The world’s largest inland body of water is shrinking. From disappearing sturgeon and stranded ports to an unreliable trans-Caspian ferry and borders drawn around a moving shoreline, the consequences extend far beyond the environment.

For travellers hoping to cross the Caspian Sea between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, the journey has never resembled an ordinary international ferry connection.

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There is generally no dependable passenger timetable. The vessels are primarily designed to transport freight, railway wagons and vehicles, accepting individual passengers when operational conditions permit. Travellers may be told to wait in Aktau or Kuryk until sufficient cargo has accumulated, or to make their way to Alat, approximately 70 kilometres south of Baku, without knowing exactly when their ship will depart. Recent travel accounts continue to describe waits lasting several days.

This unreliability predates the current environmental crisis. It reflects freight-centred operations, poor passenger information and limited coordination between ports. But the difficulties now facing Caspian navigation are no longer only organisational.

The water itself is retreating.

At Aktau and Kuryk, the Kazakh ports that connect Central Asia to Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Europe, falling water levels are making navigation channels shallower and increasing the need for dredging – the removal of mud, sand and sediment from the seabed to maintain sufficient depth for ships. Vessels designed for deeper water may have to carry lighter loads. Infrastructure built for an earlier shoreline risks becoming progressively less effective.

The contrast is striking. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the European Union and international financial institutions increasingly promote the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, better known as the Middle Corridor, as a strategic bridge between Asia and Europe. Yet the sea at the centre of that corridor is becoming physically less navigable.

The Caspian has fluctuated throughout recorded history, rising and falling in response to changes in river flow, precipitation, temperature and evaporation. But since the mid-1990s, its level has followed a predominantly downward trajectory. Satellite-based research has estimated a decline of nearly seven centimetres annually between 1996 and 2015, accelerating to approximately ten centimetres annually between 2006 and 2021.

The eventual scale remains uncertain. Scientific projections differ according to future greenhouse-gas emissions, river inflows and the models used. But even a decline of five metres would transform the northern and eastern Caspian, where the water is exceptionally shallow. A fall of five to ten metres could critically disrupt ecosystems, remove most of the effective coverage of existing protected areas and leave billions of dollars of industrial and civil infrastructure obsolete.

The Caspian is not about to disappear entirely. Its southern basin reaches depths of more than 1,000 metres. But a body of water does not need to vanish to cease performing the functions on which surrounding societies depend. Ports can become inaccessible. Wetlands and fishing grounds can disappear. Ships can lose carrying capacity. Settlements built around the coast can find themselves kilometres from the water.

For Central Asia, the retreating Caspian is becoming an environmental crisis, an economic constraint and a test of whether regional governments can cooperate before physical change overtakes political planning.

A sea dependent on distant rivers

The Caspian has no natural outlet to the ocean. Water enters through rivers and precipitation and leaves primarily through evaporation. Its level is therefore determined by the balance between inflow and water lost from its surface.

The system is also highly unequal. Although more than one hundred rivers flow into the Caspian, the Volga provides the overwhelming majority of its river water. The Ural, Kura and several smaller rivers supply much of the remainder.

This means that the fate of the Caspian is affected by decisions taken far from its shores. Reservoir management, hydropower, irrigation, industrial consumption and urban water use throughout the Volga basin can influence the quantity and timing of water reaching the sea.

It would nevertheless be misleading to attribute the present decline solely to dams or Russian water management. Rising temperatures increase evaporation from the Caspian’s vast surface, while changing precipitation and runoff affect its drainage basin. The water balance of a closed inland sea is especially sensitive to sustained warming.

The northern basin is the most immediately exposed. Much of it is only a few metres deep, meaning that a relatively modest vertical fall can produce a dramatic horizontal retreat. In Kazakhstan, new stretches of exposed seabed are already emerging around the northeastern coast and the Ural River delta.

Read more on Novastan: Mer Caspienne : sommet décisif au Kazakhstan

These areas are not empty margins. They contain wetlands, bird habitats, fish nurseries and communities whose economic life developed around access to the water.

As the seabed dries, another problem may emerge. Salt, industrial contaminants and other pollutants accumulated in coastal sediments can be exposed to the wind. The experience of the Aral Sea has shown how a disappearing shoreline can become a source of dust carrying salt and toxic residues across large distances.

The comparison between the Aral and Caspian seas must be used carefully. The destruction of the Aral Sea was driven principally by the massive diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for irrigated agriculture. The Caspian is vastly larger, and climate-driven evaporation plays a much more significant role in its decline.

But the political lesson is relevant. Environmental catastrophe does not begin when the last water disappears. It begins when ecological and economic systems become unable to adapt to cumulative damage.

When the Soviet Union tried to close the Caspian’s “black throat”

The idea that the Caspian’s water level could be controlled through a decisive engineering intervention is not new.

On the Turkmen coast, a narrow strait connects the Caspian to Garabogazköl, also known by its Russian name, Kara-Bogaz-Gol. The vast, shallow lagoon is exceptionally saline. Caspian water flows into it and then evaporates, leaving behind concentrated salts and minerals.

