Central Asia
Expanding Human Rights in New Kazakhstan
June 5, 2022, will be remembered as a turning point in the history of Kazakhstan. On that day, an overwhelming majority of our people...
Does Tajikistan Have a Choice Amid Anti-Russian Sanctions?
For a while now, the crisis in Ukraine has remained peripheral in official Russia–Tajikistan relations. The relationship between Moscow and Dushanbe was traditionally dominated...
Unintended Consequences: A heyday for the geopolitics of Eurasian transport
When Russia invaded Ukraine, it took itself off the map of Eurasian transport corridors linking China and Europe. At the same time, it breathed...
Russia’s Waning Influence in Central Asia is Inviting Regional Actors to Fill the Vacuum
As the Kremlin seems preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and as the region’s leaders re-evaluate their relationship with Moscow, other regional powers sense...
Tashkent‘s Historic Opportunity to Emerge as a Regional Leader
The people of Uzbekistan look to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev with hope that would have seemed impossible under the 27 year despotic regime of Islam...
Escaping a bear hug: Kazakhstan seeks closer ties to US and Europe
Eight years ago, Kazakh shrugged off Russian President Vladimir Putin's remarks suggesting he could pull a Ukraine on Kazakhstan. They did so again in...
Tokayev’s Second Republic and its future
Since Tokayev’s assumption of presidential office in March 2019 and election in June the same year, there have not been many changes so far,...
Contesting Russia requires renewed US engagement in Central Asia
When US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared that Washington wanted to see Russia so “weakened" that it would no longer be able...
Turkmenistan’s Presidential Elections: What to Expect from the New Head of State?
Not much is known about Turkmenistan – it is a rather closed-off country. While fairly credible information on the nation’s foreign policy can be...
Iran capitalises on Central Asian vacuum created by the Ukraine war
Anti-Iranian protests in Afghanistan and the stabbing of three clerics in Iran threaten to cast a shadow over Iranian efforts to capitalise on the...