According to the new report of “Stratfor” analyzing center, the U.S. will focus on the following until the end of the year: the Iraq war, tense relations between Iran and North Korea, and the U.S. Congress elections, so it won’t have a lot of time for relations with Moscow. In the meantime, Russia will continue its politics of strengthening its influence in the CIS countries of the region and one of the main sources is energy. According to “Stratfor” analysts, despite the outlook for the start of new negotiations, the Karabakh conflict won’t be settled by the end of this year. “Azerbaijan is strengthening its army, but it hasn’t reached success yet,” say the analysts. According to the analysts, Azerbaijan will get new sources of income during the last trimester of this year: in addition to the already running Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan oil pipeline, Azerbaijan will start the construction of a new pipeline in Decembr. “Stratfor” foresees that conflicts in Georgia will become more tense and the independence referendum set for November 12 will create more problems in Southern Osetia. According to the analysts, Georgia is going to do everything it can to strengthen ties with the West and first and foremost-the U.S. “Georgians will feel really bad if Tbilisi isn’t promised to join NATO, but in any case, Georgia will continue to work with the U.S. army,” say the “Stratfor” analysts. They also claim that Russia will try to encourage separatist acts and take steps towards making it impossible for Georgia to join NATO.
