U.S.-Central Asia Engagement - The Times Of Central Asia

Viewing results 1 - 6 of 23

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...

BRICS

Tokayev Meets U.S. Envoy Sergio Gor on Sidelines of BRICS Summit

India hosted the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12–13. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are among the partner countries of this international grouping, which began meeting in 2006 and held its first summit in 2009. Uzbekistan was represented by a delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Jamshid Kuchkarov. Kazakhstan’s delegation was led by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. On Saturday, September 12, the Kazakh president met on the sidelines of the summit with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Sergio Gor, the U.S. president’s special envoy for South and Central Asia. During his meeting with the crown prince, they discussed economic and investment cooperation. In 2025, the United Arab Emirates ranked among Kazakhstan’s four largest foreign investors. Foreign direct investment from the Emirates totaled $1.6 billion. In January–March 2026, bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and the UAE amounted to $45.8 million. Over the past 20 years, Emirati investment in Kazakhstan has exceeded $7 billion, including around $3 billion over the past two and a half years. That same day, President Tokayev met with Sergio Gor, the U.S. president’s special envoy for South and Central Asia. Gor delivered a personal message from President Donald Trump congratulating Tokayev ahead of the 35th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence. They discussed the development of the Kazakhstan-U.S. enhanced strategic partnership, including cooperation in artificial intelligence and digitalization. According to the official readout, they also discussed the Kazakh president’s planned participation in the G20 summit, scheduled to take place in Miami in December 2026. Tokayev said: “I am currently preparing to take part in the G20 Summit in Miami. I believe this will also be a good opportunity to discuss the issues on the bilateral agenda. We prefer not fine words, but tangible results and practical steps to advance our mutual cooperation.” Tokayev also reaffirmed his invitation for President Trump to visit Kazakhstan. Contacts between senior Central Asian and U.S. officials have intensified. The U.S. Embassy in Bishkek reported on September 2 that Gor had met with Tokayev and other regional leaders in Kyrgyzstan. In June, Gor met with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister. Also in June, Tokayev met with Ben Black, chief executive officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), as part of Astana’s efforts to expand economic cooperation with Washington and attract more strategic investment. On July 10, Tokayev spoke by phone with President Trump. Another meeting of the secretariat of the C5+1 framework for U.S.-Central Asia cooperation took place in Ashgabat on September 9. Gor serves as both the U.S. ambassador to India and the U.S. president’s special envoy for South and Central Asia. Also on Saturday, Tokayev had an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi, at the Russian leader’s residence during his visit to India. Reports suggested the meeting was unplanned. No details of their discussion were released. On Sunday, September 13, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev delivered a speech at the plenary session of the BRICS Outreach Summit in New Delhi, focusing on the theme of "Strengthening Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Stability." In his speech, Tokayev noted: “Last year, the volume of transit cargo transportation...

Middle East Crisis

Trump’s New Threat Against Iran Collides With Central Asia’s Economic Interests

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened economic consequences for any country that continues to provide support to Iran, promising Tehran “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.” Washington has not yet announced specific new measures. For Central Asia, the warning comes as economic and transport links with Iran are developing. Kazakhstan is building its own terminal at Iran’s largest port, Tajikistan is discussing fuel purchases and new transport routes, Uzbekistan is trying to protect trade that passes through Iran, and Turkmenistan is expanding transport and energy cooperation with Tehran. Each country has its own reasons for developing these ties, but they share one concern: for landlocked Central Asia, Iran provides one of the few overland routes to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Washington’s attempt to tighten Iran’s economic isolation therefore affects not only the region’s relations with Tehran, but also its own plans to diversify trade and transit. None of this means that Central Asian governments are prepared to disregard U.S. sanctions or enter into a political confrontation with Washington on Tehran’s behalf. The threat of secondary restrictions could cause banks, carriers, and private companies to withdraw from individual transactions even without formal decisions by their governments. Trump has not yet explained exactly what instruments he intends to use to enforce the isolation he announced. Kazakhstan Looks to the Persian Gulf Iran intensified its work with Central Asia well before Trump’s latest threat. In mid-June, the Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh visited Astana. In talks with Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, the two sides noted that bilateral trade had increased by 26.4% in 2025 to $430.2 million. Astana and Tehran now want to raise it to $3 billion, using, among other things, the free trade agreement between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Kazakhstan is a member. The plans go beyond trade. Freight traffic along the International North-South Transport Corridor, which links Russia and Central Asia with Iran and Persian Gulf ports, rose by 12% in 2025 to 3.5 million metric tons. Rail freight between Kazakhstan and Iran also increased by 69%. Astana’s main interest lies even farther south. Iran has allowed Kazakhstan to establish its own transport and logistics terminal at Shahid Rajaee in Bandar Abbas, the country’s largest commercial port. On June 28, the two sides signed a Build-Operate-Transfer agreement. It runs for 27 years, with two years allocated for construction and another 25 for operation. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in the project’s third year. For Kazakhstan, this is more than simply an overseas terminal. Its Foreign Ministry explicitly links the project to opening access for Kazakh cargo to markets in the Persian Gulf, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa. In July, Foreign Minister Yermek Kosherbayev again reaffirmed Astana’s interest in the project during a visit to Iran. The ministry also cited a 26.4% increase in bilateral trade in 2025 to $430.2 million. Astana is also considering another Iranian port, Chabahar, on the Indian Ocean....

