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C5+1

U.S. Links Trusted Digital Infrastructure to Investment at C5+1 Conference

Stronger cybersecurity and trusted digital infrastructure could encourage greater U.S. investment in Central Asia, Mark Cameron said in Astana on September 29. Cameron, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, was speaking at the C5+1 conference on artificial intelligence. He said data centers and trusted infrastructure would give American companies greater confidence to invest and expand their cooperation across the region. “The strongest house is built on the firmest foundation,” Cameron told reporters, linking cybersecurity to the development of advanced AI. Cameron said Washington sees private companies as central to the process, with government programs helping create conditions for investment and technological cooperation. “The United States has the deep belief that companies, given the opportunity, will find great solutions and new opportunities that many of us have never even considered before,” Cameron said. He said Washington has committed $5 million through CRDF Global for cybersecurity and digital-sector assistance. The support covers incident response, critical infrastructure protection, financial sector security, and cybersecurity policy. The C5+1 format brings together the United States and the five Central Asian countries. The conference comes ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s planned business delegation to Uzbekistan in mid-October, involving executives from more than 100 American companies alongside talks with the region’s foreign ministers. Kazakhstan Sets Out Its AI Development Model Kazakhstan’s vice minister of artificial intelligence and digital development, Bakhtiyar Mukhametkaliyev, described the development of an AI economy as a five-layer process. Energy comes first, followed by access to chips and graphics processing units (GPUs), information systems, high-quality data, and finally AI agents. Countries that attempt to deploy AI agents before building the infrastructure and data beneath them, Mukhametkaliyev said, are unlikely to realize their full economic value. He also framed data centers as a way for Kazakhstan to convert its energy and resource base into higher-value digital capacity. Mukhametkaliyev stressed that Kazakhstan does not intend to build its emerging AI ecosystem solely for the domestic market. He said the infrastructure should also help neighboring countries develop their AI industries and improve connectivity. He also pointed to drones, space technologies, startups, and workforce reskilling as areas where digitalization could create new markets and occupations. Kazakhstan’s ties with U.S. technology companies are also expanding. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to make his first visit to Kazakhstan on October 23, as the country develops data centers and NVIDIA-based computing infrastructure. Regional Plans for AI Development Kyrgyzstan focused on practical AI applications, human oversight, education, and local-language models. Niyazaly Bazarbaev, adviser to the minister of digital development and innovative technologies, said Kyrgyz and other Central Asian languages remain insufficiently represented in existing AI systems. He discussed work involving a Kyrgyz-language corpus of roughly five million words and efforts to prepare the school curriculum for an AI-driven economy. Tajikistan presented AI as a presidential priority. Hakim Ismoilzoda, first deputy director of the Agency for Innovation and Digital Technologies, highlighted Tajikistan’s initiatives at the United Nations on AI and its safe, secure,...

