Perhaps not surprisingly, the development of railways in Central Asia and of shipping routes and pipelines across the Caspian Sea are routinely characterized as elements of geopolitical competition among major outside powers, including Russia, China, Turkey, the United States, Iran and India (see EDM, February... MORE

While the United States is expected to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan well before its September 11 deadline, the countries bordering the violence-plagued nation are enhancing their capacity to combat a potential new wave of terrorism. The chaos emanating from Afghanistan poses a large security... MORE

On July 8, a high-ranking Taliban delegation came to Moscow and held talks with Zamir Kabulov, a former ambassador to Kabul, the Kremlin’s special envoy on Afghanistan and a department chief in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apparently, the Taliban representatives hoped to meet Russian... MORE

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