Middle Corridor

Daines’s Tour Signals an Emerging U.S. Caspian Corridor Strategy

Senator Steve Daines’s July 7–9 visit to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan brought three bilateral relationships into a single, compressed Caspian itinerary. In Baku, he met President Ilham Aliyev and senior economic and foreign-policy officials; in Astana, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and representatives of government and business; and in Ashgabat, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Although official accounts treated each stop separately, the sequence suggests a regional pattern whose significance exceeds any single announcement. Daines had already supplied the clearest public articulation of the governing logic in his June 11 speech to the Caspian Policy Center’s Trans-Caspian Forum. There he joined Central Asia and the South Caucasus in a discussion about westward connectivity, investment, and supply-chain diversification. Daines identified critical minerals, energy, telecommunications, and physical and digital infrastructure as fields for public and private investment, while calling for TRIPP, a Caspian gas interconnector, and a continuous route from Central Asia to Western markets that avoids Russia and Iran. Together, these sectors give the proposed route both commercial and strategic content, though not the form of a single named program. Read against the June speech, Daines’s itinerary marks an emerging corridor-centered effort aligned with the Trump administration’s broader Caspian engagement, even without a formal declaration of purpose. Azerbaijan Anchors the Corridor’s Western Connections Baku gives the corridor logic its strongest institutional and bilateral footing. Aliyev and Daines discussed Azerbaijan’s geopolitical role, regional peace, and TRIPP’s importance for transport connectivity. Separate meetings with Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov extended the agenda to economic cooperation. With SOCAR President Rovshan Najaf, Jabbarov and Daines took up the Middle Corridor, energy, transport, digital development, and critical-mineral extraction and processing. Across the meetings, political, commercial, and technical portfolios converged around Azerbaijan’s place at the corridor’s western Caspian egress. The U.S.–Azerbaijan Strategic Partnership Charter, signed in February, places the Middle Corridor alongside energy, trade, transit, digital connectivity, and critical-mineral movement. It identifies Azerbaijan as an energy, transport, trade, and logistics hub for the Caspian region. Working groups regularize cooperation on trade, energy, connectivity, digital development, and security. The charter also calls for project lists and implementation roadmaps within three months of signing and for meetings at least once a year. In June, the first Azerbaijan-U.S. Economic Dialogue began translating that direction into an operational agenda. Government, financial institutions, and private-sector participants met on regional connectivity and transit, energy security, investment, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure. The agenda connected the Middle Corridor and TRIPP with logistics, the Southern Gas Corridor, critical mineral supply chains, transport and energy investment, and the Alat Free Economic Zone. Closing documents covered digital infrastructure, technology transfer, and industrial solutions. The workstreams are clear, but the consolidated project portfolio and its financing have yet to take public form. Azerbaijan’s role also rests on physical infrastructure already in use. The established Middle Corridor crosses Kazakhstan and the Caspian before passing through Azerbaijan and Georgia, then onward toward Türkiye or Europe via the Black Sea. At Alat, 70 kilometers...

