Our People > Dr. Robert M. Cutler

Dr. Robert M. Cutler

Senior Editor and Contributor

Robert M. Cutler has written and consulted on Central Asian affairs for over 30 years at all levels. He was a founding member of the Central Eurasian Studies Society’s executive board and founding editor of its Perspectives publication. He has written for Asia Times, Foreign Policy Magazine, The National Interest, Euractiv, Radio Free Europe, National Post (Toronto), FSU Oil & Gas Monitor, and many other outlets.

He directs the NATO Association of Canada’s Energy Security Program, where he is also senior fellow, and is a practitioner member at the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Complexity and Innovation. Educated at MIT, the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva), and the University of Michigan, he was for many years a senior researcher at Carleton University’s Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, and is past chairman of the Montreal Press Club’s Board of Directors.

Articles

Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan and Türkiye: Partners Across the Middle Corridor

On October 28 in Ankara, Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held talks in a narrow format and then with their delegations. They met less than six months after chairing the sixth bilateral High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council in Astana on May 14, suggesting a more intensive phase of presidential engagement. The agenda covered transport and logistics, energy, agriculture and investment. Erdoğan reaffirmed the ambition to raise bilateral trade to $15 billion. The Middle Corridor remains central to bilateral cooperation, alongside trade, energy production and corporate investment linking both countries. Complementary Commercial Roles The partnership supports cargo flows both westward to Europe and eastward from Türkiye. In May, KTZ Express and Pasifik Eurasia organized a train carrying 50 forty-foot containers of refrigerators from Izmir toward Chengxiang in China via Aktau and Altynkol. KTZ Express reported an 83-hour transit on the Aktau–Altynkol leg within Kazakhstan. The companies are developing eastbound backhaul, coordinating schedules and transit arrangements to balance cargo flows. Turkish exporters gain a route through Kazakhstan toward Chinese customers, while the operators seek cargo to sustain services in both directions. Kazakhstan’s inland rail network and Türkiye’s connections to European markets give the two countries complementary roles along the corridor. After crossing the Caspian, the Middle Corridor offers shippers an overland continuation through Türkiye alongside maritime routes through Georgian Black Sea ports. KTZ Express also cooperates with Maersk on Black Sea logistics. Azerbaijan and Georgia connect the Kazakhstani and Turkish sections of this route. Ankara and Astana share an interest in attracting cargo through Türkiye within this network of alternative routes. Kazakhstan’s inland rail investment supports the route toward Türkiye. According to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s 2026 project appraisal, the second track on the Dostyk–Mointy line has been completed. A further project would construct a new Mointy–Kyzylzhar section, bypassing congestion in central Kazakhstan to improve corridor alignment and capacity. Farther west, rail services reach Kazakhstan’s Caspian ports, where cargo transfers to maritime transport. Added rail capacity benefits bilateral services insofar as ports and vessels can accommodate the resulting flows. Connecting the Route Azerbaijan’s ports and railways connect Kazakhstan’s Caspian services with routes through Georgia to Türkiye. Crossing between rail networks separated by sea requires coordination of trains, vessels, and port handling. Kazakhstan’s container traffic uses Aktau, while Kuryk handles rail and road-vehicle ferries serving Alat in Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan and Türkiye therefore need cooperation with Azerbaijan and the operators responsible for transferring cargo between rail and sea. Work on the Georgian section of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway was completed in 2026. In June, Türkiye’s Transport Ministry described the completion as a new operational stage for the line, which opened in 2017. The railway carries cargo arriving through Azerbaijan across Georgia into Türkiye. At the June ceremony, Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu emphasized regular cargo flows, operational coordination, and reliable service. Türkiye’s rail improvements toward the Bulgarian border strengthen its European connection and extend the corridor’s commercial reach. The Çerkezköy–Kapıkule section opened in October as part of the wider Halkalı–Kapıkule project;...

2 weeks ago

U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations

Uzbekistan’s U.S. Package: What Supports the $12 Billion Figure?

