On the eve of a new round of anti-Russian sanctions unveiled by the European Union on September 9, Gazprom’s CEO, Alexei Miller, kicked off a two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan. The head of the Russian natural gas giant and Vladimir Putin’s close advisor had previously visited... 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

The Russian government, which has used ethnic minority challenges against Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine to punish regimes whose foreign and domestic policies are at odds with Moscow’s now seems prepared to do the same thing in Uzbekistan. It appears Russia is attempting to exploit... 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

On the 40th anniversary of establishing bilateral diplomatic relations, Mongolia’s President Tsakhia Elbegdorj and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in Tokyo on July 22, 2014, to sign a Joint Statement on affirming the final roadmap toward instituting an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Aimed at... MORE

On July 10–12, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu paid an official visit to Uzbekistan—the first one by a Turkish foreign minister in 13 years—in the hopes of bringing about a détente to the two countries’ frozen relations (Daily Sabah, July 10). Turkey was among the... MORE

On July 21, eleven days after a recent skirmish between Tajik and Kyrgyz communities and border guards in the Ferghana Valley, Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdyrakhman Mamataliev commented on the progress of his country’s delimitation talks with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, stating that demarcation issues would... 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