International Affairs - The Times Of Central Asia

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CAMCA

Opinion: Central Asia’s Wider Future: The CAMCA Network Brings Regional Cooperation to Baku

Central Asia is helping shape a wider regional agenda, one that connects trade and investment with technology, education, and security. In Baku, the CAMCA Regional Forum is bringing together the people who can carry that agenda forward, with the CAMCA Network helping turn shared interests into opportunities for cooperation. Taking place on October 1–2 at the Fairmont Baku Flame Towers, the 2026 CAMCA Regional Forum convenes policymakers, business leaders, investors, educators, researchers, and entrepreneurs under the theme “The World and CAMCA: A Region at the Crossroads.” Its central question is how regional cooperation can expand economic opportunities and strengthen the capacity of countries and communities to shape their future. The CAMCA Network helps shape this conversation. As a co-founder and co-organizer of the forum, it connects professionals across Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan. Its members contribute expertise, lead discussions, and bring the experience of working in the region into the program. They also give the forum continuity: relationships strengthened in Baku can support collaboration long after the gathering concludes. For Central Asia, that wider community matters. The five countries have distinct economic structures, resources, and international relationships. Cooperation must reflect those differences while identifying where shared effort can expand their choices. Connections with the Caucasus, Mongolia, and Afghanistan offer different opportunities and challenges, each deserving a place in the regional conversation. The CAMCA Regional Forum’s discussions of global shifts through 2030 and greater Central Asia–Caucasus convergence address this strategic landscape. “From C5 to a Wider Framework” asks how a broader geography of cooperation might serve the region’s interests. The underlying issue is the ability of countries to shape their own decisions: how working with neighbors can strengthen their options in a changing international environment. Economic connectivity provides a concrete test. Routes across the Caspian and through the Caucasus can help Central Asian countries reach additional markets and partners. Their value depends on dependable transport, workable procedures, and institutions able to coordinate across borders. Businesses need enough certainty to invest, plan, and build lasting commercial relationships. Today’s discussion on connecting CAMCA to the world brings these questions together. For Central Asia, the opportunity extends beyond moving goods through the region. Better connections can support production, logistics, services, and investment within it. The strategic objective is to create more value locally and give regional enterprises a stronger place in wider markets. The forum’s paired sessions on public policy and the private sector approach that objective from complementary directions. Governments influence the conditions under which companies operate. Businesses decide where to commit capital, develop products, and employ people. Bringing these perspectives together helps clarify which barriers require public action and where commercial initiative can move cooperation forward. Technology adds another dimension. The discussion of artificial intelligence asks where CAMCA fits in a rapidly changing global economy. The Digital Silk Road roundtable connects that question with financial services and innovation. For entrepreneurs in Central Asia, digital connections can open access to customers, payments, financing, and partners across borders. The investment and entrepreneurship...

UAE Aviation Agreement

Tajikistan’s Parliament Ratifies Air Transport Deal with UAE

The lower house of Tajikistan’s parliament has approved an air transport agreement between the Tajik government and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that would allow more flights between the two countries and help develop Tajikistan’s role in international aviation. The agreement was signed in Dushanbe on July 17, 2025, and ratified by the lower house, or Majlisi Namoyandagon, on October 1 this year, according to the state Khovar news agency. Khovar said the deal will help Tajikistan become a “transit country” and expand travel opportunities for Tajik citizens. The agency expects it to promote trade and tourism and create “favorable conditions for attracting tourists, entrepreneurs, and investors, including from the Gulf countries.” Habibullo Nazarzoda, director of Tajikistan’s Civil Aviation Agency, told parliamentarians that the agreement “provides a legal basis for establishing and increasing the number of flights, as well as opening new flights to other cities between the two countries,” according to Khovar. The agency noted that the accord between the two countries provides for the development of air links “beyond their territories,” and is in line with Tajikistan's aim of becoming a transit country with expanded connections to international markets. Dubai is one of the world’s biggest transit hubs. The agreement last year followed Tajikistan's introduction of an “Open Skies” policy that lifted many market restrictions as a way to encourage competition, with the aim of generating better prices for passengers, more efficient service, and route diversification. Tajikistan and the UAE have already built up their air links, with flydubai increasing its flights between Dubai and Dushanbe from three a week to seven a week last year. Additionally, in August and September this year, Tajik national carrier Somon Air received delivery of two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from Dubai Aerospace Enterprise in a leasing arrangement. The vote in the lower house of Tajikistan’s parliament completes the ratification process for the agreement with the UAE. An additional vote in the upper house, or Majlisi Milli, is not required. Under the law, the agreement would then appear in official publications.