During the Soviet period, planners came to see Garabogazköl as a leak through which the Caspian was losing valuable water. As the sea declined during the 1970s, the lagoon’s intense evaporation appeared to offer a straightforward explanation and an equally straightforward solution: close the channel.

A dam completed in 1980 blocked the connection between the Caspian and the lagoon. Without a continuous inflow, Garabogazköl rapidly contracted. By the middle of the decade, much of it had become an exposed salt basin. The ecological consequences extended beyond the lagoon itself, as winds carried salt from the dry surface across the surrounding territory.

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In 1992, shortly after Turkmenistan became independent, the barrier was demolished and Caspian water was allowed to return.

The episode is more than an environmental curiosity. It shows the danger of approaching the Caspian as a hydraulic machine whose individual components can be blocked or redirected without wider consequences.

Closing Garabogazköl did not provide a durable solution to the Caspian’s fluctuations. Instead, it transferred the crisis from one body of water to another. By the time the lagoon was reconnected, the Caspian itself had begun rising again, illustrating how poorly its changing water balance had been understood.

The history matters today because falling levels may once again generate proposals for major engineering responses. Some ideas envisage regulating river flows, diverting water between basins or restricting the movement of water into highly evaporative areas. Others concentrate on dredging, artificial channels and the relocation of ports.

Some adaptation will be unavoidable. But Garabogazköl offers a warning against solutions that treat one symptom in isolation. The Caspian is an interconnected ecological system, not merely a reservoir to be managed for maximum economic utility.

The disappearance of the sturgeon

No species is more closely associated with the Caspian than the sturgeon.

For centuries, sturgeon fisheries supported communities around the sea and supplied the caviar trade for which the region became internationally famous. The fish migrate between the Caspian and its rivers, depending on access to spawning grounds in waterways such as the Volga and Ural.

Their decline began long before the present acceleration in falling water levels. Dams restricted access to spawning grounds, while pollution, overfishing and the illegal caviar trade placed enormous pressure on populations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the weakening of fisheries management and expansion of poaching further devastated stocks.

Official sturgeon landings across the Caspian fell from approximately 28,500 tonnes in 1985 to around 1,345 tonnes in 2005. More recent assessments describe Caspian sturgeon populations as being in critical condition.

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Hatcheries have released millions of young sturgeon in an attempt to compensate for the loss of natural reproduction. But stocking programmes cannot fully replace functioning rivers, wetlands and coastal habitats.

The shrinking sea adds another layer of pressure. The northern Caspian and its river deltas provide shallow feeding and nursery environments. As these areas retreat, salinity changes and habitats fragment, populations already damaged by decades of exploitation lose more of the conditions they need to recover.

The decline of the sturgeon therefore captures the cumulative character of the Caspian crisis. Climate change is not acting on an untouched ecosystem. It is amplifying damage created by dams, hydrocarbons, industrial pollution, illegal fishing and weak regional governance.

The loss is also cultural and economic. The sturgeon is not merely a biodiversity indicator. It represents a way of life that once connected fishing communities from Kazakhstan and Russia to Azerbaijan and Iran. Its disappearance would mark the collapse of one of the Caspian’s most distinctive shared traditions.

The Middle Corridor meets a shallower sea

The economic consequences of declining water levels are becoming particularly important as the Caspian assumes a larger place in Eurasian transport policy.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine increased European and Asian interest in routes that avoid Russian territory. The Middle Corridor carries goods from China and Central Asia across Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye toward European markets.

Its maritime section depends primarily on the ports of Aktau and Kuryk in Kazakhstan and Baku’s port facilities at Alat in Azerbaijan. Turkmenbashi also has the potential to connect Turkmenistan and neighbouring countries to trans-Caspian trade.

International assessments have warned that falling Caspian levels may require continued dredging, vessels with shallower draughts and improved navigation systems.

Read more on Novastan: By the Caspian Sea

These are not marginal technical adjustments. Ships unable to enter fully loaded carry less cargo at a higher unit cost. Repeated dredging requires sustained expenditure and can create further environmental disruption. Port infrastructure may have to be extended or relocated as the shoreline changes.

There is also a risk that investment decisions will be based on a static understanding of the sea. A terminal planned according to today’s water level may be poorly adapted to conditions two or three decades from now. Infrastructure with an expected operational life of fifty years must now be assessed against several possible Caspian futures.

The unreliable passenger connection between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan exposes another weakness in official corridor narratives. For governments and financial institutions, the Caspian is often represented as a segment on a trade map: containers arrive at one port, cross the water and continue westward.

For travellers, the experience is far less seamless. The absence of a regular passenger timetable, uncertain departures and long waits demonstrate that the Caspian has not yet become an integrated regional transport space.

Falling water levels did not cause these organisational failures. But they can compound them by making navigation and port operations more expensive and less predictable.

If the Middle Corridor is intended to become a durable alternative between Europe and Asia, its planners must prepare not only for greater freight volumes but for the transformation of the sea itself.

Legal boundaries around a moving shoreline

For much of the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, diplomatic arguments about the Caspian concentrated on whether it should legally be treated as a sea or a lake.

