Middle Corridor - The Times Of Central Asia

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Can Kazakhstan Lead Small and Middle Powers in Reforming the UN?

ASTANA – The United Nations, envisioned as a pillar of global cooperation, has often struggled to rise to the challenges it was created to address. Its inability to bridge cultural divides hampers meaningful solutions to regional issues, while structural weaknesses and the exclusion of diverse regional voices from the Security Council deepen its shortcomings. Compounding these flaws is the frequent deadlock among permanent members, whose competing agendas stifle consensus and action. These inefficiencies cast doubt on the organization's ability to hear and respond to regional voices, grievances, and expectations in a rapidly changing world. Amid these persistent challenges within the United Nations, Kazakhstan's proactive stance on global issues highlights its potential to lead efforts toward fostering peace and addressing critical gaps in international cooperation. For example, although Kazakhstan prioritizes nuclear energy in its national strategy, it simultaneously remains committed to advocating for the non-proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons. Such an approach, combined with its balanced foreign policy, enables the largest Central Asian nation to seek to position itself as a leading advocate for global peace. But how realistic is that in the current geopolitical climate? As conflicts and wars continue to rage around the world, leaders from several countries have gathered in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, for the Astana International Forum (AIF) to discuss key global challenges ranging from energy security and geopolitical cooperation to international trade and sustainable development. For Kazakhstan’s leadership, the event serves as an ideal opportunity to reaffirm its aspiration to position the country as a middle power. According to the Central Asian state’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, it is middle powers that should be prepared to take on greater multilateral responsibilities. “We all should strongly remain adherent to the United Nations Charter with no biased and selective approaches to its principles,” Tokayev said on May 29 in calling for the expansion of the United Nations Security Council that, in his view, should include broader regional representation. This idea was firmly supported by President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of North Macedonia, who numbered among the major guests in Astana. She argues that small countries, along with middle powers, should be "the greatest advocates of effective multilateralism," as they stand to gain the most from institutions like the United Nations. “The Security Council should be expanded, reformed and democratized to make it more accountable and more responsible in maintaining international peace and security,” Siljanovska-Davkova stressed, adding that the international institution “should take its rightful place as a principal representative body, not only for debate and deliberative democracy but also for policymaking.” The problem, however, is that major global powers, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, are unlikely to voluntarily relinquish their positions within the organization. Small and middle powers will, therefore, undoubtedly have to work hard to achieve their ambitious geopolitical goals. In the meantime, they are expected to continue developing bilateral relations. “The task before us is clear – to preserve cooperation where it still exists and to restore it where it has broken down. We must widen this...

Middle Corridor Trade Routes UAE AD Ports Group

The Abu Dhabi-Kazakhstan Connection

Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan led a delegation of officials and businessmen from the United Arab Emirates on a visit to Kazakhstan to attend the Kazakhstan-UAE Business Forum on May 12. During the visit, Kazakhstan and the UAE signed deals worth some $5 billion and not surprisingly, three of the nine agreements were with Abu Dhabi Ports Group. Building a new trade route to the south Abu Dhabi Ports Group (AD Ports Group) has been leading the way in connecting Kazakhstan to the Middle East, and in turn, the UAE company is looking to take advantage of Kazakhstan’s key position along the Middle Corridor trade route. In early August 2023, Davud Tafti, the head of AD Ports Group subsidiary Simatech Shipping & Forwarding, met with Kazakhstan’s Minister of Trade Serik Zhumangarin to discuss the shortest direct route for shipping “Kazakh export cargo the markets of the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Pakistan, India and the coast of East Africa.” The route goes from Kazakhstan’s Caspian port of Kuryk to the Iranian Caspian port at Amirabad. From there goods are shipped to the Iranian Persian Gulf port at Bandar Abbas and loaded onto ships heading to UAE ports at Khalifa and Fujairah. The total time from Kuryk to Bandar Abbas is three days. By the time Tafti and Zhumangarin met, AD Ports Group had already purchased four ships with a capacity of 7.500 tons each for transportation of bulk, container, and general cargo along Caspian Sea routes. Tafti said there were plans to buy ten more similar vessels with Amirabad being used as their home port. Simatech Shipping & Forwarding also bought two barges, each capable of transporting 350 trucks, with plans to purchase 1,000 trucks for shipping goods between Amirabad and Bandar Abbas. AD Ports Group signed a strategic partnership agreement with state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas (KMG) in January 2023 aimed at developing Kazakhstan’s tanker fleet in the Caspian and Black seas. The parties formed a joint venture called Caspian Integrated Maritime Solutions (CIMS). CIMS announced in December 2023 that working with KMG subsidiary KazMorTransFlot, Kazakhstan’s national shipping company, it had acquired two oil tankers for use in the Caspian Sea. AD Ports Group reached an agreement in January 2024 to construct a facility on Kazakhstan’s Caspian coast for building and repairing ships. Work started in early 2025 on two container vessels, each with the capacity to carry more than 500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) and built especially for use on the Caspian Sea. AD Ports Group also formed a joint venture with state railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy in December 2023 with the aim of improving logistics operations for transferring goods using rail and maritime routes. At the moment, the CIMS route is by far the fastest way for Kazakhstan to trade with the Middle East. In May 2025, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy sent the first shipment of wheat via Turkmenistan and Iran to Bandar Abbas, and from there by sea...