Uzbekistan announced a package of 54 agreements and prospective initiatives that it valued at about $12 billion during U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Samarkand on October 19. The Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade lists engine supplies from GE Aerospace for new Uzbekistan Airways aircraft as part of the package. The investment ministry makes that value conditional on implementation. The presidency’s account says a comprehensive implementation program will be developed for the agreements and initiatives. October’s $12 billion may include projects still awaiting finance or development, but the values assigned to them must have an identifiable basis in project estimates or specific transactions. The official announcements identify counterparties and sectors, but the evidence examined does not provide the individual values needed to reconstruct the $12 billion total. Earlier Announcements and Additional Value In November 2025, Donald Trump announced that Uzbekistan would undertake roughly $35 billion in purchases and investment in American sectors over the following three years. The stated total did not separate the amounts assigned to purchases and investment. Uzbekistani purchases from American suppliers and investment in American sectors cannot be counted as an equivalent inflow of U.S. capital into Uzbekistan. Purchasing American equipment and receiving American investment give Uzbekistani participants different roles in the financing and implementation of projects. In September 2026, Investment Minister Laziz Kudratov said projects worth $7 billion had already been completed within a $35 billion portfolio. UzDaily described the figure as one-fifth of the value of the previous year’s agreements, without identifying the completed projects or defining completion. A transaction-level account would show what equipment was delivered, which facilities were commissioned, and what contract payments were made, giving the value and completion date of each transaction. October’s $12 billion cannot be added to the earlier figures without reconciling the transactions included in each package and the values assigned to them. The matching $35 billion figures do not establish that Kudratov and Trump referred to the same transaction list. An October agreement could introduce a fresh transaction or add obligations within an existing project, but it could also cover work already reflected in an earlier valuation. A company’s reappearance in successive announcements does not establish which relationship applies. What the Agreements Establish American Resources Corporation and ReElement Technologies announced an October 19 agreement with Uzbekistan Technological Metals Complex and the Fund for Reconstruction and Development, advancing their November 2025 memorandum. ReElement’s release describes a further stage of technical and commercial work under an existing partnership, but it provides no valuation showing how that work contributes to the $12 billion total. The companies report successful processing of Uzbek-sourced tungsten into high-purity oxide. The planned demonstration at ReElement’s U.S. facilities is intended to evaluate commercial viability, processing efficiency, and scalability; preliminary engineering and economic modeling concern possible refining operations in Uzbekistan. In the financial sector, the investment ministry describes Franklin Templeton, Oppenheimer, Citigroup, and BlackRock as helping to attract capital, but does not explain whether or how these arrangements contribute to the $12 billion...

3 weeks ago

CICA

CICA’s Next Chapter in Asian Cooperation

At the October 15 summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku, Kazakhstan proposed a mechanism for preventive diplomacy to address disputes before they escalate. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the mechanism would give each member state a role in decision-making and help translate political commitments into coordinated action. If adopted, the proposal could increase Astana’s influence among Asia’s larger powers by making its founding initiative more enduring. Influence Through an Asian Agenda Kazakhstan already coordinates CICA’s military-political dimension, working with Türkiye on military exchanges, training-center visits, and seminars that include mediation. Kazakhstan could draw on these exchanges when seeking members’ agreement on a mandate for preventive diplomacy. They provide experience of organizing cooperation in a politically sensitive field, although a standing role in addressing emerging disputes would require a separate political agreement defining what members authorize the mechanism to do. The Think Tank Forum offers another example of Kazakhstan’s influence over CICA’s institutional development. China initiated the Forum in 2014; its transformation into a permanent CICA advisory body followed in October 2021, when member states acted on Tokayev’s initiative. Azerbaijan hosted the first meeting outside China in September 2025, at which the handover to the Indian Council of World Affairs was announced; the latter now chairs the Forum for 2026–2027. Kazakhstan thus helped turn a Chinese initiative into a permanent CICA advisory body that Azerbaijani and Indian institutions subsequently helped sustain. China also contributes funding and seconded personnel to the Secretariat; Kazakhstan can build influence by securing agreement on standing arrangements through which other members pursue their priorities. At the Baku summit, Tokayev also proposed establishing a CICA Water Partnership to promote joint research, technology exchange, and water-saving measures. He suggested that Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan could jointly advance a proposal for an International Water Organization under the United Nations. These proposals could give Kazakhstan a role in shaping cooperation on water security within CICA and, through a joint regional initiative, at the UN. Kazakhstan's Foundational Role in CICA's Development Kazakhstan conceived CICA in 1992 and has led its institutional development, including the effort to transform it into a full-fledged international organization. The initiative has a constituency extending well beyond Central Asia. Fifteen states adopted CICA’s first founding declaration in 1999. With Laos’s accession at Baku, CICA now has 29 members, ranging from China, India, Pakistan, and Russia to Iran, Israel, and South Korea. The 2022 Astana summit launched CICA’s transformation into a full-fledged international organization. The Road Map endorsed by member states in 2023 specified reforms through which to pursue that transformation. The reforms cover the Charter, implementation of confidence-building measures, procedural rules, and the Secretariat’s organization. These changes affect CICA’s capacity to carry agreements forward between high-level meetings. Within CICA, the consensus rule makes collective agreement a condition both of institutional change and of policy coordination. Kazakhstan thus has an interest in the procedures through which future cooperation will be organized. Cambodia’s pre-summit ratification of the convention on the Secretariat’s...