The distinction mattered because it could affect how the surface, seabed, fisheries and hydrocarbon resources were divided. Russia and Iran were joined after 1991 by three newly independent coastal states – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – each seeking access to offshore resources and control over maritime space.

The five countries eventually avoided choosing between the conventional categories. The Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, signed in Aktau in 2018, created a special regime designed specifically for the basin.

It allows each state to establish territorial waters extending up to 15 nautical miles, followed by a ten-nautical-mile fishing zone. The remaining surface is intended for common use, while neighbouring states negotiate the division of sectors of the seabed. The Convention also excludes the military forces of non-Caspian states.

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The agreement was a major diplomatic achievement, but it was developed primarily around security, navigation, fisheries and hydrocarbons. It assumed that the sea’s basic physical geography would remain broadly recognisable.

A retreating shoreline complicates that assumption.

Territorial waters are measured from coastal baselines. As the water withdraws, islands may become connected to the mainland, bays may disappear and newly exposed land may alter the practical geography of coastal access. Fishing grounds and ecologically important habitats can shift away from the zones intended to regulate or protect them.

Existing bilateral seabed agreements are unlikely to be automatically overturned each time the shoreline moves. Yet practical questions will multiply. Who is responsible for newly exposed seabed? How should states manage wetlands that migrate across administrative or protected-area boundaries? What happens when navigation channels must be repeatedly dredged or moved?

The Convention has also not yet entered into force. As of the latest publicly confirmed position, Iran remained the only littoral state that had not completed ratification, with the issue expected to feature ahead of the Caspian summit planned in Tehran in August 2026.

The Caspian states spent more than two decades negotiating how to divide and use the sea. They are now confronting a different problem: how to apply those rules when the physical sea retreats from the lines drawn around it.

Cooperation without sufficient urgency

The main regional framework for environmental cooperation is the Tehran Convention, signed in 2003 by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.

At COP29 in Baku, representatives of the five states formally recognised the serious ecological, economic and social consequences of declining water levels. Work has since continued on a regional action plan, including meetings during 2025 and a high-level dialogue in Astana in April 2026.

This recognition is important, but it does not yet amount to a sufficiently ambitious adaptation strategy.

The region needs comparable hydrological data, shared climate scenarios and infrastructure planning based on different possible levels of decline. Coastal protected areas must be capable of moving with habitats rather than remaining fixed around today’s shoreline. Ports require coordinated investment, while fishing communities need support as traditional livelihoods become less viable.

The Volga’s importance makes Russian participation indispensable. Yet cooperation is constrained by sanctions, the war against Ukraine and distrust between the Caspian states. Governments also have competing interests in oil and gas production, transport corridors, fisheries and territorial control.

Environmental cooperation cannot avoid these political realities. Nor can engineering adaptation replace efforts to reduce pollution, protect river ecosystems and limit global warming.

The European Union also has a direct interest. It is promoting the Middle Corridor, closer economic links with Central Asia, renewable-energy connections and partnerships concerning critical raw materials.

Those policies cannot treat the Caspian merely as a neutral transport surface. European support for ports and logistics should incorporate long-term water-level projections, environmental monitoring and biodiversity protection. Otherwise, international institutions risk financing infrastructure built for a Caspian that no longer exists.

A sea does not have to disappear

The retreat of the Caspian is already visible, but its political consequences remain easier to postpone than its physical ones.

Governments can commission another study, organise another regional meeting or dredge another shipping channel. Each action may be useful. None resolves the fundamental mismatch between a rapidly changing environment and institutions designed around stability.

Garabogazköl demonstrated the danger of attempting to correct the Caspian through a single dramatic intervention. The collapse of sturgeon populations shows what happens when cumulative ecological damage is allowed to continue for decades. The Aktau-Alat ferry reveals how distant the region remains from the seamless connectivity presented in official strategies. The unfinished legal Convention illustrates how slowly political structures move compared with the shoreline.

The Caspian will not vanish like the Aral Sea. But its northern and eastern coasts could be transformed beyond recognition. Wetlands may disappear, ports may be stranded and communities may lose access to the water that shaped their economies and identities.

What remains uncertain is the eventual magnitude of the decline. Its direction is no longer seriously in doubt.

Central Asia already knows that a disappearing inland sea can be treated as an economic sacrifice until the damage becomes irreversible. The Caspian offers the region another warning – this time while there is still enough water, infrastructure and ecological life left to protect.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post The Caspian Sea Is Retreating. Central Asia Is Not Ready appeared first on Novastan English.

From Kazakhstan’s Kurultai to Uzbekistan’s Mahalla, governments across Central Asia are increasingly framing political reform through institutions rooted in local history rather than imported political models.

For much of the three decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, discussions about political reform in Central Asia were conducted using a familiar international vocabulary. Elections, constitutions, political parties, decentralisation, civil society and good governance became the dominant language through which both governments and international organisations described political development.

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Increasingly, however, another vocabulary is emerging.