Space Programs

Kyrgyzstan’s First Satellite to Launch Aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

Kyrgyzstan plans to send its first national satellite into low Earth orbit on October 1. The roughly five-kilogram spacecraft, developed over about two and a half years, is due to launch from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. President Sadyr Japarov has arrived in Los Angeles to attend events marking the launch, Kabar reported on October 1, citing the presidential administration. SpaceX is targeting October 1 for its Transporter-18 mission, a dedicated rideshare launch for small satellites, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The 58-minute launch window opens at 11:18 a.m. Pacific Time, or 12:18 a.m. on October 2 in Bishkek. A backup opportunity is available the following day. Falcon 9 is scheduled to carry 130 payloads, including CubeSats and microsatellites. Under SpaceX’s rideshare model, several customers share capacity on the same rocket, making access to low Earth orbit more affordable for smaller countries. SpaceX does not separately name the Kyrgyz spacecraft in its published launch description. The satellite, equipped with high-resolution cameras, was unveiled on September 24 at the Lenin Plant in Bishkek. About 10 Kyrgyz engineers worked on the spacecraft, which is estimated to have cost 10–12 million soms, or approximately $115,000–140,000. Ilya Cherny, director of Kyrgyz Electronics, previously said that most of the technologies used were Russian. Developing all of the satellite’s systems from scratch, he said, would have taken considerably longer. The project also involves state-owned Kyrgyz Asman, which Kyrgyz authorities describe as the company responsible for developing and assembling the spacecraft. The satellite is intended for Earth observation. Its imagery is expected to be used to monitor crops and pastures for signs of drought and assess the effects of natural disasters. For mountainous Kyrgyzstan, satellite data are particularly important for monitoring water resources and glaciers because mountain rivers provide irrigation for farmland and feed the country’s hydropower system. Having its own spacecraft would give Kyrgyzstan an additional source of data on areas that are difficult to monitor from the ground. The developers say Kyrgyzstan may eventually need four or five satellites to meet these monitoring needs. Kazakhstan already operates communications and Earth-observation satellites, while Uzbekistan is also expanding its space program. In August, a Chinese-built satellite named Samarkand-2028 entered orbit carrying an artificial intelligence module developed by Uzbek engineers. Uzbekcosmos, the country’s space agency, has stressed that the spacecraft is not Uzbekistan’s national satellite. Uzbek engineers are separately working on the 6U-format Mirzo Ulugbek scientific satellite, which is planned for launch in 2028.

C5+1

C5+1 Meets Again in Samarkand, but Central Asia Has Changed

In mid-October, C5+1 will meet again in Samarkand, where its first ministerial was held in November 2015. The regional actor it was created to engage has, however, changed substantially. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to arrive with representatives of more than 100 American companies for talks focused on regional economic connectivity, energy security, trade, private investment, and economic modernization. John Kerry convened the first C5+1 ministerial in Samarkand on November 1, 2015, after the six governments had met in New York that September and agreed to regular consultations. The initial agenda already treated security, economic connectivity, and environmental problems as fields where regional approaches could add value. The question is what purposes C5+1 serves now. C5+1 itself began with a Kazakhstani initiative. As S. Frederick Starr recently reconstructed the history, Ambassador Kairat Umarov, after consulting Astana, proposed in 2013 that Washington create a regular mechanism for engaging Central Asia collectively rather than only through five bilateral relationships. The State Department subsequently developed the proposal, and the format took institutional shape in 2015. That origin rules out any account in which regional agency appears only later. Kazakhstan helped create the mechanism through which Washington would engage the region collectively; the five states’ own capacity for regional coordination deepened substantially thereafter. The second ministerial in Washington in 2016 launched joint projects in economic connectivity, renewable energy, climate resilience, and security, while explicitly recognizing the value of regional approaches. A secretariat was established in 2022; the format reached presidential level for the first time in New York a year later. That summit also produced plans for a private-sector business platform and a Critical Minerals Dialogue, which held its inaugural meeting in February 2024. Its basic structure has remained the same: the United States engages the five Central Asian states collectively. Alongside C5+1, the five developed their own regional process, independent of any outside partner. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed regular consultations among the Central Asian leaders in 2017, and their first Consultative Meeting took place in Astana in March 2018. Further meetings followed in Tashkent in 2019 and Turkmenistan in 2021 before the process moved to Cholpon-Ata in 2022. Subsequent meetings extended the process into trade, transport, energy, water, security, and cultural cooperation. The process remained intergovernmental and did not require policy uniformity among the five states. It gave them a recurring political process of their own. By 2022, the process had expanded from consultation among the five to coordination in dealing with outside partners. At the fourth Consultative Meeting in Cholpon-Ata, the leaders adopted a regional cooperation roadmap for 2022–2024, a Green Agenda, and a Concept of Interaction of the Central Asian States in Multilateral Formats. A treaty on friendship, good-neighborliness, and cooperation for the development of Central Asia in the twenty-first century was also opened for signature. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had proposed regular foreign-minister consultations to develop coordinated approaches to regional and international issues. He specifically connected the multilateral-formats concept to cooperation with non-regional strategic partners. The Concept of Interaction...

