Afghanistan Absent, Not Forgotten – Central Asia’s UNGA Strategy
From September 23–29, 2025, the UN General Assembly’s general debate unfolded without an Afghan delegation addressing those assembled amid the unresolved UN seat issue. Yet Afghanistan was hardly absent. Central Asian presidents used their platform to project a collective stance that stopped short of recognition while rejecting isolation. Their message reflected a regional doctrine of managed engagement: keep the neighbor connected enough to limit collapse, through corridors, energy grids, and humanitarian channels.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan offered the clearest blueprint, urging the international community to “prevent [Afghanistan’s] isolation,” and calling for support to develop transport and energy corridors across Afghan territory. That language aligns with initiatives already underway: a multilateral framework signed in Kabul on July 17 to move the Trans-Afghan railway toward feasibility, and fresh agreements on the 500 kV Surkhan–Pul-i-Khumri line designed to stabilize Afghanistan’s power supply while linking it to a regional grid. Mirziyoyev’s message was a bid to convert geography into risk management.
Kazakhstan struck a technocratic note. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told the Assembly that “inclusive development in Afghanistan” is the basis for long-term regional peace and stability. This phrasing matches Almaty’s UN-backed hub for the Sustainable Development Goals and Astana’s self-image as the region’s administrative center. The goal is to stabilize the weakest link so trade and transit do not fracture.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov used part of his brief UN address to demand that roughly $9 billion in Afghan central-bank assets frozen in Western jurisdictions be returned to “the Afghan people,” and called isolation “unacceptable.” In a remittance-dependent economy like Kyrgyzstan’s, collapse next door risks hunger, displacement, and crime. His remarks were both moral and practical, and marked the sharpest public challenge to Western policy voiced by any Central Asian leader this week.
Traditionally, Tajikistan has taken the hardest line on the Taliban. This time, Emomali Rahmon emphasized humanitarian assistance, citing drought-hit regions and areas devastated by the August 31 eastern Afghanistan earthquake, and said Dushanbe supports peace, stability, and socio-economic development next door. The quake killed more than 2,000 people and destroyed thousands of homes across Kunar, Nangarhar, and Laghman just as aid budgets were shrinking.
Turkmenistan took a different approach. President Serdar Berdimuhamedov did not mention Afghanistan, instead promoting Ashgabat’s permanent neutrality as a proposed UN agenda item, “Neutrality for Peace and Security,” along with broad transport and energy initiatives. This approach preserved flexibility on projects like TAPI without committing to specifics in New York.
What makes these speeches consequential is how closely they mirror work on the ground. The Trans-Afghan railway, long dismissed as only a plan, now has a political framework and a declared security pledge from Kabul. Whether it moves forward depends on both capital and security, but for Tashkent, a southern outlet to Pakistani ports is the difference between landlocked and land-linked. The Surkhan–Pul-i-Khumri line is more conventional and urgent: a 200-kilometer fix to keep the lights on and the revenues flowing. The long-troubled CASA-1000 power corridor is also inching back into view after being paused post-2021, with Tajik and Kyrgyz segments advancing and outside actors re-examining the Afghan section’s feasibility.
The humanitarian situation adds urgency. The World Food Programme cut general emergency distributions in May and says it can now reach only about one million people a month, in a country where summer projections put nearly ten million at risk of hunger.
Security concerns also shaped the week. Mirziyoyev’s call to transform Central Asia’s Regional Council on Rehabilitation and Reintegration into an international competence center highlighted where threat management is heading: more social policy and reintegration capacity, informed by years of repatriations from Syria and Iraq.
None of this resolves the core dilemma: Central Asia has little appetite to formally recognize the Taliban, but no wish to live next to an imploding neighbor. Leaders are balancing pragmatism with principle. The shared goal is clear: refuse to let Afghanistan fall off the map simply because its government sits outside the UN system.
UNGA-80 clarified a Central Asian doctrine: managed engagement without recognition. The next quarter will show whether it holds. Four key markers stand out. First, Tashkent tables a UN corridors draft with credible co-sponsors. Second, procurement and site work begin on Surkhan–Pul-i-Khumri. Third, the Trans-Afghan railway posts its first surveyed legs alongside security guarantees. Fourth, a supervised Termez channel moves food, fuel, and limited finance at scale. If these proceed, the stabilization of Afghanistan shifts from words to infrastructure, and the region sets the terms. If not, scarcity and blackouts could deepen, cross-border leakage rises, and outside powers would need to write the script while Afghanistan’s neighbors pay the price.