Across the region, governments are reviving concepts such as the Kurultai, the Mahalla, the Halk Maslahaty and councils of elders. These institutions are rarely presented as alternatives to constitutional government. Rather, they are increasingly portrayed as ways of making governance more legitimate, more participatory and more deeply rooted in national history.

This raises an important question. Are Central Asian governments simply giving traditional names to modern institutions? Or are they gradually developing a distinct political vocabulary through which reform itself is imagined?

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Political reform is not only about changing institutions. It is also about changing the language through which those institutions are understood and legitimised.

Beyond Imported Models

All political systems derive legitimacy from history as much as from law. France invokes the Revolution and the Republic. Britain draws upon Parliament and Magna Carta. The United States continues to frame politics through the language of its Founding Fathers.

Central Asia is increasingly doing the same.

Rather than presenting reform exclusively through concepts inherited from the Soviet period or borrowed from international governance discourse, governments across the region increasingly anchor their legitimacy in historical narratives that resonate more directly with domestic political traditions.

This does not necessarily represent a rejection of constitutionalism or modern statehood. Instead, it reflects an attempt to reconcile contemporary governance with locally meaningful historical references.

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Kazakhstan: The Kurultai and the Listening State

Kazakhstan perhaps best illustrates this evolution.

Since the January 2022 events, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has promoted the idea of a “Listening State”, constitutional reform and the National Kurultai as central elements of the “New Kazakhstan”. Alongside referendums, electoral reform and strengthened consultative mechanisms, the Kurultai has become part of a broader effort to redefine how political authority is presented.

The Kurultai is neither a parliament nor an opposition forum. Rather, it functions as a consultative platform bringing together selected representatives of public life, academics, experts and civil society to deliberate on questions of national identity, reform and long-term development.

Whether viewed as meaningful consultation or carefully managed participation, the Kurultai illustrates an important point. It seeks legitimacy not only through elections or representative institutions, but also through an institution whose historical roots reach back to the political culture of the Eurasian steppe.

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Uzbekistan: The Mahalla Between Community and State

Uzbekistan offers a different but equally important example through the Mahalla.

Often translated simply as a neighbourhood community, the Mahalla is in practice much more than a local tradition. It plays a role in social assistance to families in need, neighbourhood mediation, community mobilisation, welfare delivery and the administrative interface between citizens and the state, including in sensitive areas such as the registration and monitoring of religious communities.

It also intervenes in family life, including disputes concerning marriage, divorce and domestic violence. In many cases, Mahalla-level mediation provides rapid community support. Yet it has also been criticised for encouraging reconciliation in situations of gender-based violence, discouraging divorce or prioritising family cohesion over the protection and autonomy of women experiencing abuse.

Under the banner of the “New Uzbekistan”, the Mahalla has been presented not as a relic of the past but as a cornerstone of modern governance. Its strength lies precisely in this dual nature: deeply embedded in everyday community life while simultaneously serving as an important interface between society and the state.

Kyrgyzstan: Contesting the Meaning of the Kurultai

If Kazakhstan presents the Kurultai as a consultative institution, Kyrgyzstan illustrates how the same historical concept can become an object of democratic contestation.

Successive debates over the People’s Kurultai have revolved around fundamental constitutional questions. Should it merely advise elected institutions? Should it exercise oversight? Does it strengthen democratic participation or risk creating a parallel source of political legitimacy?

Rather than providing definitive answers, Kyrgyzstan demonstrates that historical institutions themselves become arenas of political debate when adapted to modern constitutional systems.

Turkmenistan: Tradition as State Legitimacy

Turkmenistan represents perhaps the most institutionalised version of this regional tendency.

The Halk Maslahaty, together with councils of elders and the symbolic authority of aksakals, presents political authority through the language of continuity, wisdom and national consensus. These institutions are not designed as arenas of political competition. Instead, they frame presidential authority within narratives of collective consultation and historical legitimacy.

Their significance therefore lies less in electoral politics than in the symbolic vocabulary through which political authority is justified.

Tajikistan: Statehood, Unity and the Persianate Legacy

Tajikistan follows a different path.

Its political vocabulary is less centred on Turkic or nomadic traditions than on national unity, statehood and the Persianate cultural heritage. References to the Samanid dynasty, the Tajik language and the country’s civil war increasingly serve to anchor contemporary political authority within a narrative of historical continuity and national resilience.

At the local level, elders and community mediation continue to play important social roles. While these traditions are not usually presented as formal instruments of political reform, they nevertheless perform a similar function: linking governance to ideas of continuity, cohesion and collective identity.

A Region Reimagining Its Past

Taken together, these examples suggest a broader regional phenomenon.

Central Asia is not abandoning elections, constitutions or representative institutions. Nor is it simply returning to pre-modern forms of governance.

Instead, governments are increasingly combining modern constitutional structures with institutions, concepts and symbols drawn from selectively reinterpreted historical traditions. The result is neither a rejection of international governance norms nor a simple revival of the past. It is a process of institutional hybridisation.

