Kazakhstan International Affairs - The Times Of Central Asia

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CAMCA

At CAMCA, Uzbekistan Revives Push for a Stronger Regional Body

Uzbekistan has renewed its call for a stronger regional institution, with senior senator Sodiq Safoev urging Central Asian leaders to move beyond their consultative meeting format. His remarks in Baku return attention to a proposal President Shavkat Mirziyoyev outlined last November, when he called for a Community of Central Asia. Safoev, first deputy chairman of Uzbekistan’s Senate, told the CAMCA Regional Forum on October 1: “I think the time has come to transform the Consultative Meeting … into another institutional structure, not simply a Consultative Meeting, but something more.” S. Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, also called for stronger regional institutions at the forum, arguing that institutional development needed to support the expansion of transport and commercial links across the region. At the November 16, 2025, summit in Tashkent, Mirziyoyev proposed a rotating secretariat and stronger rules governing the leaders’ meetings. He also proposed making national coordinators special presidential representatives, giving them greater political authority. The secretariat would coordinate work between summits. The machinery for regular cooperation is already developing. The Council of National Coordinators held its first meeting in Tashkent on January 30–31, 2025, where foreign ministry representatives from all five Central Asian states discussed preparations for Uzbekistan’s chairmanship and a schedule of joint events. Mirziyoyev returned to the institutional argument at the July 31 informal summit in Cholpon Ata, calling for closer contacts between government departments and long-term joint programs, alongside effective cooperation institutions. His agenda included further work on common digital services and investment platforms, as well as industrial links connecting production across national borders. He also urged stronger coordination in the Central Asia Plus diplomatic formats through which the region engages outside powers. Azerbaijan’s participation has widened the scope of those discussions. The five Central Asian presidents accepted Azerbaijan as a full participant in November 2025, extending the format across the Caspian. The six-country grouping, increasingly described as C6, connects Central Asian producers with a country whose ports and onward transport links provide access through the South Caucasus to European markets. At an August 12 discussion in Washington, Uzbekistan’s ambassador Furqat Sidiqov emphasized market access and called for further digitalization of the Middle Corridor. He said Uzbekistan had about 1,500 joint ventures with neighboring states, compared with close to 300 involving Central Asian countries in 2017. Turkmenistan’s ambassador, Esen Aydogdyyev, stressed simpler customs procedures and argued that his country’s permanent neutrality was compatible with deeper economic cooperation. The commercial ambition also extends to joint production. In Baku, Azerbaijan’s minister of the economy Mikayil Jabbarov urged countries to build regional value chains in sectors where their economies complement each other. “We should increasingly produce together,” he said, pointing to companies and financial institutions already operating in one another’s markets. Moving freight across the Caspian requires countries to coordinate customs procedures and transport services. The World Bank’s new Trans-Caspian corridor study identifies fragmented governance and uneven policy implementation as problems that compound infrastructure bottlenecks. It estimates that at least $25 billion is needed through 2040...

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...

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...

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...

