With the ongoing withdrawal of the United States’ military forces and the consequent weakening of the Afghan government, the Taliban now controls much of the territory of Afghanistan and most of its northern borders, posing a threat to its three immediate northern neighbors (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan... MORE

On June 24, Russia’s state-owned oil transit system operator Transneft announced that hydrocarbon producers Rosneft and Surgutneftgaz had not reserved any pipeline volumes for transporting oil to the Belarusian refinery Naftan for the third quarter of 2021 (TASS, June 24). Transneft’s announcement did not come... MORE

Although Russia’s Caspian Flotilla remains the dominant naval force on the Caspian, it is not the only one that matters anymore. All four other littoral states—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—have been building up their own naval presences, particularly since various intra-regional disputes over access to... MORE

The COVID-19 pandemic recovery in Central Asia is taking an unexpectedly green turn. Three of the five Central Asian states boast large hydrocarbon resources and, ever since becoming independent from the Soviet Union 30 years ago, have relied primarily on oil and natural gas revenues.... MORE

Following decades of wrangling and negotiations, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, in Aktau, on August 12, 2018. According to the domestic laws of the five littoral states of the Caspian Sea, the text... MORE

In the 1930s, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin considered building a canal between the Black and Caspian seas because the Volga­–Don Canal lacked the depth to handle large-capacity ships. But World War II forced him to suspend and then abandon that dream. Now, President Vladimir Putin... MORE

Border conflicts of various levels of intensity occur regularly in Central Asia, but the latest clashes between nationals of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that broke out at the end of April was the deadliest such incident in a long time, with 55 killed and 266 injured... MORE

Introduction This is the second of a three-part series describing the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) growing digital presence in Central Asia—part of a larger project commonly referred to as the Digital Silk Road (DSR, 数字丝绸之路, shuzi sichou zhi lu) that supplements the wide-ranging geo-economic... MORE

Turkey’s plan to build a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait and potentially upsetting the Montreux Convention (see EDM, February 9) along with Russia’s movement of warships from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov via the Volga–Don Canal in order to threaten Ukraine (see EDM,... MORE

High-ranking officials from Iran and Tajikistan made a total of three visits to Dushanbe and Tehran, respectively, in less than two months, a significant sign that after years of frosty relations, diplomatic ties are finally improving (Khovar, February 23, March 29, April 5). Even more... MORE