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This trend also intersects with a wider romanticisation of Turkic, steppe and nomadic heritage. Institutions such as the Kurultai or the authority of aksakals are often presented as evidence of an ancient political culture rooted in consultation, consensus and collective wisdom. Such narratives can offer valuable alternatives to the assumption that political modernity must always be expressed through imported institutional models. Yet they also carry risks. Complex historical realities can be simplified into reassuring myths, while diverse and sometimes hierarchical political traditions become reimagined as timeless expressions of participatory governance.

Türkiye’s recent decision to replace “Central Asia” with “Turkestan” in parts of its school curriculum reflects this wider intellectual shift. Increasingly, the region is being described through historical and cultural concepts associated with the Turkic world rather than Soviet-era geography or externally imposed terminology. Whether one views this as decolonisation, cultural revival or geopolitical symbolism, it illustrates the growing importance of historical narratives in shaping contemporary political identities.

More Than Words

The emergence of this vocabulary reflects deeper transformations.

A generation with little or no memory of the Soviet Union has reached adulthood. Nation-building has entered a more mature phase. Governments increasingly seek legitimacy not only through economic development or institutional reform but also through narratives that resonate with national history and collective identity.

This does not mean these institutions necessarily produce more accountable governance. Traditional concepts can broaden participation, but they may also reinforce hierarchy, exclude dissenting voices or provide new symbolic foundations for existing power structures.

The question facing Central Asia is therefore not whether it is returning to its past. It is not. Nor is it simply reproducing Western constitutional models. Increasingly, the region appears to be constructing something in between: modern states that seek legitimacy through institutions inspired as much by their own historical narratives as by international governance norms.

Whether these hybrid models ultimately strengthen accountability, broaden participation or merely repackage existing political authority remains an open question. What is already clear, however, is that Central Asia is no longer only reforming its institutions. It is also reinventing the language through which political legitimacy itself is imagined.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post The Vocabulary of Reform: Why Central Asia Is Reimagining Its Political Traditions appeared first on Novastan English.

At Central Asian airports, remittances do not always look like money. They can look like taped cardboard boxes arriving from Istanbul, oversized suitcases from Moscow, bags of clothes bought in Turkish markets, phones, cosmetics, fabrics, spare parts, children’s shoes or household appliances carried across borders as luggage. In a village in southern Tajikistan, they can look like a half-finished house paid for by a son working in Russia. In Kyrgyzstan, they can arrive as a notification on a banking app. In Uzbekistan, they can help pay for a wedding, medical treatment, a sibling’s education or the first stock for a small shop.

Remittances are often described as a financial flow. In Central Asia, they are closer to an invisible welfare state. They pay for food, debt, construction, school fees, ceremonies, medicine and daily consumption. They keep families afloat, sustain rural economies and reduce pressure on governments that cannot create enough jobs at home. But they also reveal one of the region’s deepest vulnerabilities: millions of households depend on wages earned elsewhere.

The dependence is most visible in Tajikistan. For years, Tajikistan has ranked among the most remittance-dependent countries in the world. Money sent home by workers abroad has represented more than a third of GDP in recent years, and in some estimates even more. The numbers matter, but they do not fully capture the social reality. In parts of the country, especially poorer and rural regions, migration is not an exception but a stage of life. Young men leave after school, before marriage, after marriage, or when family debts accumulate. They go to Moscow, St Petersburg, regional Russian cities, construction sites, markets, warehouses and service jobs. Some return seasonally. Others stay away for years.

This absence has reshaped village life. In some Tajik communities, working-age men are missing for long stretches of the year. Women, grandparents and children manage daily routines, land, livestock, school, family ceremonies and household budgets. The money sent from Russia gives women responsibility, but not always authority. A wife may manage the household, but major decisions can still be made by an absent husband, his parents or the wider family. Migration can strengthen families by giving them income, but it can also strain marriages, delay return, create second households abroad or leave women carrying both economic and social burdens.

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Kyrgyzstan tells a related but slightly different story. Labour migration, especially to Russia and Kazakhstan, has long supported households across the south and in rural areas. Remittances once represented close to a third of GDP; more recently the share has fallen, partly because of economic diversification and changing migration patterns. Yet the money remains crucial. It pays for homes in Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken, supports families in villages, and helps households survive when local wages are low. Unlike Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan also benefits from membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, which gives its citizens easier access to the Russian labour market than Tajik or Uzbek migrants. But this advantage does not remove the underlying dependence on external work.

Uzbekistan is different again. Its economy is larger and more diversified, so remittances make up a lower share of GDP than in Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan. But in absolute terms, Uzbekistan is one of the region’s major remittance recipients because of its population size and the large number of citizens working abroad. Uzbek migrants work in Russia, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, South Korea, the Gulf and increasingly other destinations. The state has tried to regulate labour migration more actively, including through organised recruitment and agreements with foreign employers. Still, much of the system remains family-driven: someone leaves, sends money, returns, leaves again, or helps another relative migrate.

