COLD WAR ATTITUDES UNDER SCRUTINY IN CENTRAL ASIA

25.03.2008

Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 2008 – American ‘cold war’ strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski will analyse current tension between Russia and the West at the Eurasian Media Forum (EAMF) to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on April 24 - 25.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev is due to open the annual conference, which attracts several hundred politicians, experts and journalists to debate East-West issues in the heart of Central Asia.

Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981, now a professor of US foreign policy at Washington’s Johns Hopkins University, will give the keynote address in the opening session, entitled ‘Cold War dj vu’.

He and a panel of speakers from East and West will review recent hostile accusations traded between Moscow and Washington and the outlook for this fraught relationship against a background of changing political leadership on both sides.

Delegates will also discuss the role and responsibilities of the media on this and other topical international issues, a constant theme of this unique strategic debate, now in its seventh year.

Other topics will include the controversy over Kosovo’s declaration of independence, economic opportunities and security risks in Eurasia, instability in the world financial system, and a series of discussions about media handling of complex subjects such as election processes, climate change and the sensitivities of multicultural societies. .

The Eurasian Media Forum is a non-political body founded to promote East-West understanding through involvement of the media as well as political and business leaders. .

Zbigniew Brzezinski is Professor of American Foreign Policy in the graduate School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, where he is listed as an expert on Western and Eastern Europe; Russia and the former Soviet Union. During the administration of President Jimmy Carter, he was National Security Advisor, playing a key role in charting policy towards the Soviet Union and China, as well as US involvement in the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he is a former faculty member at Columbia and Harvard universities and holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University

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