great Britain, Ukraine, India,
Pakistan, Iran and other countries.

The conference venue is sanatorium "Shifo" at picturesque storage lake
Qairakkum (Khudjand, Tajikistan). The organizers will provide visa
support for conference participants. Working languages of conference
are Russian and English, the simultaneous translation of presentations
will be provided.

Interested scholars and practitioners should contact the organizers
asap, providing personal details, the title of presentation, etc) and
submit an abstract/paper up to 20000 symbols in Russian or English
(preferably with the relate translation) in World format with
footnotes and references at the end of text by the date of conference.
Maps, schemes, etc should be sent as separate files in jpeg, gif, tif,
psd format.

All requests and mails should be directed to the organizing committee:
conference_2007@inbox.ru

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