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…
Negotiations on the CASA-1000 Power Supply Program have continued today in Istanbul. The proposed transmission project will transmit 1300 MW of surplus electricity from existing hydroelectric power sources in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan through Afghanistan to power-starved end markets in Pakistan and India. Details over the Power Purchase agreement are still being hotly debated, especially as…
More than 6,000 Russian forces flowed into the Ukrainian region of Crimea on Saturday, generating strong fervent criticism from Western powers and placing Ukraine in an uncertain situation. The maneuvers engaged in by the Russian forces began Friday with the arrival of armed men to the southeastern Ukrainian region, but the incursion into Ukrainian territory…
Ongoing violence in Independence Square, or Maidan, in Kiev, Ukraine, has claimed the lives of more than 50 Ukrainian protestors and seen hundreds more injured. The rapid escalation in aggression impetuously put an end to a short-lived truce brokered between the Ukrainian government and opposition party leaders. Though the principal catalyzing factor remains unknown, both…
Turkmenistan is not the only source of LNG in Central Asia. Iran has long hoped to marshal its LNG resources but its central problem is the hesitancy of its neighbors to enter into a partnership to develop pipeline infrastructure. This is partially due to the harsh economic sanctions placed upon the Iranian economy on account…
The former Soviet Republics of Central Asia have long been a highway for the lucrative drug trade, but in recent years the routes out of the so-called Golden Crescent have been swelling with increasing traffic of opium grown in Afghanistan. Despite many efforts over the years by both Afghan and American central planners in Kabul,…
STEPPE DISPATCHES 