3 weeks ago

Middle Corridor

Azerbaijan–Kazakhstan Ties Could Reorient Central Asian Integration

The five Central Asian presidents met with Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev in Avaza on October 8 for the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s participation brings a principal outlet for Central Asian trade into the six governments’ economic deliberations. Within their consultative format, the states can coordinate industrial projects with the transport services through which regional producers reach foreign markets. If Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan connect cross-Caspian transport more closely to industrial cooperation, the corridor could become an organizing axis for regional integration. The Case for Trans-Caspian Integration Closer Azerbaijan–Kazakhstan cooperation would make cross-Caspian transport more dependable if trains reach Kazakhstani ports in time for Caspian sailings and cargo arriving at Azerbaijani terminals connects with onward services through Georgia. A 2023 assessment by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), also called the World Bank, identified trade among Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Europe as a driver of corridor demand, giving regional exporters a place alongside China–Europe transit traffic. Onward connections from the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway now under construction could run through Turkmenistan and across the Caspian to Azerbaijan, providing an alternative to routes through Iran. Conflict involving Iran strengthens Azerbaijan’s position as the more dependable western outlet for Europe-bound exports. Greater predictability could offset the cost of a Caspian crossing by reducing the stocks firms must hold against delays and the losses caused by interrupted deliveries. Extending the operating coordination developed with Kazakhstan to these southern connections could make Azerbaijan commercially preferable for Central Asian exporters serving European markets. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan occupy the principal positions in this prospective reorientation. Together, they represent approximately one-third of the six countries’ population but account for more than three-fifths of their nominal GDP. Yet bilateral merchandise trade amounted to only $470.7 million in 2025. Their combined economic weight is thus disproportionate to the commerce presently linking them. The infrastructure and institutions connecting industrial investment to markets across the Caspian could give the two countries a basis for organizing wider regional integration, provided firms sustain commercial relationships through those connections. The Bilateral Basis for Regional Integration Export commitments depend on the cost and timing of the complete transport service. At Avaza, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev attached “particular importance” to developing the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor. His Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, advocated joint investment, manufacturing, and entry into foreign markets. For firms undertaking joint production, the commercial viability of Aliyev’s proposal would depend on transport coordinated from departure to delivery. Kazakhstan is developing the Middle Corridor along with the eastern branch of the International North–South Transport Corridor, which links Russia and Iran through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. At Avaza, Turkmenistan’s President Serdar Berdimuhamedov supported the development of North–South corridors in addition to East–West routes. Tokayev also highlighted the continuing importance to Kazakhstan of the North–South route in cooperation with Russia. Kazakhstan’s multi-vector approach thus extends to transport infrastructure: the Middle Corridor strengthens westward access without displacing the commercial connections maintained...