TRIPP

The 43 Kilometers That Could Rewire Eurasia

The Caspian Policy Center’s Trans-Caspian Forum 2026 convened U.S. and regional officials at the National Press Club in Washington on June 10 for a discussion of peace, economic security, and durable partnerships. The forum framed a short Armenia-based link as part of a wider effort to turn the Middle Corridor into a working route for cargo, energy, data, and capital. The strategic dialogue was chaired by Dr. Eric Rudenshiold, CPC research director and senior fellow. Speakers included Aryeh Lightstone, Senior Advisor to the Board of Peace and to Ambassador Steve Witkoff; Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to Azerbaijan’s president and foreign-policy department head; Yerzhan Kazykhan, Kazakhstan’s presidential representative for U.S. negotiations; Javlon Vakhabov, deputy adviser to Uzbekistan’s president on foreign policy; and Edil Baisalov, Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to the United States and presidential special envoy. The meeting came as Washington tries to turn the Armenia-Azerbaijan thaw, the C5+1 critical minerals agenda, and private-sector interest into routes that can move cargo, energy, data, and capital across the Caspian. The discussion cast the Middle Corridor as the main strategic alternative linking Central Asian production to western markets. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) refers to a planned 43-kilometer link through southern Armenia’s Syunik province, near Meghri and the Arax River, that would connect Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave. With rail, road, energy, and digital infrastructure, TRIPP is intended to plug into the wider Trans-Caspian route from Central Asia through Azerbaijan and Türkiye to Europe. Aryeh Lightstone opened by placing connectivity inside the Trump administration’s peace and economic-security agenda. His remarks tied Armenia-Azerbaijan diplomacy, the Board of Peace, and the Abraham Accords to the claim that commerce can reinforce peace where standard diplomacy stalled. Lightstone shifted the subject from maps to execution. Customs, regulatory harmonization, digital trade platforms, border procedures, and bankable investment vehicles will decide whether the Middle Corridor becomes a reliable system, he said. His reference to a TRIPP Plus Enterprise Fund pointed to U.S. structures that can move from declarations to projects. Hikmet Hajiyev presented Azerbaijan as the hinge of that system. The Caspian, he argued, does not separate Azerbaijan from Central Asia, but unites them. His line that C5+1 was mathematics while the C6 was chemistry captured Baku’s framing. Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a logistical and strategic extension of Central Asia, connected through Turkic institutions, energy routes, rail, ports, aviation, and digital links. Hajiyev described the Middle Corridor as moving from a supplementary transit route into a strategic geoeconomic system, linking Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail capacity, Baku port, Nakhchivan, TRIPP, and the planned Trans-Caspian fiber-optic cable with Kazakhstan. Ambassador Kazykhan presented Kazakhstan’s strategic value as something built over time and backed by material capacity, not diplomatic positioning alone. Kazakhstan is by far the region’s largest economy, with the IMF projecting 2026 GDP of about $360 billion. Kazykhan said more than 600 American companies operate in Kazakhstan and cumulative U.S. investment has surpassed $100 billion. Kazakhstan also supplies about 24% of U.S. uranium imports and has reserves or production capacity linked...

AMM 2026

Kazakhstan Seeks More Than Extraction as U.S. Minerals Interest Grows

Kazakhstan is using renewed U.S. interest in critical minerals to push a larger industrial goal: moving beyond raw-material exports and into processing, technology transfer, and higher-value manufacturing. That ambition was on display in Astana this week across two closely linked but distinct events. The C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue, held on June 10, brought together representatives of the five Central Asian states and the United States for a diplomatic discussion on supply-chain cooperation. The following day, the 16th International Mining and Metallurgy Congress and Exhibition, Astana Mining & Metallurgy (AMM) 2026 opened as an industry forum for mining companies, investors, technology providers, and government officials. The proximity was deliberate; the purposes were different. For Kazakhstan, the issue is not only foreign demand. It wants critical minerals to support a wider industrial strategy, including domestic processing, engineering capacity, and new manufacturing clusters. June 10: The C5+1 Diplomatic Track The C5+1 dialogue brought together representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the United States. Its agenda covered geological exploration, surveying and mapping, mining and processing, logistics, and global value and supply chains. Kazakhstan’s Minister of Industry and Construction, Yersayin Nagaspayev, used the dialogue to present critical minerals as part of the country’s industrial policy rather than simply as an export opportunity. U.S. Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs Sergio Gor represented Washington at the meeting. “Kazakhstan is interested not only in exporting raw materials, but also in developing joint production facilities, technology transfer, workforce training, and scientific cooperation,” Nagaspayev said. That point is central to Astana’s pitch. Kazakhstan has long been a major mining state, but the government is increasingly presenting critical minerals as a way to change the structure of the economy. Nagaspayev said the country has more than 9,500 mineral deposits, including more than 100 that contain rare and rare-earth metals. Kazakhstan holds significant deposits of tungsten and molybdenum and has the potential to establish a domestic raw-material base for tantalum and niobium production. It also has reserves of lithium and beryllium, which are important for advanced manufacturing, electronics, aerospace, energy storage, and defense-related industries. Kazakhstan has proven reserves or active production of roughly half of the 54 minerals identified as critical by the United States, according to Al-Farabi Ydyryshev, director general of the National Center for Technological Forecasting under the Industrial Committee. Ydyryshev said Kazakhstan already has extraction and processing capacity for materials used in aerospace, electronics, energy, and defense industries, including beryllium, tantalum, niobium, titanium, and rhenium. The question is whether those capabilities can be expanded into higher-value production. Washington’s interest in Central Asia has grown as critical minerals have become a larger part of economic security policy. China remains dominant in the production and processing of many minerals needed for batteries, semiconductors, renewable energy, digital infrastructure, and advanced defense systems. Speaking at the June 10 meeting, Gor linked the minerals agenda to the need for diversification. “Our economic security depends on our ability to diversify our access to critical minerals,” Gor said. “Ensuring reliable access...