Kyrgyzstan Features - The Times Of Central Asia

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Podcast

Pannier and Hillard’s Spotlight on Central Asia: New Episode Out Now

As Managing Editor of The Times of Central Asia, I’m delighted that, in partnership with the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, from October 19, we are the home of the Spotlight on Central Asia podcast. Chaired by seasoned broadcasters Bruce Pannier of RFE/RL’s long-running Majlis podcast and Michael Hillard of The Red Line, each fortnightly instalment will take you on a deep dive into the latest news, developments, security issues, and social trends across an increasingly pivotal region. This week, the team will be tracking the culmination of Bishkek's power struggle as charges are formally brought against Tashiyev, alongside a fresh wave of EU sanctions that look designed to make an example of one Central Asian state. We'll also break down the shutdown of a key Kazakh pipeline carrying oil to Europe, Russia's increasingly blunt statements on foreign military deployments across the region, Ashgabat's crackdown on Starlink connections in Turkmenistan, and the EU's push to turn Central Asia into a transit point for Afghans being deported back to Afghanistan. We'll also cover the spread of a new strain of foot-and-mouth disease tearing through the region. And for our main story, we turn to the mounting ecological crisis in the Caspian Sea, where falling water levels and worsening environmental pressures are becoming impossible for the region to ignore. On the show this week: Vadim Ni, co-founder of the Save the Caspian Sea movement.

Middle Corridor

Opinion: A New Southern Gate – How the EU-Armenia Summit Unlocks a Critical Branch for the Middle Corridor

For the first time in its history, the European Union held a full summit with Armenia. The meeting, which took place in Yerevan on 4–5 May 2026, was not merely a diplomatic milestone for Armenia. It also sent a signal to governments thousands of kilometers away in Central Asia that the trade route linking Asia to Europe through the South Caucasus is becoming more real, and more politically backed, than ever before. The centerpiece of the summit saw the signing of a “Connectivity Partnership” between Brussels and Yerevan. The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, described Armenia as "uniquely positioned" to connect Europe with the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Under the EU's Global Gateway program, investments in Armenia are expected to reach €2.5 billion. A further €3 billion is earmarked specifically for the Middle Corridor – the trade route that runs from China across Central Asia, over the Caspian Sea, through the South Caucasus, and into Europe. “We will support your integration into key transport networks like the Trans-Caspian Corridor. It is a route that is also of strategic importance for Europe, given the growing flows of trade between our two regions,” von der Leyen stated. A Route That Is Already Moving Fast The Middle Corridor, formally known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), has grown at a pace that few predicted. Cargo volumes rose 70 percent in the first nine months of 2024 alone, reaching 3.4 million tons. By the end of that year, the total had climbed to 4.1 million tons – up from just 350,000 tons in 2021. The World Bank projects that the route could handle up to 11 million tonnes a year by 2030. It's important to maintain some perspective. These numbers are small fry when compared to the billions of tons of trade that moves between Europe and Asia by sea. However, the Middle Corridor does offer important diversification, particularly given the spillover effects of wars in the Middle East and piracy in the Red Sea. [caption id="attachment_48602" align="aligncenter" width="1274"] Image: Trans Caspian International Transport Route and it’s southern part, China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway project. Source: middlecorridor.com[/caption] Where Uzbekistan Stands For Uzbekistan, the Middle Corridor is both an opportunity and a work in progress. In January 2025, President Mirziyoyev signed a decree to upgrade road and rail connectivity, and in September 2024, Tashkent co-founded the Eurasian Transport Route Association alongside Austria, Azerbaijan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkey. In December 2024, Uzbekistan sent its first block train all the way to Brazil – through Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and the Georgian port of Poti – proving the route is operationally viable. But costs remain a challenge. Shipping a 40-foot container via the Middle Corridor currently costs between $3,500 and $4,500, compared to $2,800–$3,200 on the Northern Corridor through Russia. Europe, meanwhile, accounts for only around 3 percent of Uzbekistan's exports and 13 percent of its imports — a share that Tashkent wants to grow significantly. The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway — a $8 billion, 573-kilometre project whose...