4 weeks ago

Oil Exports

Kazakhstan Weighs a Second Major Oil Export Route

Following repeated disruptions to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) system, Kazakhstan’s leading oil producers are examining a much larger Trans-Caspian export route. A working group representing eight shareholders responsible for production in the Tengiz and Kashagan fields has commissioned a feasibility study for moving crude from the Atyrau area to Aktau, across the Caspian to Baku, and onward through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The study is expected to go to shareholders in November. The current proposal follows a policy line set out in July 2022, when President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev identified the Trans-Caspian route as a priority and instructed KazMunayGas to examine options, including possible participation by Tengiz investors. The present study puts a much larger export channel under commercial examination. CPC remains indispensable, carrying more than four-fifths of Kazakhstan’s oil exports. Of the 78.7 million tons of oil that Kazakhstan exported in 2025, 64.8 million went through CPC. Existing alternatives are small by comparison. Even the eastbound flow to China and the Schwedt route through Russia together absorb only a fraction of CPC volumes, while current Trans-Caspian shipments are smaller still. What has changed is the cost of concentrating so much of Kazakhstan’s oil exports on CPC, not its underlying commercial importance. The producers are in fact studying two alternatives, a subsea pipeline or a much larger tanker fleet. The Trans-Caspian pipeline idea itself is not new. Variants surfaced in 2009 and appeared again in 2016. What is new is the present combination of shareholder sponsorship, operational urgency, and contemplated scale. Each option is intended to support volumes of up to 35 million metric tons a year. KazMunayGas (KMG) moved 1.3 million tons from Aktau toward BTC in 2025, while its agreement with SOCAR provides for a phased increase to 2.2 million tons annually. The shareholder proposal would expand the existing Trans-Caspian route into a second major export channel. Why Redundancy Now Repeated interruptions in CPC flows have converted the risks of route concentration into lost oil production and a lower national production target. In July, for example, attacks struck tankers loading or approaching the CPC marine terminal, repeatedly suspending operations. Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov later put production lost to January, June, and July disruptions at about 3.5 million tons and reduced the 2026 production target from 98 million to 96 million tons. Even temporary interruptions reduce revenues and force urgent production decisions upstream. A Trans-Caspian route capable of carrying 35 million tons a year would not replace CPC, but it would materially reduce Kazakhstan’s exposure to a prolonged interruption. The reported figure equals more than half the 64.8 million tons exported through CPC in 2025 and is almost sixteen times the 2.2-million-ton level contemplated under the existing KMG–SOCAR expansion agreement. It would allow Kazakhstan to divert a substantially larger share of production during disruptions. Kazakhstan can now reroute one or two million tons relatively quickly, but not the tens of millions carried through CPC. The first constraint is inside Kazakhstan. Tengiz and Kashagan lack a high-volume pipeline connection to...

1 month ago

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...

1 month ago

digital economy

How Kazakhstan Became Central Asia’s Digital Hub

From October 1 to 3, Astana will host the AI & Digital Bridge conference, which is expected to draw more than 20,000 participants and over 100 technology companies. The wider AI Month begins on September 23 with HackAlem AI powered by OpenAI. Earlier editions of Digital Bridge have drawn a total of more than 127,000 participants from over 100 countries. Kazakhstan can bring such a gathering together because two decades of development have created the institutional and commercial base for its present AI strategy. Advanced computing capacity and large-scale technological investment now reinforce that base. Building the Digital Base Well before artificial intelligence became a central policy concern, Kazakhstan began building the digital-state capacity that underpins its current position. The e-government program dates from the mid-2000s. The 2017 Digital Kazakhstan program broadened that effort by linking the transition to a digital state with four other priorities: digitalization of economic sectors, development of the Digital Silk Road, human-capital development, and the creation of an innovation ecosystem. Startup formation thereby entered policy not as a one-off technology initiative but as part of a wider program of institutional and economic digitization. Kazakhstan ranked 24th globally in the UN E-Government Development Index in 2024. By 2025, about 90% of public services were available online. By then, the eGov portal had more than 15 million registered users, while its mobile application had more than 11 million. Large-scale digital interaction between citizens and the state had thus become a daily fact of life before the present AI push began. Public services inhabit the same digital environment as ordinary commercial transactions. Kaspi.kz reported 15.7 million average monthly active users in Kazakhstan at the end of 2025 and about 764,000 active merchants. Its Super App integrates payments with finance and commerce; it also carries government services. Digitalization has become part of everyday consumer behavior. In July 2026, internet and mobile banking accounted for 77.6% of non-cash transactions by number and 89.6% by value. Commercial adoption has accustomed much of the population to carrying out both routine transactions and more significant business transfers through digital systems. Infrastructure spending alone would not have produced the same result without the surrounding policy and commercial environment. Almaty supplies the financial and corporate side of the ecosystem, complementing Astana’s policy and startup institutions. Together, the two cities anchor an economy accounting for more than half of Central Asia’s GDP. Kazakhstan also holds roughly two-thirds of the region’s inward foreign investment stock, according to TCA’s Central Asia Balance Sheet. Institutional Concentration These developments acquired an institutional center through Astana Hub, established in 2018. It brings firms and founders into the same network as investors. Participation brings concrete operating advantages, including tax preferences and simplified arrangements for hiring foreign specialists. Companies may hire such specialists without a numerical limit, with work visas available for up to five years. They can also enter incubation or acceleration programs and obtain access to financing mechanisms. A 2026 World Bank appraisal described Kazakhstan as having built a credible technology-driven...