Central Asia-EU Summit Russia China Middle Corridor Astana International Forum U.S. Middle Powers Multi-vector Foreign Policy EU

How Tokayev’s Kazakhstan Bridges Global Powers

Amid the ongoing reshaping of the global order, Kazakhstan is seeking to enhance its role as an emerging middle power. Preserving strong relations with all key geopolitical actors, strengthening its position as a de facto leader in Central Asia, and developing closer ties with other influential states on the world stage appear to be Astana’s top foreign policy priorities. The largest Central Asian state is one of the few countries that maintains good relations with geopolitical rivals such as China and the United States, as well as Russia and the European Union. At the same time, Astana is actively developing closer ties with the Turkey-led Organization of Turkic States, while firmly upholding its longstanding commitment to international law. It is, therefore, no surprise that, during the recently held EU- Central Asia summit in Samarkand, Kazakhstan, along with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, backed two UN resolution from the 1980s that reject the unilaterally-declared independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and deem all secessionist actions there legally invalid. Such a policy perfectly aligns with Kazakhstan President’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s 2022 statement, in which he affirmed Astana’s non-recognition of Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia, or Abkhazia, and the entities he described as quasi-states, namely Luhansk and Donetsk. “In general, it has been calculated that if the right of nations to self-determination is actually realized throughout the globe, then instead of the 193 states that are now members of the UN, more than 500 or 600 states will emerge on Earth. Of course, it will be chaos,” Tokayev stressed. In other words, Kazakhstan upholds the principle of territorial integrity for all UN-member states, a stance similar to China’s policy. Despite their history of often supporting the right to self-determination over the principle of territorial integrity, Russia and the West do not seem to oppose Tokayev’s approach. As a result, the President of Kazakhstan remains one of the few world leaders who can attend the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow, regularly meet with EU officials, and participate in China-led initiatives. As the first Central Asian leader to speak with newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump in December 2024, Tokayev is also signaling his intention to deepen relations with the United States. All these actions demonstrate that, for Kazakhstan under Tokayev, the well-known multi-vector foreign policy remains without an alternative at this point. Although it is Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s first president, who initiated this approach, it is Tokayev who has been actively implementing it since he came to power in 2019. That, however, does not mean that "multivectorism" has become Astana’s official ideology. It is rather a tool the energy-rich nation’s policymakers are using to improve their country’s position in the international arena. Nowhere is that more obvious than at the Astana International Forum – an annual summit taking place in Kazakhstan’s capital – where leaders from diverse countries, often with differing goals and values, come together to discuss global challenges, foster dialogue, and seek common ground. The fact that this year Astana will host...