Kazakhstan occupies another position in this regional economy. It sends migrants abroad too, but it is also a destination. Workers from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan come to Kazakhstan for construction, agriculture, services, markets and domestic work. In this sense, Kazakhstan is not only part of the remittance map as a country of origin, but also as a regional labour hub. Turkmenistan, by contrast, is harder to include with precision. Migration exists, but reliable data is limited and the country’s closed political environment makes the scale of remittances more difficult to assess.

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How the money is sent has changed dramatically. In the 1990s and 2000s, many families associated remittances with money-transfer offices and familiar brands such as Western Union, MoneyGram, Zolotaya Korona, Unistream or Contact. A migrant would queue, send cash, and relatives would collect it in a bank branch or transfer office. That world has not disappeared, but it has been transformed by sanctions, banking restrictions, digitalisation and the spread of smartphones.

Today, remittances often move through mobile banking apps, card-to-card transfers, e-wallets, national payment systems and fintech platforms. A migrant in Moscow can send money from a Russian bank account to a relative’s card in Dushanbe, Osh, Samarkand or Namangan. In Tajikistan, fintech and banking services such as Alif, Dushanbe City, Eskhata or other local platforms have become part of everyday financial life. In Uzbekistan, digital payment ecosystems such as Click, Payme, Uzum Bank and bank apps allow money to move quickly into household budgets. In Kyrgyzstan, mobile banking and card systems have made transfers faster and more routine.

This technical shift matters. When remittances arrive instantly, migration becomes part of daily household management. Money is no longer only a monthly transfer collected in cash. It can pay for groceries, utilities, school supplies, medicine or construction materials almost in real time. The migrant is physically absent but financially present. A father in Russia can still pay a bill in Tajikistan. A brother in South Korea can send money for a wedding. A son in Kazakhstan can support his mother’s medical treatment. Digital transfers make separation easier to manage, but they also normalise it.

Yet not everything moves through banking apps. Central Asia also has a “box economy”. Shuttle traders, relatives and small entrepreneurs carry goods across borders, especially through routes linking the region with Türkiye, Russia, Dubai and China. Istanbul is particularly important. Flights between Istanbul and Tashkent, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Almaty and other cities carry not only tourists and business travellers, but also small traders moving textiles, clothes, shoes, cosmetics and household goods. Some items are gifts. Others are for resale. Many fall somewhere in between. The result is a blurred line between migration, remittances and trade.

This matters because goods sent or carried home can function like remittances. A migrant may not send cash, but may bring phones, clothes or equipment that can be sold. A woman may travel to Istanbul, buy merchandise, and return to sell it in a bazaar or through Instagram and Telegram. A relative abroad may send goods through cargo services rather than money through a bank. In household economies where cash is scarce and small trade is common, goods are another way of transferring value.

The comparison with elite mobility is revealing. Central Asian governments also promote a very different kind of movement: students, civil servants and professionals sent abroad through state-backed scholarship schemes. Kazakhstan’s Bolashak and Uzbekistan’s El-Yurt Umidi belong to this world. They are designed to bring skills, networks and prestige back home. But they highlight the contrast at the heart of Central Asian mobility. Some citizens leave as future administrators, engineers or specialists. Many more leave as builders, drivers, cleaners, carers, traders or seasonal workers whose earnings keep households afloat.

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Russia remains the centre of this system, but it has become a more uncertain centre. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has needed migrant labour more than ever, especially in construction, manufacturing, logistics and services. Labour shortages have increased the demand for Central Asian workers. At the same time, migrants face a harsher environment: police checks, nationalist rhetoric, bureaucratic uncertainty, military recruitment pressure and social hostility. After the Crocus City Hall attack near Moscow in March 2024, Tajik migrants in particular reported more raids, deportations and difficulties entering Russia. Tajikistan even summoned the Russian ambassador over the treatment of its citizens.

This has exposed the fragility of a model built on migration. For Russia, Central Asian workers are necessary but politically vulnerable. For Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, migration reduces unemployment and brings in money, but it also exports social problems rather than solving them. If Russia tightens rules, deports workers or becomes less attractive, households across Central Asia feel the shock. If the rouble weakens, remittances lose value. If migrants face discrimination, the cost is borne not only by them, but by families waiting at home.

Destinations are diversifying. South Korea attracts workers through more regulated labour schemes. Türkiye combines labour, trade and cultural proximity. The Gulf has become more visible. Kazakhstan remains a regional magnet. Europe is still more difficult to access, but increasingly present in aspirations and small migration networks. But diversification is uneven and often expensive. For many families, Russia remains the most accessible option because of language, networks, transport links and relatively low entry costs.

The central question is therefore not whether remittances are good or bad. For many families, they are indispensable. They reduce poverty, finance education, build homes and open small businesses. Without them, social hardship would be much deeper. But dependence on remittances also allows states to postpone harder questions: how to create jobs at home, how to raise rural incomes, how to protect migrants abroad, how to support women left in charge of households, and how to turn money sent home into productive investment rather than only consumption.