C5+1

Rubio to Lead Major U.S. Business Delegation to Uzbekistan for C5+1 Talks

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead a delegation including executives from more than 100 American companies to Uzbekistan in October. The visit will bring a substantial business contingent to talks with Central Asia’s foreign ministers in Samarkand. Sergio Gor, the U.S. special envoy for South and Central Asia, announced the visit in a statement published by the U.S. Embassy in India. Gor said the talks would focus on “deepening regional economic connectivity, enhancing energy security,” alongside cooperation on shared regional priorities. The delegation is expected in mid-October, alongside a C5+1 ministerial meeting. The C5+1 format brings together the United States and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Bringing executives from more than 100 companies gives Rubio’s visit a substantial commercial component. The delegation’s composition should indicate which sectors Washington is ready to back following last year’s C5+1 agreements. In November 2025, Rubio announced his intention to visit all five Central Asian countries in 2026. Speaking ahead of the Washington C5+1 summit, he suggested such a tour could take a week. The Samarkand announcement gives a destination and timeframe for his regional engagement, although it does not establish an itinerary covering all five states. President Donald Trump hosted the five Central Asian presidents in Washington on November 6, 2025. Commercial agreements featured prominently in the summit, reflecting a greater focus on investment within the C5+1 framework. The U.S. Commerce Department said the “Deal Zone” business event held alongside the November 2025 C5+1 summit featured more than $25 billion in announced commercial deals. Air Astana’s agreement covered up to 15 Boeing 787-9 aircraft, comprising five firm orders, five options, and five purchase rights. Tajikistan’s Somon Air announced plans to acquire up to four Dreamliners and ten 737 MAX jets. Uzbekistan Airways finalized an order for eight additional Boeing 787-9 aircraft during the summit. Boeing said the purchase brought the airline’s total order to 22 Dreamliners, converting options from an earlier agreement into firm orders. In mining, Cove Capital and Kazakhstan’s Tau-Ken Samruk agreed to develop the Severny Katpar and Verkhne Kairakty tungsten deposits. The projected $1.1 billion investment includes two processing plants and a metallurgical facility. Kazakhstan’s technology announcements included a memorandum for $2 billion in advanced AI-chip procurement, involving NVIDIA, Freedom Holding, and the country’s digital ministry. Critical minerals cooperation has also advanced since the Washington summit. During a February 4 visit to the U.S. capital, Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov attended a ministerial meeting devoted to the sector and held talks with Rubio. Saidov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau signed a memorandum on mineral supplies, covering the mining and processing of critical minerals and rare earths. Uzbekistan’s Foreign Ministry said the country was seeking foreign technology and investment to develop the industry, with an emphasis on value-added production. For Tashkent, the unresolved question is how much mineral processing American investors will finance inside Uzbekistan. October’s talks could clarify whether February’s memorandum will lead to domestic processing facilities, allowing the country to retain more of the...

Migration

Lithuania Closures Highlight Limits of Central Asia’s Migration Shift Away From Russia

Lithuania will close external service provider centers that accept migration documents in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan on November 1. A day before the announcement, Lithuania’s Migration Department said external service centers in Central Asia had stopped accepting new applications from residents seeking to come to the country for work after receiving a very high volume of employment applications. Lithuania had also exhausted its annual quota for foreign workers earlier in September. Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas said the November 1 closures were prompted by security risks and the threat of terrorism. The centers act as intermediaries, accepting applications for Lithuanian residence permits and initiating migration procedures Lithuania’s State Security Department has previously reported identifying individual members of the Central Asian community with radical views or links to terrorism. In its annual threat assessment, the agency also said that Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, has been recruiting followers within Central Asian diaspora communities in Europe. However, the agency said it considers it unlikely that Lithuania itself will become a direct target for Islamist terrorists in the near term. The security decision comes as Lithuania has also reached its annual foreign-worker quota. The country set a quota of 24,706 foreign workers for 2026, which was officially declared exhausted on September 7. Once the quota is reached, a temporary residence permit based on employment remains available if the worker meets a higher salary threshold or belongs to certain high-value professions that are in shortage and meets the separate salary requirement for those professions. As of September 1, nearly 227,000 foreign nationals held valid residence permits in Lithuania. They included around 13,000 Uzbek citizens and 7,400 Tajik citizens. Demand for Lithuania has grown alongside broader interest in the European labor market. Between 2018 and 2024, the number of valid EU work permits held by Uzbek citizens increased roughly eightfold, those held by Kyrgyz citizens more than sevenfold, and those held by Tajik citizens more than fourteenfold. Poland has become one of the main destinations, Germany is expanding organized recruitment, and the UK has become an important source of seasonal work, while labor mobility programs are also emerging elsewhere in Europe. Conditions are also changing in Russia, which for decades has absorbed most of the region’s labor migrants. Following the March 2024 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, the authorities tightened migration rules, expanded registration requirements, and introduced greater digital monitoring of foreign workers. In the first half of 2026, citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan made around 1.9 million entries into Russia declaring work as the purpose of their trip, down from more than 2.3 million a year earlier. The decline does not mean that there is no longer dependence on the Russian labor market. In the first quarter of 2026, Russia accounted for 72.4% of cross-border remittances to Uzbekistan. In Kyrgyzstan, a March 2025 estimate put the number of citizens living abroad at roughly 600,000; around 380,000 were registered with Russian migration authorities at the end of 2024. For Central Asian migrants, European migration...