Geopolitics

European Summit in Yerevan Sends a Signal to Central Asia

The 8th European Political Community summit in Yerevan highlighted deepening geopolitical fault lines while signaling that some post-Soviet countries, notably Azerbaijan and Armenia, are gradually shifting their geopolitical orientation away from Moscow. It is a realignment that Central Asian states are watching with increasing interest. On May 4, attention across post-Soviet space, from Russia and Belarus to Central Asia and the South Caucasus, turned toward Yerevan. Armenia, still a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Eurasian Economic Union and formally tied to the Collective Security Treaty Organization despite freezing its participation, hosted Europe’s political leadership. Among those attending were French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa, and prime ministers including Donald Tusk, Keir Starmer, and Petteri Orpo. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev participated via video link. No Central Asian leaders attended the summit. Even so, the gathering carried a message for the region. Armenia hosted Europe’s political leadership while remaining tied to Moscow-led structures, including the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Union. For Central Asian governments pursuing their own multi-vector policies, the summit showed how a post-Soviet state can widen its diplomatic options without a clean break from Russia. The parallel is not exact, but it is visible. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan remain in the Eurasian Economic Union, while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan remain in the CSTO. All five Central Asian states maintain working ties with Moscow, while expanding contacts with the EU, Turkey, China, and the Gulf, part of a wider effort to diversify foreign policy options through closer engagement with Europe and other outside powers. Turkey was represented by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, the highest-level Turkish official to visit Armenia since then-President Abdullah Gül in 2008. Turkey and Azerbaijan largely positioned themselves as counterweights to the dominant European framing, marking one of the summit’s key geopolitical divides. Aliyev adopted a confrontational tone, announcing a suspension of relations with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. “Instead of addressing fundamental problems of some member states, such as xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, migration, competitiveness, and homelessness, the European Parliament targets Azerbaijan, spreading slander and lies,” Aliyev said. “And the reason is that Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty, put an end to separatism, and brought war criminals to justice.” In response, António Costa sought to soften tensions, emphasizing the summit’s historical significance as the first of its kind held in the South Caucasus and highlighting Aliyev’s participation as a symbol of peace efforts in the region. Cevdet Yilmaz focused on bilateral diplomacy, meeting Romanian President Nicușor Dan to discuss trade, regional issues, and global challenges. He also held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the summit’s host. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on the joint restoration of the historic Ani Bridge, located on the border between the two countries and dating back to the 11th century. Yilmaz suggested that Armenia would benefit from closer alignment with Turkey...

TCA Interviews

UNEP Interview: From Space, Central Asia’s Methane Challenge Comes Into Focus

Satellites are changing the way the world sees methane. What was once an invisible leak from a well, flare, pipeline, landfill, or coal mine can now be detected from space, traced to a specific site, and sent to governments and companies for action. A new analysis by the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory puts that system to the test. Its Methane Alert and Response System, known as MARS, uses 35 satellite instruments to identify major human-caused methane “super-emitters” and notify those responsible. UNEP says the system has already enabled 41 mitigation cases in 11 countries, covering sources estimated to have released 1.2 million tonnes of methane. For Central Asia, the findings are especially relevant. UNEP’s new data includes a rolling list of the world’s 50 largest satellite-detected methane sources, covering oil and gas, coal, and waste, and shows where rapid action may be possible. Several of those sources are linked to Turkmenistan’s oil and gas sector, placing the region firmly inside a global debate over methane transparency, climate responsibility, and whether satellite alerts can lead to action on the ground. Of the 50 sources featured in the latest UNEP/IMEO snapshot, China has the largest number, while Turkmenistan stands out sharply for Central Asia, with the second-largest individual source and four of the top ten. Methane is shorter-lived than carbon dioxide, but far more powerful in the near term. That makes cutting large leaks one of the fastest ways to slow global warming. The harder question, as UNEP’s latest data makes clear, is no longer only where the leaks are, but who responds when they are found. On April 30, UNEP/IMEO presented the new MARS findings, highlighting the growing role of satellite-based monitoring in identifying major methane sources and pressing governments and companies to act. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Meghan Demeter, MARS Programme Manager, International Methane Emissions Observatory, UNEP. TCA: What does the new MARS data reveal about Central Asia specifically that may surprise readers? Demeter: The latest MARS data products depict the region as one with growing engagement and significant mitigation potential. Responses to MARS notifications are increasing, supported in particular by designated national focal points who play a key role in coordinating follow-up with operators. Based on the published 2025 data alone, the response rate across Central Asia currently stands at 22%. Managing a high volume of alerts requires more effort to achieve very high response rates compared to countries that receive only a handful of notifications. Encouragingly, the region has already recorded nearly 20 mitigation cases, underscoring the strong potential for emissions reductions when large methane sources are identified and addressed. TCA: Why does Central Asia matter in the global methane debate, even if it is not the world’s largest methane-emitting region? Demeter: Across Central Asia, looking at the 2025 data alone, UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory, through the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS), detected and notified 298 emission sources from the oil and gas sector. While satellites detect only a fraction of global methane emissions, satellites are highly effective at identifying so-called “super-emitters,” methane emission events so large they can be detected from space. These represent opportunities where action can deliver the greatest and fastest climate wins, while also catalyzing broader change. Regarding the “top 50” list of emission events, 11 of these sources are located in Central Asia, all from...