Ferghana Valley

Cementing Peace in the Ferghana Valley

The Ferghana Peace Forum was just held in Tajikistan’s northern city of Guliston. There were some useful proposals and discussions during the September 28-29 event, but the greatest significance of this peace forum is that it happened at all. For most of the 35 years since the three countries that share the Ferghana Valley – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – became independent, the three governments were often at odds with each other, and the valley was the most dangerous part of Central Asia. Keeping the Momentum This was the second Ferghana Peace Forum. The first was in Uzbekistan’s eastern city of Ferghana on October 15-16, 2025. The title of that first forum was “Fergana Valley: Uniting Efforts for Peace and Progress,” and it followed the historic agreement the presidents of the three countries signed in Khujand, Tajikistan, on March 31, 2025, fixing the point where the borders of the three countries meet. The three presidents had met before at multilateral events, such as summits of the Commonwealth of Independent States or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But the Khujand meeting was the first time just the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan had met. The Ferghana Valley is one of the most densely populated and fertile areas in Central Asia. Its communities long predate the borders that now divide the valley. Those lines were drawn as internal Soviet administrative boundaries and became international frontiers after 1991. The discussions in Guliston were about how to expand cross-border movement, trade, and mutual development. The heads of the three provinces that border each other in the Ferghana Valley were in Guliston: Khairullo Bozorov from Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Province, Rajabboy Ahmadzoda from Tajikistan’s Sughd Region, and Mamirjan Rakhimov from Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Region. EU Special Representative for Central Asia Eduards Stiprais also attended and addressed the forum, alongside representatives from the EU, OSCE, UN, and other international organizations, along with officials and experts from the three Central Asian countries. Eldor Aripov, Director of the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of Uzbekistan, summed up the purpose of the Guliston gathering, saying it was intended to turn mutual understanding into joint initiatives and projects. Among the main goals were facilitating cross-border movement, establishing joint ventures and facilities, educational exchanges between university students in Ferghana Valley cities, and even hosting children from neighboring countries at summer camps. These might seem like small matters, but for those who have watched events in the Ferghana Valley since independence in 1991, they mark a striking change. The third Ferghana Peace Forum will be held in Kyrgyzstan in 2027. The Most Dangerous Area in Central Asia The borders drawn in Moscow during the years Central Asia was part of the USSR were quickly disputed throughout the region after the Soviet Union disintegrated. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in the Ferghana Valley, and predictably so. Agriculture and livestock remain important to livelihoods across much of the valley, so disputes over agricultural land and access to water were inevitable. As the...

Official Visit

Tokayev in Berlin: Ukraine, Putin, and Germany’s Growing Economic Interest in Kazakhstan

The war in Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s relations with Russia, energy, and Germany’s growing interest in Central Asia’s raw materials were all on the agenda during Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to Berlin on September 29. The Kazakh president again called for a freeze on hostilities in Ukraine before moving toward diplomacy, while emphasizing Kazakhstan’s close ties with Russia. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Moscow had so far shown no willingness to engage in substantive peace talks. The two sides also discussed increasing supplies of Kazakh oil, critical minerals, German investment, and transport routes between Asia and Europe. After the meeting, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the two leaders had discussed Russia and its war against Ukraine “very intensively.” Berlin’s position is that Moscow must end the war and enter serious negotiations involving Ukraine and European states. “The aim of such peace negotiations must be a sovereign Ukraine in a secure Europe,” Merz said. Until Russia is ready for such a peace, he added, Germany will continue to support Kyiv. Reiterating his position, Tokayev advocated a different sequence. He said he did not consider a rapid end to the war realistic under current conditions and called for first freezing hostilities in Ukraine and then moving toward diplomacy and negotiations. The Kazakh president also reaffirmed his commitment to the UN Charter and respect for the territorial integrity of states, while stressing his respect for the Ukrainian people, their culture, history, traditions, and language. A similar position was set out in a joint declaration by Tokayev and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The two expressed support for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the UN Charter and underscored their respect for the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of states. At the press conference with Merz, however, Tokayev also emphasized Kazakhstan’s close relationship with Moscow. He said he had “very good contact” with Putin, and described the Russian president as an “outstanding political figure.” Tokayev also explained Kazakhstan’s relationship with Russia in geographical and demographic terms. The two countries share a border of more than 7,500 kilometers, and Kazakhstan has a large ethnic Russian population. “Whatever may happen on the territory of Ukraine, we never forget that both Russia and Ukraine are our good friends,” Tokayev said. Merz thanked Kazakhstan for helping prevent the circumvention of sanctions against Russia, describing this as “work for peace.” Kazakhstan has not joined Western sanctions against Russia, but has repeatedly said it will not allow its territory to be used to circumvent them. For the European Union, controls on re-exports through third countries have taken on greater importance since 2022, as Russia’s trade with several Central Asian states increased sharply. Oil featured prominently in the economic discussions. Merz said Germany was interested in receiving more crude from Kazakhstan to replace Russian oil. “We are looking for ways to diversify our supply relationships, and Kazakhstan is an important building block in this region of the world,” the chancellor said. Kazakhstan began supplying crude to the PCK refinery in Schwedt in...