Central Asia-EU Summit President Tokayev EU Engagement TITR Middle Corridor

Why Europe Is Betting Big on Kazakhstan’s Future

On April 3, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Samarkand, ahead of the Central Asia–European Union summit. Although the meeting was brief, it came at a key moment, bringing into focus a set of shared economic and technological priorities that both sides increasingly treat as strategic. Tokayev made his position plain: Kazakhstan is looking to push forward in four core areas of cooperation with the EU: energy, industrial infrastructure, transport and logistics, and digital technology. Each of these lines up with the country’s broader goals for economic modernization. The two leaders also acknowledged recent steps toward a simplified EU visa regime for Kazakhstani nationals, which would ease movement for businesses and professionals in both directions. The meeting itself fits into a growing pattern. It builds on the first five-country Central Asia–EU leaders’ summit held in Astana back in October 2022. That gathering marked a turning point, putting the EU’s regional engagement on firmer institutional footing. It went beyond symbolic gestures and aimed at unlocking concrete investment opportunities. Since then, the EU has moved quickly to back up its commitments with financial and logistical support. Much of this has flowed through the Global Gateway initiative, a flagship program designed to channel European investment into infrastructure projects in developing and strategically situated economies. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has had a visible role in this process, running studies and financing projects across the transport, energy, and trade connectivity sectors. One EBRD-backed report, published in 2023, offered a striking projection: around €18.5 billion would be needed to scale container transport between the EU and Central Asia by a factor of eight. The goal was to go from fewer than 100,000 TEUs per year to roughly 865,000 by 2040. In response, the EU and the EBRD convened an Investors' Forum in early 2024, bringing in more than €10 billion in early-stage pledges. A second forum is now scheduled for 2025, with new focus areas, including mining, supply chains, and processing industries. During the Samarkand discussion, von der Leyen underlined the strategic significance of the Middle Corridor, also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR). This project has been gaining traction in EU planning circles as an alternative to routes running through Russia or the Gulf. The corridor promises not only economic returns but greater resilience in east–west supply chains. Kazakhstan, by geography and by political posture, is positioned at the center of this shift. Its participation is not just beneficial but also structurally important. The timing of the meeting was also notable. Just a day earlier, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Industry and Construction had announced a major find: a substantial deposit of rare earth elements at the Kuirektykol site. State-supported geological teams working in that region reported an estimated one million tons of potential material. Preliminary surveys from two zones, Irgiz and Dos 2, showed mineral content exceeding 0.1%, with some samples reaching as high as 0.25%. This level is a strong signal...

Middle Powers TITR Transport and Logistics Middle Corridor Turkey

How Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan Are Rewiring the Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan's acceleration of its strategic alignment with Azerbaijan signals more than bilateral convergence. It reflects a deeper structural reconfiguration of Eurasian connectivity, a reconfiguration that is not additive but integrative. As documented in multiple announcements and institutional moves across March 2025, their cooperation has crossed the threshold from parallel development to systemic coordination. This evolving dynamic illustrates the emergence of a regionally endogenous axis that, without proclaiming itself as such, is shaping the wider functional geometry of Eurasia. At the material core of this shift is the Middle Corridor — the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) — linking China to Europe via Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, and the South Caucasus. While long viewed as a technical alternative to the Northern and Southern corridors, the Middle Corridor is now exhibiting the dynamics of what in systems theory would be called self-amplifying dynamic feedback loops. (The technical term is “autopoiesis,” literally “self-creation” of “self-production.”) In particular, institutional feedback, infrastructure reinforcement, and regulatory adaptation are all feeding into one another in ways characteristic of an autonomously emergent macroregional logic. Kazakhstan’s announcement in December 2024 of the financing of a new terminal at Alat port in Azerbaijan, on which construction began in 2025, illustrates this logic in material form. Simultaneously, Kazakhstan is upgrading its Aktau port, backed by Chinese capital from Lianyungang, to triple its container throughput by 2028. This situation exemplifies the transformation of quantity into quality. Specifically, the upgrades are instantiating a network strategy that values not only volumes but also redundancy, flexibility, and strategic optionality. The new fiber-optic cable agreement signed in March 2025 further reinforces this convergence. A 380-kilometer undersea connection between Sumqayit and Aktau — part of the broader Digital Silk Road — will reduce latency between the two countries from hours to milliseconds. In system-theoretic terms, this is not merely a technical augmentation. It converts the corridor from a physical transit route into a distributed digital platform capable of supporting real-time adaptive coordination. This shift from “throughput” to “synchronization” is foundational. It also deepens the infrastructure-energy-information triad that has become characteristic of new macroregional systems. Kazakhstan’s expanded use of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, projected to carry 1.7 million tons of its oil in 2025, is not simply diversification. It is the strategic concretization of Azerbaijan’s role as a downstream node for Central Asian hydrocarbons. This is occurring alongside green transition signaling, including a modest floating solar project at Lake Boyukshor and a trilateral renewable energy agreement between Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. The repurposing of hydrocarbon corridors for hybrid energy flows is not substitution but overlay, in effect a dual-pathway system. Meanwhile, capital commitment is reinforcing the commercial aspect. A $300 million joint investment fund announced by the two countries has already designated the construction of an intermodal terminal at Alat as its inaugural project. Additional integration comes from the UAE-backed $50 million grain terminal at Kuryk, which will further diversify the system's carrying capacity by drawing agro-logistics into the corridor's functionality. In my recent article on the...

