Turkmenistan - The Times Of Central Asia

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CAMCA

Opinion: The 2026 CAMCA Regional Forum Concludes – What’s Next?

The 2026 CAMCA Regional Forum has concluded in Baku after two full days of conversation on a range of topics shaping the future of the region. The closing ceremony included an official announcement that next year’s Forum will take place in Uzbekistan in June of 2027. The question now is: in the lead-up to next year’s convening, how do we build on the connections, ideas and momentum built in Baku to truly advance regional cooperation in the months ahead? How do we turn conversation into action? The mechanism and catalyst for this will be the CAMCA Network – the dynamic collection of more than 300 talented leaders spread throughout the entire region and beyond – united by a common conviction that a successful future of the CAMCA region lies in intraregional cooperation and collaboration. Through existing initiatives, such as CAMCA Talking magazine, and forthcoming projects – CAMCA TV and the CAMCA Conversations podcast – the network will utilize these innovative platforms to raise awareness around the important developments taking place within the CAMCA region, and, most importantly, to highlight where regional cooperation is well underway, where more is needed, and how leaders across sectors can do their part to drive tangible collaboration to the next level. While the CAMCA Network can serve as an important stimulus of this effort, it is critical that we continue to expand the CAMCA community across all sectors and build partnerships with individuals, organizations and companies that share our vision for CAMCA’s connected, collaborative and prosperous future. This is the charge we take from Baku and will be an integral part of CAMCA’s next chapter. From his time in public service and at the outset of the Rumsfeld Foundation’s work with rising leaders from the region, Secretary Rumsfeld believed in the incredible potential of the CAMCA region, predicated on the ten countries themselves recognizing the benefit of their enhanced cooperation. 20 years ago, there were few who shared his vision or his optimism. Today, on the heels of the 12th annual CAMCA Forum, this vision has come to life, and global interest and momentum are in CAMCA’s favor. As we look towards the 2027 CAMCA convening in Uzbekistan, we are eager to invite partners from within the region and across the globe to join us in building CAMCA’s next chapter. The groundwork has been laid, and a dedicated and energetic network of regional trailblazers now exists – let’s put it to work and bring CAMCA to a new level. The CAMCA Regional Forum is an annual, non-partisan event dedicated to promoting dialogue, cooperation, and sustainable economic growth across Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan. Established as a premier platform for high-level engagement, the Forum convenes diverse stakeholders from government, business, academia, civil society, and beyond. The Forum is co-organized by the Rumsfeld Foundation, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, and the CAMCA Network. Learn more at www.camcaforum.org. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy...

Tourism

Turkmenistan Launches E-Visa System, But Questions Remain

Turkmenistan says it has introduced an online visa system that will streamline travel for foreign citizens, though there is some uncertainty about the new procedures for visiting one of the world’s most closed countries. The State Migration Service briefed foreign diplomats and representatives of international organizations about its system of processing and issuing electronic visas as well as an online system to register foreign citizens staying in Turkmenistan, along with “individuals and legal entities” hosting them. “New digital services will allow foreign citizens arriving in the country to save time, transfer documents to electronic management, and carry out all work in a short time and in a simplified manner,” the migration service said on September 30. “These systems will also increase the efficiency of the work of the migration service and ensure that services are organized in accordance with modern requirements.” State media said the new system was in line with Turkmenistan’s growing interaction with the rest of the world and comes as “the number of foreign citizens coming to our country and people traveling from our country to foreign countries is constantly increasing.” Traditionally, foreign tourists traveling to Turkmenistan have had to obtain an invitation letter from a local tour agency or other host, and preparation for a trip can take weeks or months. Additionally, movement within Turkmenistan is tightly monitored, with escorts assigned to visitors in some parts of the country. While Turkmen authorities say the new online system will make the entry process more efficient and cut wait times, one tour operator said it is still unclear how the process will work. Saiga Tours, which has experience working in Turkmenistan, said in an early assessment that the announcement of the e-visa system is significant but that key details are still lacking, including who can use it and whether the invitation letter process for tourists will be replaced altogether. “Currently on the website there is a log in page, but there is still nowhere yet for you to sign up and information on the site is limited at best,” Saiga Tours said. There are separate requirements for business and humanitarian e-visas. Turkmenistan’s portal for online visa applications is https://evisa.migration.gov.tm/web/

Arms Trade

India Says It Exported Akash Missile System to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan

India says Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are customers of its Akash surface-to-air missile system, which can be used to counter threats including drones, missiles, and fighter aircraft. The two Central Asian countries have not commented publicly on the Akash exports, and Indian officials have not provided details about the transactions. But Indian Defense Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh has told Asian News International (ANI) that there is growing international interest in the Akash system, which Indian officials regard as a success of their indigenous defense industry. "Akash, I would say that it is one of our success stories. It shows the maturing of our indigenous missile design and production system. It is effective in dealing with high-velocity aerial targets,” Singh said. “The first customer was Armenia, which has taken multiple batteries. Thereafter, we've also exported it to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Production has stabilized.” He said there were “additional orders for our own services” and that more were expected from other countries, according to an ANI report on October 1. The agency described the sales to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as “an expansion of Indian arms exports into traditionally Russian-supplied markets.” While Tajikistan and Turkmenistan traditionally relied on Soviet and Russian military hardware, Turkmenistan has taken significant steps to diversify its arms suppliers, also buying weapons from China, Türkiye, and Italy. Tajikistan is more closely tied to Russia, though it has bought weapons systems from China. Tajikistan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional alliance that is led by Russia; Turkmenistan maintains a posture of self-declared neutrality and is not a member of the CSTO. Indian officials have promoted the Akash missile system as a relatively economical option in the international air defense market. India’s state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation started developing the Akash missile system in the 1980s. In the mid-2010s, it was inducted into the Indian army and air force, which ordered thousands of the missiles. The Indian government approved Akash exports in December 2020, according to Airforce Technology, a website that reports on procurement in the military aerospace industry. The Akash weapon system can target threats including drones, helicopters, and fighter aircraft at ranges of 4.5 to 25 kilometers and altitudes of up to 20 kilometers, India’s Defense Ministry said.

Avaza Summit

Central Asia and Azerbaijan Head to Avaza for First Formal Summit

On Thursday, Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov is due to receive Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Sadyr Japarov, Emomali Rahmon, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and Ilham Aliyev in a place built to impress visitors. Thursday’s meeting will be the first formal consultative summit since Azerbaijan joined the format as a full participant in November 2025. The six presidents have already met once in the new configuration, at an informal gathering in Cholpon Ata on July 31, where they signed a declaration covering closer cooperation on transport, energy, trade, and security. Construction of Avaza began in late 2007, as Turkmenistan sought to create a national showcase on its Caspian coast. The resort’s hotels and sanatoria sit among parks and entertainment complexes, while eleven road and foot bridges span a seven-kilometer artificial canal. According to official figures, its hotels and recreation facilities can accommodate more than 10,000 vacationers. State institutions send employees there for summer holidays, echoing the Soviet tradition of workplace-organized vacations. These holidays help fill a resort where the seasonal rhythms differ sharply from everyday life in neighboring Turkmenbashi. Officially, Avaza is a district of Turkmenbashi, a city of around 90,000 residents located 580 kilometers west of Ashgabat across the Karakum Desert. The working city's economy is built around oil refining, the port, and transport. The Turkmenbashi International Seaport traces its history to 1896 and was rebuilt on a large scale before reopening in its current form in 2018. The Turkmenbashi refinery complex was founded in 1943 and remains one of the country's main oil-processing centers. The city itself was known as Krasnovodsk until 1993, when it was renamed Turkmenbashi after the title used by then-President Saparmurat Niyazov. The sea that was supposed to be Avaza's main attraction is now retreating from it. In 2024, one visitor told RFE/RL that the shoreline was 25-30 meters farther away than when his family had swum there three years earlier. A correspondent found hotels creating new beach areas farther out, while dredging was underway near the port. By September 2026, shallower water was forcing some ferries to carry lighter loads and pushing ports around the sea into costly dredging and berth work. The effects are already visible along the coast where the leaders will meet. [caption id="attachment_57713" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] The Avaza resort on Turkmenistan’s Caspian coast, where the five Central Asian presidents and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev are due to meet on October 8.[/caption] Turkmenistan is also hosting Caspian-focused meetings around the leaders' gathering, while the October 8 agenda includes climate, water, trade, energy, transport, and regional security. At the November 2025 summit in Tashkent, the five Central Asian presidents unanimously approved Azerbaijan’s admission as a full participant, extending the grouping across the Caspian into the South Caucasus. Aliyev has been careful to mark the change. At the informal meeting in Cholpon Ata on July 31, he said: "I previously participated as a guest of honor, but today I am taking part as a full member of the team." The format dates to 2018 and was deliberately light on bureaucracy....

