On September 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani paid his first official visit to Kazakhstan since taking office last August, when he succeeded the much abrasive Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This visit took place against the backdrop of a new round of direct talks between Tehran and the... MORE

Buoyed by its rising hydrocarbon revenues, Turkmenistan is using some of that income to reduce its geographical isolation by upgrading and expanding its railway network while linking it to those of its neighbors. The most recent development is an Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan railroad, scheduled to be inaugurated... MORE

On June 29, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared the emergence of an Islamic caliphate and renamed itself the Islamic State (IS). The organisation proclaimed that all existing Muslim states should support and provide their allegiances to the Caliphate, which according to... MORE

Last month (July 2014), a World Bank assessment explicitly approved the technical, economic and social aspects of the construction of the planned Rogun hydropower plant (Rogun HPP). The conclusions vindicate Tajikistan, which has hoped to build this hydroelectric dam for years. Uzbekistan, on the other... MORE

On August 4, the Ukrainian media widely reported on the arrest of Vladimir Mukhtarov, the major-general of Ukraine’s Cossack community. According to a statement by the prosecutor’s office of Luhansk province, Mukhtarov is suspected of having organized several “terrorist groups” near the town of Severodonetsk.... MORE

President Xi Jinping of China proposed a new Asian security concept on May 21, 2014 at the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). He called on Asian countries to pursue “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” based on... MORE

In June 2014, Central Asian media (centrasia.ru, June 19; avesta.tj, kursiv.kz, June 20) widely republished a June 18 article by EurasiaNet that analyzed the United States Defense Department’s latest biannual report to Congress regarding the implementation of its Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities program in... MORE

Since Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea and the start of the Russia-backed “rebellion” in Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing Donetsk and Luhansk provinces), Central Asian countries have become concerned about their citizens joining the pro-Russia forces in Ukraine as “mercenaries.” Prior to the Ukraine crisis, the... MORE

Apart from closer economic and trade ties, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which its three founding members—Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus—expect to launch as early as next January, also foresees increased cooperation in the scientific field, with an emphasis on innovations. While Russia and Kazakhstan have... MORE

Moscow is using much the same strategy to punish and rein in Tashkent for its pro-Western tilt that it has used against Kyiv: promoting separatism in Karakalpakstan (see EDM, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com, June 13) and organizing the regional power grid in Central Asia in such a way... MORE