Regional Ecological Summit

Opinion: The Regional Ecological Summit and the Making of a Central Asian Voice

On 22–24 April, Astana hosted the Regional Ecological Summit—a gathering of governments, international organizations, financial institutions, and civil society that marked a new level of ambition in Central Asia’s environmental diplomacy. Fifty-eight sessions were held across three days at a moment when Central Asia’s ecological agenda is becoming inseparable from its political and economic future. The opening ceremony was attended by the presidents of all five Central Asian states. The summit adopted the Astana Declaration on Ecological Solidarity in Central Asia and brought renewed attention to the need to reform the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). Taken together, these developments signal more than procedural diplomacy. They point to growing political momentum. The region has never lacked shared history or channels of communication. Russian remains a practical language of intergovernmental exchange, and borders, economies, rivers, energy systems, and labor markets have tied these countries together long before contemporary climate diplomacy gave this interdependence a new vocabulary. For decades, much external analysis of Central Asia expected this interdependence to produce confrontation, particularly around water and energy. Those risks remain real. Yet the Astana summit showed a more complex trajectory. Climate change, biodiversity loss, water insecurity, land degradation, and food security are not separate national problems neatly contained within borders. Addressing them is becoming one of the fields through which regional coherence is being built. The significance of the Summit lies less in ceremonial language than in the consolidation of multiple ecological agendas into a visible diplomatic architecture. Through its panels and high-level discussions, the Summit placed Central Asia’s natural heritage not at the margins of development but at its center. Ecosystems, rivers, glaciers, mountains, and landscapes are not only environmental assets. They are conditions for prosperity, stability, and resilience. Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of IFAS reopened the question of whether the Fund, long criticized for its limitations, can be reworked rather than left as a symbol of failed regional environmental governance. Kazakhstan’s proposal for an International Water Organization should be read in the same frame: it is not merely a technical proposal about water governance but an attempt to move a Central Asian concern into the language of global institutional reform. Kyrgyzstan’s mountain agenda and Tajikistan’s glacier diplomacy also belong to this broader pattern. They are not just isolated national branding exercises. Together with Uzbekistan’s increasingly active regional posture, they form a wider mosaic: each country brings a distinct ecological priority, but these priorities are becoming legible as parts of one regional perspective, and its voice carries more weight when presented as such. This is particularly important in the current geopolitical moment. As larger powers turn inward, compete over corridors, or speak about Central Asia through the old grammar of influence, the region is attempting to define itself not as terrain for another “Great Game" but as a pole of its own. This does not mean distance from external partners. On the contrary, the United Nations was a strategic partner of the Summit, and many formats involved major international organizations, European...

Victory Day

Victory, Memory, and Moscow: Central Asia’s Changing May Calendar

May is when Central Asia’s past crowds into the public square. Workers, soldiers, veterans, constitutions, unity campaigns, and the legacy of World War II all compete for space on the calendar. The dates are familiar across the region, but their meanings are no longer the same. Kazakhstan marks People’s Unity Day on May 1, Defenders’ Day on May 7, and Victory Day on May 9. Kyrgyzstan has a May calendar built around Labor Day, Constitution Day, and Victory Day. Uzbekistan has recast May 9 as the Day of Remembrance and Honor. Turkmenistan lists May 9 as Victory Day of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, but it no longer carries the same public weight as the country’s main state holidays. Those choices show how each state is handling its Soviet past. May 1 can mean labor, unity, or almost nothing. May 9 can mean victory, mourning, family memory, or careful diplomacy. In Central Asia, the politics of memory rarely move through open rejection. It works through renaming, recalibrating, and changing the optics. Russia still treats May 9 as a central ritual of state power. Victory Day marks the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War. Under Vladimir Putin, it has become a display of military strength, national sacrifice, and confrontation with the West. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that message has become more direct. This year, the image projected from Moscow will be weaker. Russia is preparing to hold its May 9 parade on Red Square without the usual display of military hardware. Tanks and missile systems, long central to the spectacle, are being kept away. Russia’s Defense Ministry cited the “current operational situation,” while the Kremlin linked the change to Ukrainian attacks. For Central Asian governments, that image will be hard to separate from their own handling of Victory Day. Moscow has long used May 9 to gather friendly leaders and place the post-Soviet region inside a shared wartime story. Attendance in Moscow has become a diplomatic signal. Absence has become one too. In recent years, Victory Day diplomacy has shown how Central Asian governments try to respect wartime memory while avoiding full alignment with Russia’s narrative. This year, at least some Central Asian leaders are again expected in Moscow. Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Kyrgyzstan’s Sadyr Japarov have been reported among those planning to attend, though the Kremlin has not yet published a full list of foreign guests. Central Asian states cannot simply discard May 9. Millions of people from the region served in the Red Army or worked behind the front during World War II; from Kazakhstan alone, around one million people contributed to the war effort, with nearly 271,000 soldiers still listed as missing. Families still carry those memories. Monuments, veterans’ payments, school events, and wreath-laying ceremonies remain important. For many people, Victory Day is personal before it is geopolitical. Yet governments have changed the tone. Kazakhstan still marks Victory Day as a public holiday, but large military parades...