Middle Corridor

How the Middle Corridor Is a Game-Changer for Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan has been working to enhance its role in the Middle Corridor, also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR). This push reflects Uzbekistan’s strategic aim to diversify trade routes and reduce dependence on Russia. However, it is not just a diversification effort. It is an aspirational strategic pivot whereby Tashkent seeks to recalibrate its position and enhance its resilience within the ongoing geoeconomic restructuring of Eurasian trade. In January 2025, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev outlined a five-year plan to upgrade infrastructure and streamline trade. The measures enumerated in the decree include improving road and rail connectivity, expanding truck stops, and enhancing border-crossing efficiency at key points. Uzbekistan’s infrastructural investments, diplomatic realignments, and institutional relations with regional stakeholders reinforce one another. Moreover, they are co-dependent mechanisms in a larger recalibration of Eurasian trade. Azerbaijan is a case in point. The diplomatic realignment under way was exemplified in August 2024, when Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan signed their bilateral Treaty on Allied Relations, which supports infrastructure projects and the amelioration of trade coordination. In this connection, Uzbekistan is currently investing $18 million in construction of logistics terminal in the Poti Free Industrial Zone in Georgia, an initiative that could streamline transit to Europe, provided that regulatory alignment keeps pace. The country’s increased reliance on Georgian ports has paralleled efforts to coordinate rail administration across multiple transit states. So in September 2024, Uzbekistan took a decisive step by co-founding the Eurasian Transport Route Association along with Austria, Azerbaijan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkey. These partners are converging on a framework to standardize freight policies, minimize regulatory unpredictability, and optimize throughput along the corridor. As a demonstration of the corridor’s expanding logistical reach, Uzbekistan dispatched its first block train to Brazil in December 2024, demonstrating the potential for new international market connections through modular trade integration. The container train carried 28 tons from Tashkent through Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia before reaching Brazil by sea. Following a similar strategy, earlier this year, at the end of January in Ankara, Uzbekistan participated in its second trilateral meeting with Turkey and Azerbaijan, focusing on developing trade, investment, and transport links through the Middle Corridor. A set of interdependent “adaptive constraints” (in systems-theory language) constrains the Middle Corridor’s long-term viability. For example, infrastructure bottlenecks do more than cause delays. They exacerbate cost unpredictability, instilling hesitation among investors, who remain wary of investment to an unpredictable transit network. Such reluctance to commit capital in turn limits the very infrastructure improvements needed to resolve the said bottlenecks. To overcome these challenges, Uzbekistan is investing in infrastructure improvements, in the expectation that these will help attract foreign direct investment while also improving trade efficiency over time. Yet beyond the standard geopolitical risks of political instability in transit countries, shifting geoeconomic alignments, and competition from other routes, there are infrastructural and operational challenges. Broadly summarized, these include bottlenecks (such as just mentioned), regulatory inconsistencies, and environmental concerns. External assessments nevertheless suggest long-term structural advantages for Uzbekistan’s deeper engagement in the Middle Corridor. A...