Also read on Novastan: In Kyrgyzstan, one in four families lives below the poverty line

Remittances are Central Asia’s invisible welfare state, but they are also a warning. They show the strength of family solidarity across borders, and the weakness of domestic labour markets. They connect Tajik villages, Kyrgyz towns and Uzbek neighbourhoods to Moscow, Istanbul, Almaty, Seoul and Dubai. They arrive as bank notifications, cash transfers, cargo parcels and taped cardboard boxes. They build houses and empty villages. They pay for weddings and prolong absence. They keep economies moving, but they also reveal how much of Central Asia’s future is still being financed by people who had to leave.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Money, boxes and absent men: the hidden economy reshaping Central Asia appeared first on Novastan English.

Central Asia is often described as the next frontier in the global race for rare earths. The reality is both more promising and more complicated. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours do hold major reserves of critical raw materials, from uranium and copper to chromium, manganese, tungsten, antimony, graphite and rare earth elements. But much remains uncertain: some deposits are still under exploration, processing capacity is limited, and the most valuable parts of the supply chain remain outside the region.

What is already clear, however, is that governments, state mining companies and foreign investors are moving fast. The European Union has signed critical raw materials partnerships with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. American investors are looking at tungsten and rare earths. France is active in uranium. Development banks are financing graphite and mining governance. China remains the unavoidable reference point, because it dominates global refining and processing.

For Central Asia, the question is not only what lies underground. It is whether the region can avoid becoming simply another supplier of raw materials for richer industrial powers.

Why these minerals matter

Also read on Novastan: Carbon neutral by 2060? Kazakhstan’s green pledge faces a reality check

The term “critical raw materials” can sound technical, but the products they make possible are familiar. A smartphone contains copper, tungsten, rare earth elements and other metals. An electric vehicle depends on lithium, graphite, copper and sometimes cobalt. Wind turbines require steel, copper and powerful permanent magnets. Satellites, missiles, semiconductors and aircraft all need specialised metals.

Rare earths are only one part of the story. They include elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, cerium, lanthanum and yttrium. Some are used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, missiles and electronic devices. Others are used in polishing, catalysts, lasers or specialised industrial applications.

But Central Asia’s strategic importance is wider than rare earths. Uranium is essential for nuclear power. Copper is needed for electrical grids, renewable energy infrastructure, electric vehicles and data centres. Graphite is used in battery anodes. Tungsten hardens steel and is used in cutting tools, aerospace and defence. Antimony is used in flame retardants, ammunition, batteries and semiconductors. Chromium and manganese are essential for steel. Titanium is used in aircraft, spacecraft and medical implants. Molybdenum strengthens steel used in pipelines, industry and defence. Gallium is important for semiconductors, radar systems and advanced electronics.

In other words, the issue is not only about “green energy”. It is also about industrial power, military technology, digital infrastructure and geopolitical dependency.

What is actually known

According to the OECD, Central Asia holds a significant share of global reserves of several critical raw materials. The region accounts for around 39% of global manganese ore reserves, 31% of chromium, 20% of lead, 13% of zinc, 9% of titanium, 6% of aluminium, and about 5% each of copper, cobalt and molybdenum.

Kazakhstan is the strongest player. It is already the world’s largest uranium producer and can export many of the materials included in the European Union’s critical raw materials list. Its known strengths include uranium, chromium, manganese, copper, titanium, tungsten, beryllium, gallium and rare earth potential.

Uzbekistan is also increasingly visible. The country has large copper resources, uranium, molybdenum, tungsten, gold-associated metals and rare metals. Its mining sector is dominated by national champions such as Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex, Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company and Navoiyuran.

Kyrgyzstan has a smaller mining sector, but it is important for antimony, gold and rare earth occurrences. Tajikistan is also relevant for antimony, silver and rare metals. Turkmenistan remains the least transparent case, with public information still much thinner than for the rest of the region.

Kazakhstan’s rare earth moment

The strongest recent rare earth story comes from Kazakhstan. In 2025, the Kazakhstani authorities announced the discovery of the Zhana Kazakhstan deposit, reportedly containing more than 20 million metric tons of rare earth metals. The deposit is said to include neodymium, cerium, lanthanum and yttrium, with an average content of about 700 grams per ton.

The announcement attracted attention because neodymium and related elements are central to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence technologies. But it should be treated with caution. A deposit is not the same as a mine. A mine is not the same as a processing industry. And processing rare earths is technically difficult, expensive and environmentally sensitive.

This is one of the main problems in the global rare earth race. China does not dominate only because it has resources. It dominates because it controls refining, separation and manufacturing capacity. For Central Asia, the real challenge is therefore not only geological. It is industrial.

The companies entering the race

In Kazakhstan, several national and foreign actors are already positioning themselves.

Tau-Ken Samruk, the state mining company, is expected to play a central role in exploration and strategic mineral projects. Kazatomprom remains the key uranium actor, while Eurasian Resources Group is important for aluminium, copper, cobalt and gallium. ERG has announced plans to produce gallium in Kazakhstan, a metal used in semiconductors, radar systems and missile guidance.

American interest is also growing. Cove Capital has been linked to tungsten projects in Kazakhstan, including Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty, in partnership with Tau-Ken Samruk. Tungsten is strategically important because it is used in hard metals, defence and industrial tools, while Western countries are trying to reduce dependence on China.