2 months ago

Border Security

Badakhshan Fighting Raises Risks for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

In Nusay district, Badakhshan province (northeast Afghanistan), fighting began around August 11 between Taliban forces and followers of Juma Khan Fateh, a local Taliban commander of ethnic Tajik origin who had resisted efforts to disarm his network. The Armed Conflict Location and Events Data Project (ACLED) identifies the immediate trigger as an attempt to remove military equipment and vehicles from areas under Fateh’s control, amid longer-running tensions over disarmament, local authority, and control of gold mining. Similar disputes over gold mines have repeatedly produced clashes between local commanders and Taliban forces since 2021. Fateh surrendered on August 17 after nearly a week of fighting. By August 22, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said his case was being prepared for trial. Post-surrender reporting also indicated weapons seizures and disarmament activity around Fateh-linked sites and associates, although the scale of the reported seizures and disarmament remained incompletely verified. The Fateh episode came amid a broader increase in armed instability in Badakhshan during 2026. ACLED recorded 22 anti-Taliban armed-opposition events in the province from January through July, compared with four from June through December 2025. In July, one opposition group temporarily seized the Yaftal-e Sufla district headquarters, while the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) reportedly fought Taliban forces in Zebak. The Yaftal-e Sufla and Zebak operations were separate from the Fateh confrontation, and there is no credible evidence of coordination with Fateh’s network. Fateh’s surrender ended the immediate confrontation, while separate armed-opposition activity in Badakhshan continued. The fighting has already had a direct cross-border consequence for Tajikistan. Nusay lies opposite Tajikistan’s Darvoz district. On August 13, gunfire from the Afghan side crossed into Darvoz, killing a 21-year-old woman inside her home and damaging residential property. Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry lodged a formal protest, saying the fighting had violated the country’s airspace and demanding respect for the state border and measures to prevent a recurrence. The Afghan Foreign Ministry acknowledged the death and expressed regret while blaming “disruptive and opportunistic elements.” The one confirmed limited incident does not show that the conflict has extended into Tajikistan on a sustained basis, but it makes the cross-border dimension more than hypothetical. Tajikistan shares a 1,374-kilometer frontier with Afghanistan, much of it facing Afghan Badakhshan. Dushanbe had already treated this border as a persistent security problem. In late November 2025, two attacks launched from Afghanistan’s territory killed five Chinese nationals and wounded five others in Tajikistan, which then instituted tighter border measures, while the Taliban pledged to cooperate on security and investigations. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is also implementing a program to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan frontier with weapons, equipment, and other border-protection means. Its 2026–27 implementation phase antedates the present fighting. A 2026 Security Council monitoring report said Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) was active mainly in northern Afghanistan, particularly Badakhshan, and was developing cells capable of projecting a regional threat, with Central Asia remaining a key focus. It also reported concern in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan over the role of their nationals in the organization and the possible...