UN General Assembly

At the UN, Mirziyoyeva Champions “Human Dignity” as Central Asia Seeks a Greater Voice

Uzbekistan called for a more effective United Nations and sought support for its Security Council candidacy during the General Assembly’s September 23 debate. Delivering the national address, presidential administration chief Saida Mirziyoyeva urged countries to work together despite deepening international divisions. “Our choice is human dignity,” said Mirziyoyeva. “Openness does not mean weakness.” Speaking in Uzbek at the Assembly’s 81st session in New York, she argued that a country’s strength should be judged by its ability to protect people’s rights and interests. The message offered a basis for cooperation beyond competing geopolitical camps, with particular emphasis on young people’s opportunities to study and shape their futures. [caption id="attachment_56825" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Image: Saida Mirziyoyeva/Telegram[/caption] A Larger Role at the UN Mirziyoyeva sought support for Uzbekistan’s candidacy for a nonpermanent Security Council seat in 2035–2036. She also highlighted the country’s forthcoming chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement in 2027, presenting it as an opportunity to widen dialogue during a period of international tension. She backed the secretary-general’s UN80 reform initiative and an expanded Security Council, arguing that the organization needed greater capacity to prevent conflict and implement its decisions. Her appeal was for international rules that apply consistently, rather than changing with the interests of powerful states. That concern also ran through Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s address, although he focused on unilateral sanctions and their impact on developing countries. The two speeches approached the issue differently, but both sought stronger multilateral protections for states with limited influence over the restrictions and conflicts affecting them. Kyrgyzstan has already secured its first Security Council seat for 2027–2028, giving Bishkek a vote on the sanctions and security decisions Japarov criticized. Afghanistan and Regional Cooperation Mirziyoyeva pointed to improving relations among neighboring Central Asian states as evidence that political will can help resolve longstanding disputes. She said disagreements over borders and water had increasingly given way to cooperation, with countries coming to see one another as partners. She applied the same argument to Afghanistan, warning against treating the country solely as a source of danger or abandoning its people to their difficulties. Her emphasis was on giving Afghans the prospect of peaceful development. Kazakhstan’s UN agenda also extends to Afghanistan through the regional Sustainable Development Goals center in Almaty, established to serve Central Asia and Afghanistan. Alongside its longstanding nuclear disarmament priorities, Kazakhstan is promoting cooperation on water security and has proposed an international water organization within the UN system. Measuring Progress in People’s Lives Mirziyoyeva linked her foreign policy message to Uzbekistan’s domestic reforms, citing economic growth and wider access to education. She said the economy had expanded from $50 billion to $147 billion over a decade and that poverty had fallen to 4%, presenting the figures as evidence of improvements in living standards. “The true value of reforms is reflected in people’s lives. Especially in children’s lives,” she said. She outlined forthcoming discussions with the UN Population Fund on demographic stability and human capital, and an international gathering in Samarkand in October focused on children’s...

