Many observers both inside and outside Central Asia have noticed China’s rising economic influence there, supplanting the region’s traditional hegemon, Russia. In yet another sign of China’s growing economic clout in Eurasia, Astana International Financial Center governor and former National Bank chairman Kairat Kelimbetov announced,... MORE

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Kazakhstan, on February 6, where he and his host government discussed bilateral cooperation on large-scale transit corridor projects (Akorda, February 6). As a “new Silk Road” of transportation infrastructure slowly emerges across Eurasia, Turkey and Kazakhstan are becoming important... MORE

It has been half a year since Kyrgyzstan officially joined the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia. Its accession treaty took effect on August 12, 2015. That same day, Kazakhstan tore down customs controls on its border with the Kyrgyz... MORE

Because Vladimir Putin has made the presence of ethnic Russians in other countries so central to his efforts to expand Moscow’s influence, their departure from any region or country means far more now than it did a decade ago. Nowhere has their exit been more... MORE

On January 20, the official website of Kazakhstan’s presidency published Nursultan Nazarbayev’s address to the nation in which he announced snap parliamentary elections. Earlier, on January 13, the lower chamber of parliament, the Mazhilis, had made public a collective appeal to the head of state... MORE

With the global oil price dropping to below $40 per barrel and the tenge showing the worst performance among the world’s currencies in a year (Nur.kz, December 19, 2015), Kazakhstan is hastily adjusting to the dramatic change in market conditions by returning to more liberal... MORE

In slightly over a generation, Kazakhstan has gone from being a republic in which ethnic Russians formed a plurality, to one in which ethnic Kazakhs form a two-thirds majority. But to keep that country within Russia’s orbit, Moscow still counts on the fact that most... MORE

On November 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared economic sanctions against Turkey. Four days earlier, the latter had downed a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the border with Syria after it illegally entered Turkish airspace, according to both Ankara and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization... MORE

In early November 2015, US Secretary of State John Kerry toured all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. It was the first such visit by a top United States diplomat to the region, long regarded by Russia as its backyard and “sphere of privileged... MORE

Since achieving independence in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, landlocked Kazakhstan has sought to end its geographical isolation by fostering relations with neighboring countries. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan’s national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) and India’s Ministry of Railways signed a... MORE