Asian Games

Central Asia Wins 186 Asian Games Medals as Uzbekistan Finishes Fifth

Athletes from Central Asia’s five countries won 186 medals at the Asian Games in Japan, where Uzbekistan finished fifth overall and Kazakhstan claimed the region’s largest medal haul. The 20th Summer Asian Games were held from September 19 to October 4 in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. China once again topped the medal table, followed by Japan and South Korea. Uzbekistan won 70 medals, including 21 golds, matching its fifth-place finish at the previous Games in Hangzhou. The result follows a 13th-place finish in the medal table at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Kazakhstan won 84 medals, including 12 golds, and finished eighth in the standings, up from 11th at the previous Asian Games. Among Kazakhstan’s champions was road cyclist Alexey Lutsenko, whose two victories took his Asian Games career tally to six golds, making him the country’s most successful athlete in the competition by number of gold medals. Boxers Torekhan Sabyrkhan and Aibek Oralbay also won gold. Kazakhstan’s men’s épée fencing team claimed another title, while Vladislav Yakovlev and Ivan Chernukhin took gold in the men’s pair rowing event. Kazakhstan’s Yasmina Toxanbayeva crossed the line first in the women’s marathon race walk, a 26.2-mile event, but was disqualified because her shoes did not comply with World Athletics requirements. The Kazakhstan Athletics Federation challenged the decision. Tajikistan won 16 medals and finished 22nd, surpassing its previous record of seven medals at a single Asian Games. Before the Japan Games, the country had won 35 medals in total across all previous Summer Asian Games appearances. Kyrgyzstan finished 26th with 14 medals, including one gold and three silvers. The country also won 10 bronzes, and all but one of its medals came in combat sports. Turkmenistan’s two silver medals went to karate athlete Davut Nazmyradov and weightlifter Shahzadbek Matyakubov. Matyakubov finished second in the men’s 110-kilogram category behind Uzbekistan’s Akbar Djuraev. The next Summer Asian Games will be held in Doha in 2030.

CAMCA

Opinion: Building Bridges, Backing the Future: Why Entrepreneurs Must Connect Across Borders

In the age of AI, capital and code travel fast. Trust does not. That is why the most valuable infrastructure our region can build right now is human: entrepreneurs who know each other across borders. This week in Baku, at the CAMCA Forum 2026, two moments stayed with me. The first was a conversation on stage with investor Lucy Chow about what it means to back the future when artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of business. The second happened a day earlier, quietly, at a signing table. The CAMCA network signed a Memorandum of Understanding with YEGAP, the Young Entrepreneurs Group of Asia Pacific. Mr. Hiromi Aoki travelled from Japan to be with us. The purpose is simple to state and hard to do: build a lasting bridge between the founders of Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan and their peers across Asia-Pacific. Those two moments are connected. The more powerful technology becomes, the more the advantage shifts to people who are connected to other people. What "backing the future" means now I opened our session by asking Lucy what "backing the future" means to her. We spent the next hour testing that phrase against the realities of AI: what is truly different about this wave, where the signal ends and the hype begins, and where entrepreneurs still have room when so much capital flows to a handful of AI giants. The answer that emerged was reassuring. AI changes the tools, the speed and the cost of building a company. It does not change what makes a company worth backing: a visionary founder, a real problem, a great solution, a customer who will pay to solve it, and a team that can execute and adapt. What AI does change is the bar. When anyone can build a prototype in a weekend, a prototype is no longer proof. The proof is distribution, domain knowledge and trust with customers. Those are exactly the things the world's largest AI labs cannot buy in Almaty, Tashkent, Ulaanbaatar or Baku. That is where the space for our entrepreneurs lies. Not in competing to build the biggest foundation models, but in applying AI to the industries we know better than anyone: agriculture and herding, logistics along new trade corridors, remittances and financial inclusion, energy, health, education and natural resources. The main focus should be to really focus on our uniqueness and take that to the world and showcase our local identity. Investors back people, and people are shaped by their networks When technology moves this fast, how do you judge a founder? The qualities we discussed are not new: resilience, curiosity, honesty about what is not working, and the speed to learn and change course. What is new is how quickly those qualities are tested. A founder today may need to rebuild a product three times in the time it once took to build it once. One quality matters more than it used to: the ability to learn from others. No founder can track...