In early September we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Thomas Simons, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, as well as a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and former Ambassador to Poland and Pakistan. Dr. Simons has published extensively on Eurasia and the former Soviet Union,…
Chinese President Xi Jinping played host to Islam Karimov, his Uzbek peer, this past week in Beijing. The meeting between the two heads of state was held in order to foment stronger ties between officials in Beijing and Tashkent alike, and culminated in the signing of substantive economic and political agreements. The two sides have…
In mid-August we had a chance to speak with Jos Boonstra, a Senior Researcher at leading European think tank FRIDE, where he specializes in Eurasian and transatlantic security issues, as well as Central Asia and the South Caucasus. He is the director of the Europe-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) program, and has published dozens of policy…
The Kyrgyz government is preparing for a major electricity shortage in the coming winter months, with a deficit reported at 1.5 billion kilowatt hours. To stave off massive blackouts, they have been preparing several contingencies to keep the already energy-starved country supplied with electricity. Agreements with Kazakhstan to provide between 500 million and 1 billion…
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has committed $50m to assist in funding the modernization of Tajikistan’s Qairokkum hydroelectric plant. The plant, a 1957 holdover from the Soviet era, is currently the only facility that generates electricity for Tajikistan’s northern provinces, which currently hosts about 500,000 homes. The funds allocated to the project by…
Tajik researcher and academic Aleksandr Sodiqov has been released by Tajik government authorities after nearly 40 days in captivity in Dushanbe. Sodiqov had been investigating unrest in Tajikistan’s restive Badakhshan province, was detained with little explanation, and charges of treason had been levied against him for speaking to members of opposition there. Sodiqov had been…
States in Central Asia have recently renewed their interest in joining global organizations such as the World Trade Organization. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, two of the more economically prosperous Central Asian states, have expressed their desire to join the WTO as they continue to position them in an ever-changing Central Asia. Uzbekistan is currently listed as…
Tajik Minister of Transport and Roads Hayrullo Asozodas announced that his country, along with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, have agreed to the final set of terms that would precede the construction of a multinational railway that would connect Tajikistan and Turkmenistan by way of Afghanistan. The railway project has been in the works since 2013, when…
Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine are increasingly composed of trained Central Asian militants, according to a new article by RFE/RL. Photographs taken by Reuters on June 22 in Siversk in Donetsk show a native of Uzbekistan as a member of a pro-Russian militia there. On June 24, a spokesman for the “Donetsk People’s Republic” said that…
Violence along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border left 60 wounded in what has been described as an even worse flare up than a violent clash in March that left at least 25 individuals injured. The most recent incident appears to have arisen as ethnic groups in the Kyrgyz-Tajik border region grew increasingly vocal in their dislike of…
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