Central Asia-U.S. Relations

Opinion: Central Asia Is More Than Minerals

For years, Central Asia was one of those regions that Washington periodically rediscovered and then forgot. Officials visited and announced new initiatives, but the relationship hardly changed. That is no longer the case. Many pundits see the current surge of American interest in Central Asia through the lens of transactional foreign policy: nowadays the focus has been on critical minerals, supply-chain security, and competition with China. Valid so far as it goes, this approach misses the larger story. Central Asia is not suddenly important because of its minerals or because Washington has decided that it is. Increasingly, Washington must pay attention to Central Asia because the region itself is changing, and in largely positive directions. Over three decades, American investors largely dismissed the region as too poorly governed and too distant. Now the region itself is working to change the conditions that made it unattractive. The transformation is far from complete, but it is real. When the Central Asian states emerged from the Soviet Union in 1991, they faced grave disadvantages. State enterprises dominated their economies, and they fell short of Western investors’ expectations in both the rule of law and transparency. While such problems have not disappeared, they are everywhere being worked on. Uzbekistan provides the clearest example. Since 2017, Tashkent has undertaken reforms to liberalize its economy and improve the environment for private investment. The World Bank now describes Uzbekistan as one of the world's top reformers. Kazakhstan has also built more sophisticated financial and regulatory institutions. Its goal is to position itself as a regional hub for logistics, energy, and finance. The World Bank's new 2026–31 country strategy emphasizes a "business-ready Kazakhstan," with greater private-sector participation, improved infrastructure, and better natural-resource management. The pace of change in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan has been slower, for understandable reasons. Kyrgyzstan’s early political reforms long left the government rudderless, Tajikistan endured a five-year civil war, and Turkmenistan was stymied by Russia’s total control of its gas industry. Now these countries, too, are belatedly advancing. Central Asia has not become Switzerland. Corruption, political interference, and governance problems still afflict the countries’ economies, and the OECD continues to identify these as important obstacles to investment. The question is not whether Central Asia has solved these problems but whether it has changed enough to become investable. The answer increasingly is yes, it has. Moscow's offensive in Ukraine accelerated changes Washington had sought for decades. Secondary sanctions compelled Central Asians to develop new commercial avenues not subject to international restrictions. While Central Asian governments maintain important relations with Russia, they all seek pragmatic alternatives that reduce their former reliance on Moscow. The countries are expanding regional cooperation while reaching across the Caspian to the South Caucasus and beyond. The resulting Middle Corridor promises direct access to global markets. The measure of its success will be whether Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan gain trans-Caspian pipelines to transport their resources directly to Europe. In short, Central Asia is doing what Washington has long wanted it to do: become more...

Military Procurement

Why Central Asia Is Diversifying Its Arms Suppliers

India could become another supplier of major weapons to Central Asia. Indian Masterminds reported in July that Samir V. Kamat, former chairman of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said India had exported Akash surface-to-air missile systems to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The reported deliveries remain unconfirmed by the recipient governments. Publicly available accounts give no contract values, quantities, or delivery schedules. DRDO says an initial Akash battery has been flagged off for export to friendly foreign countries, without naming the recipients. Akash is a mobile medium-range surface-to-air missile system designed to counter aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, and drones. If the reported deliveries are confirmed, they would mark the first publicly known Akash exports to Central Asia following India’s deal with Armenia. The region’s armed forces still rely heavily on Soviet- and Russian-designed equipment, but governments are increasingly buying newer systems from other suppliers. Russia retains a strong position where countries need to maintain Soviet- and Russian-designed equipment already in service. Other suppliers are winning orders for drones and aircraft, extending their role in the region’s defense procurement. The figures illustrate the persistence of Russian influence. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia accounted for 83% of Kazakhstan’s imports of major arms in 2021–25. These figures measure transfers of major weapons, rather than the full range of military supplies and support. Russia’s exports of major arms, however, fell by 64% in 2021–25 compared with the previous five-year period. Nearly three-quarters of its exports went to India, China, and Belarus. SIPRI attributes much of the fall to reduced deliveries to Algeria, China, and Egypt. The most visible shift has occurred in Uzbekistan. In late August, official footage showed Chinese-built J-10CE fighter jets carrying Uzbek markings. At least six aircraft could be seen. For three decades, Soviet-designed MiG-29s and Su-27s formed the backbone of Uzbekistan’s fighter fleet. Operating the J-10CE requires different training and maintenance arrangements, alongside compatible weapons and ground equipment. The transition moves a key component of the Uzbek Air Force outside its traditional supply chain. On September 25, Brazil’s Embraer delivered the first C-390 Millennium military transport aircraft to the Uzbek Air Force. The handover ceremony took place at the company’s facility in Gavião Peixoto, making Uzbekistan the first C-390 operator in Central Asia. The late-2024 contract includes training to operate the aircraft and covers its upkeep with technical support and spare parts. The aircraft can carry payloads of up to 26 metric tons and can be configured for troop and cargo transport, aerial refueling, medical evacuation, and search-and-rescue missions. Kazakhstan’s military has put Turkish Aerospace Industries’ ANKA drone into service after military trials. In its review of 2024, Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry reported discussions with Baykar, another Turkish drone maker, on a roadmap for local production of tactical drones and loitering munitions. The latter can remain airborne while searching for a target before striking it. The same review said the Turkish side had offered to provide Bayraktar Kalkan and Bayraktar Mini reconnaissance drones, along with the...