Inflation

Kyrgyzstan Inflation Hits 12% as Government Plans Food and Fuel Measures

Kyrgyzstan plans to curb rising prices by importing livestock and grain, subsidizing fuel, and increasing domestic food production. The draft plan for 2026-2027 comes after annual inflation reached 12% in August, alongside double-digit economic growth. The Ministry of Economy and Commerce published details of the draft plan on September 21. In 2027, the government aims to keep inflation within 7.7-8.5%. Without additional measures, the ministry estimates that inflation could reach 8.7-9.5% in 2027 because of global prices, external shocks, and supply disruptions. Annual inflation had already reached 11.5% in July, up from 11% a month earlier, before rising to 12% in August, according to the National Statistical Committee. The medium-term target of the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic, the country’s central bank, is 5-7%. Much of the plan focuses on food. The state-owned Kyrgyz Agroholding is expected to import at least 20,000 head of cattle from Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia, adding at least 2,700 tons of meat to the domestic market. After prices rose in 2025, the authorities imposed limits on the cost of certain types of meat and temporarily banned livestock exports. The draft calls for the construction of four large poultry complexes and 200 livestock facilities with a combined capacity for 10,000 animals. Kyrgyz Agroholding is expected to open 100 direct-sales outlets for meat and agricultural products. The area planted with corn and oilseed crops would be expanded, while 11 trade and logistics centers would be built to store agricultural produce. The draft also calls for flour mills to import 700,000 tons of wheat from Russia and Kazakhstan. The ministry says the imports are intended to ensure that domestic wheat demand is fully covered. The government is also subsidizing fuel. Kyrgyzstan remains heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, with Russia supplying more than 90% of its imported gasoline, meaning higher import costs quickly feed into transportation, food, and service prices. The state compensates importers for part of the difference between purchase costs and regulated retail prices. The subsidies have been extended through December 31, 2026. In Bishkek and the Chuy region, agreed maximum retail prices are 87.9 soms per liter for AI-92 gasoline, about $1; 99.9 soms for diesel; and 48.8 soms for liquefied petroleum gas. Prices are capped at slightly higher levels elsewhere in the country. Without compensation, AI-92 would cost an estimated 111-118 soms per liter and diesel 125-137 soms. A one-year moratorium on increases in a number of regulated tariffs and payments for the population has also been in effect since July 24. High inflation persists alongside rapid economic growth. First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Daniyar Amangeldiev said GDP had grown by an average of 10.2% annually over the past four years. GDP per capita increased from $1,230 in 2020 to $3,080 in 2025, while the economy grew by another 11% in the first eight months of 2026. In 2025, 1.779 million people, or 24% of the population, remained below the national poverty line, down from 25.7% a year earlier. On...

UN General Assembly

Central Asia at the UN: Iran Threats and Sanctions Disputes

U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to “annihilate” Iran brought the vulnerability of Central Asia’s southern trade routes into focus as the UN General Assembly’s general debate opened in New York. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov challenged unilateral sanctions, while diplomacy over Ukraine raised the prospect of a halt to attacks on energy infrastructure. For landlocked Central Asia, these developments carry consequences far beyond the speeches. Iranian ports provide access to overseas markets, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan rely heavily on fuel from Russian refineries, and restrictions on international payments can complicate commerce even where transport links remain intact. Iran and Access to the Sea Addressing the General Assembly on September 22, Trump presented a choice between reaching an agreement with Tehran and carrying out his threat to “annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly.” He also predicted that an agreement could follow the U.S. midterm elections, while defending U.S. military action against Iran. [caption id="attachment_56719" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Image: UN[/caption] That framing leaves Central Asian countries facing costs regardless of their position on Tehran. Iran provides overland connections to ports serving the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Damage to Iranian infrastructure can therefore disrupt trade between Central Asia and countries that are not parties to the conflict. Uzbekistan’s exposure illustrates the distinction. According to its Ministry of Economy and Finance, goods worth $3.9 billion entered Uzbekistan through Iran in 2025. That represented about 9% of total imports, including approximately $1 billion in technological equipment. Uzbek exports transiting Iran were worth another $1.4 billion. Those figures measure transit, not simply purchases from Iranian suppliers. Pressure intended to isolate Tehran can also obstruct Uzbekistan’s access to equipment and customers elsewhere. Kazakhstan has also sought a larger southern outlet. A 27-year agreement provides for a Kazakh transport and logistics terminal at Shahid Rajaee Port in Bandar Abbas. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Trade says the project would expand access to Gulf markets and destinations in Asia and East Africa. The risks differ by port. Bandar Abbas faces the Strait of Hormuz, while Chabahar sits on the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait. Both depend on Iranian infrastructure and remain exposed to the wider conflict and sanctions environment. Developing alternative routes does not make these southern connections dispensable. Nor is exposure uniform. Kazakh officials have emphasized the limited existing role of Persian Gulf shipments in the country’s logistics. For Astana, the threat concerns future diversification as well as current trade. For Uzbekistan, the transit figures show a substantial flow already at risk. Tajikistan, meanwhile, has sought 2.55 million tons of Iranian crude oil and fuel following shortages in Russian supplies. Its search for an alternative leaves Dushanbe exposed to two conflicts, with attacks on Russian refineries disrupting its established supplier, and the conflict involving Iran threatening a potential replacement. Japarov Challenges Sanctions In his General Assembly address, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov argued that unilateral sanctions harm smaller developing states and can become instruments of political pressure. “The right to impose sanctions against a particular state should, in our view,...