Isolationist Turkmenistan, which proudly claims to be COVID-19-free, has nonetheless been affected by the pandemic (Izvestia, May 10). A recent closure of its borders due to pandemic concerns has halted imports, reportedly leading to food shortages. The provincial situation became so dire before the borders... MORE

Kazakhstan was the first country in Central Asia to enact a state of emergency, effective March 16, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was followed, on March 25, by Kyrgyzstan; while the other three regional states—Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan—have yet to move in the... MORE

The Russian government long assumed that Western sanctions on Iran would allow it to steal a march on the world by expanding its railroad connections to the south via the Islamic Republic while simultaneously ensuring that the South Caucasus remains a Moscow-dominated hub for both... MORE

In the early hours of  April 15, around 350 German law enforcement officials arrested four Tajik asylum seekers in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the state prosecutor, the men, all between 24 and 32 years old and Tajik nationals, had formed a... MORE

Eastern Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region—comprising more than half of the historical mountainous region of Badakhshan, which it shares with northern Afghanistan—is one of the most isolated, impoverished and unsettled places in Central Asia. Gorno-Badakhshan was a center of resistance to Dushanbe during the civil war... MORE

Following the large coronavirus outbreak in Iran, neighboring countries quickly closed their borders with the Islamic Republic. More than a thousand Turkish trucks carrying goods to Central Asia found themselves stuck at checkpoints due to the closure of the Iran-Turkey and Iran-Turkmenistan borders (Daily Sabah,... MORE

In response to mounting cases of COVID-19 in Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, on April 17, providing a financial reprieve for the majority of the seven million–eight million foreign migrant workers currently believed to still reside in in the country, with little or... MORE

For the last two decades, Moscow has counted on Beijing’s regular use of Russian railways to export Chinese goods to Europe. In turn, China’s reliance on Russian rail was based on the presumption that any substitute overland route via Central Asia would be hampered by... MORE

Kazakhstan’s government has been fighting the novel coronavirus since mid-March, having declared a one-month state of emergency as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country began to approach 20 (Informburo.kz, March 15). Two weeks after that, the authorities imposed stricter measures in two... MORE

Introduction On February 29, U.S. and Taliban representatives signed the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” in Doha, Qatar, which laid out a framework for ending the 18-year old conflict in Afghanistan  (U.S. State Department, February 29). Despite skepticism in many quarters regarding the viability... MORE