3 months ago

Middle Corridor

Central Asia and Azerbaijan Extend Cooperation Across the Caspian

Central Asia’s presidential forum now spans both shores of the Caspian. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan anchor the principal Caspian crossing at the center of the Middle Corridor, the rail-and-sea network linking Central Asia to European markets through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye. Azerbaijan’s full participation brings the corridor’s eastern and western Caspian gateways into the same regular political setting. The six governments can use it to coordinate the transport, energy, digital, and investment links already developing across the Caspian, even though Georgia and Türkiye remain essential to the route’s westward operation. On July 31, 2026, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan signed the Cholpon-Ata Declaration at an informal Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan in Kyrgyzstan. The Declaration gave formal political expression to cooperation that had already been developing. Official accounts said the leaders emphasized expanded regional cooperation, including trade, transport and logistics, and energy. The full text has not been released, so those priorities come from official accounts rather than the declaration itself. Proposed by Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2017 and first convened in Astana in March 2018, the Consultative Meetings brought together the five Central Asian states in an informal presidential format. They expanded in November 2025 with Azerbaijan’s admission as a full-fledged participant, while retaining their consultative character. Azerbaijan attended in 2023 and 2024 as a guest; Cholpon-Ata was its first informal meeting in the new capacity. Official documents continue to call the format “Central Asia and Azerbaijan.” C6 is analytical shorthand for the enlargement, not the name of a new bloc or formal organization. Azerbaijan’s admission follows several years of practical cooperation. At a ministerial meeting in Aktau on November 25, 2022, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye signed a 2022–2027 roadmap for the simultaneous elimination of bottlenecks and development of the Middle Corridor. At its 2023 Baku summit, the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) adopted a digitalization roadmap and established a multi-partner trust fund, followed by work on digital data exchange and port-to-port cooperation. The transport roadmap includes Georgia and Türkiye, while SPECA also includes Afghanistan; neither is institutionally identical to C6. The enlarged format gives the six governments a regular political setting in which to coordinate existing transport, digital, and investment mechanisms. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route Association reports that freight through the seaports of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan reached 3.3 million tons in 2024, 20% above the 2023 level, while container traffic within the same scope rose 176% to 56,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Freight remains the principal basis of integration. Oil transit, prospective electricity links, and joint investment instruments are extending cooperation into adjacent sectors. Kazakhstan's use of the route for oil exports is also rising: according to KazMunayGas reports, Kazakhstani oil shipments from Aktau through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan route increased by 34% to 1.4 million tons in 2024. At COP29 in Baku on November 13, 2024, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan signed a strategic-partnership agreement on producing and transmitting green energy,...

3 months ago

Caspian Pipeline Consortium

Black Sea Risks Elevate Azerbaijan and Turkey in Kazakhstan’s Export Strategy

Bloomberg reported on August 8 that the Turkish authorities were withholding or delaying transit permission for some vessels bound through the Dardanelles for Novorossiysk. Some applicants were reportedly told that permits were not being issued, while others faced additional review. The practice appeared selective: vessels bound for some other Black Sea destinations continued to transit, while some Ukraine-bound vessels were also reportedly affected. On August 9, however, Turkish officials told Reuters that shipping through the Turkish Straits was proceeding smoothly and described the actions as temporary security measures rather than an ongoing restriction. The reported restrictions followed a sharp increase in attacks on commercial shipping around the Black Sea, including Turkish-linked vessels near Novorossiysk. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern after attacks on the Turkish-owned Yaşar and Nadezhda and called on Russia and Ukraine to ensure navigational safety. Novorossiysk is especially important for Kazakhstan, because the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal there handles the overwhelming majority of its oil exports. Although the CPC pipeline itself remains operational, the episode showed how quickly traffic serving Kazakhstan’s principal oil-export outlet could face an additional constraint. The events shed light on an export strategy Kazakhstan began developing several years before the current problems. Tokayev’s July 2022 instructions addressed both oil-export diversification through the Trans-Caspian route and alternative transport chains for other cargo. In particular, he called for greater use of Kazakhstan’s Caspian ports and the development of alternative railway routes. Later that year, KazMunayGas (KMG) and SOCAR established a framework for moving Kazakhstani oil from Aktau across the Caspian Sea and onward through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, initially for up to 1.5 million tons annually. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey also adopted a 2022–2027 roadmap to remove bottlenecks along the Middle Corridor. Kazakhstan continued to develop transport links with Russia and China as it expanded Trans-Caspian routes through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. The strategy extended Kazakhstan’s longstanding geopolitical multi-vector policy, which balances relations with partners in multiple directions, into the geoeconomic sphere. Tokayev made the combination explicit in his 2023 State of the Nation address. Relations with Turkey had meanwhile been elevated to an enhanced strategic partnership in May 2022, including transport cooperation and the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan deepened their strategic and allied cooperation later that year, likewise emphasizing transport and logistics. Closer ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey widened Kazakhstan’s options without displacing established routes through Russia. The CPC pipeline remains so dominant in Kazakhstan’s oil exports that no other existing route approaches its present scale. Of the 78.7 million tons of oil that Kazakhstan exported in 2025, the Energy Ministry reported the volume moving through the CPC pipeline at 64.8 million tons (the CPC itself reported about 63 million tons), meaning that more than four-fifths of Kazakhstan’s exported oil depended on the CPC system. Kazakhstan moved only about 1.4 million tons through the Aktau–Baku–Ceyhan (ABC) route in 2024, and about 1.3 million tons in 2025. Diversification cannot at present mean replacing CPC. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline gives Kazakhstani oil a westbound egress...

3 months ago

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