Sarytogan Graphite, active in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region, is another example. Graphite is essential for battery anodes, especially in electric vehicles. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development acquired a stake in the company in 2024, showing that development banks are also entering the critical minerals field.

In Uzbekistan, the main actors are domestic state companies. Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex is central for copper, molybdenum and other metals. Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company remains one of the country’s major mining giants. Navoiyuran, the Uzbekistani uranium company, has signed with France’s Orano to develop a new uranium mining venture.

These examples show that the critical minerals race is not only a matter of abstract geopolitics. It is already visible in company strategies, financing decisions and bilateral agreements.

Europe, China, Russia and the United States

For Europe, Central Asia is attractive because it offers potential diversification. The European Union signed a strategic partnership with Kazakhstan in 2022 on sustainable raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen value chains. In 2024, it signed a similar memorandum with Uzbekistan. The first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand in 2025 also placed critical raw materials within a broader agenda of trade, transport, energy and connectivity.

For the United States, Central Asian minerals are part of a larger attempt to reduce dependence on China in strategic supply chains. Interest in tungsten, rare earths, gallium and other materials fits into this broader competition.

Also read on Novastan: L’héritage de Tabochar : l’extraction d’uranium au Tadjikistan et ses conséquences

China remains the central actor, even when it is not directly mentioned. It is the world’s dominant processor of rare earths and many other critical minerals. Any Western strategy on Central Asian resources is therefore, implicitly or explicitly, about reducing China’s leverage.

Russia still matters through legacy infrastructure, Soviet-era geological knowledge, uranium links and regional influence. But Moscow is no longer the only external actor able to shape Central Asia’s mineral future. This is one reason why the topic is becoming politically sensitive.

The real bottleneck: processing

The most important part of the story is not extraction. It is processing.

A country can have uranium, copper, tungsten or rare earth deposits and still capture only a small part of the value. The highest profits and strategic leverage often come from refining, separation, metallurgy, battery components, magnets and advanced manufacturing.

This is where Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are trying to change the model. Both countries want more local value creation, not only raw exports. Uzbekistan is promoting mining reform and industrial processing. Kazakhstan is trying to position itself as a partner for value chains rather than just a supplier of ore.

Also read on Novastan: En Ouzbékistan, la percée saoudienne dans le secteur de l’énergie

The risk is obvious. Central Asia has already experienced extractive economic models: cotton, oil, gas, uranium and metals have often generated revenue without creating diversified, high-value economies. Critical minerals could reproduce the same pattern under a greener label.

Environmental and social risks

Critical minerals are often presented as tools of the green transition, but their extraction can be environmentally damaging. Mining requires water, energy, chemicals and waste management. Rare earth processing can be particularly polluting if not properly regulated. In a region already facing water stress, desertification and fragile ecosystems, this matters.

There are also governance questions. Who benefits from new mining projects? How transparent are contracts? Are local communities consulted? Are environmental standards enforced? Do projects create skilled employment, or mainly export raw materials?

Also read on Novastan: En Asie centrale, le marché des véhicules électriques fait ses débuts

For Central Asian governments, the opportunity is real. But so is the danger of a “green resource curse”, where global demand for clean technologies reinforces old patterns of dependency, opacity and environmental damage.

A starter pack for readers

The simplest way to understand the issue is this:

• Rare earths such as neodymium and dysprosium are used in magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence technologies.
• Uranium is used for nuclear power.
• Copper is used in electrical grids, renewable energy, electric vehicles and data centres.
• Graphite is used in battery anodes.
• Lithium is used in rechargeable batteries, though Central Asia is not yet a major global lithium centre.
• Cobalt is used in batteries and aerospace alloys.
• Tungsten is used in hard metals, cutting tools, aerospace and military equipment.
• Antimony is used in flame retardants, ammunition, batteries and semiconductors.
• Chromium and manganese are used in steelmaking.
• Titanium is used in aircraft, spacecraft and medical implants.
• Molybdenum is used in high-strength steel.
• Gallium is used in semiconductors, radar and advanced electronics.
• Beryllium is used in aerospace, satellites, telecommunications and defence systems.

This is why Central Asia’s mineral base is suddenly being watched so closely. The region is not only sitting on obscure metals. It may hold some of the materials needed for the energy transition, digital technologies and modern defence industries.

More than a mine?

The coming years will show whether Central Asia can turn critical minerals into a development opportunity. The region has the resources. It has growing diplomatic attention. It has national mining companies and foreign investors willing to engage.

But the decisive question is whether Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours can move beyond extraction. Without processing, transparency, environmental standards and local value creation, the new critical minerals boom could simply repeat older patterns of dependency.

Also read on Novastan: Le Kazakhstan renforce son emprise sur son uranium face à une demande mondiale croissante

Central Asia is not yet the next rare earth superpower. But it is becoming an important region in the global competition for critical raw materials. For the region itself, the challenge is to ensure that what lies beneath the ground helps build something above it.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post What lies beneath Central Asia? Rare earths, critical minerals and the new race for resources appeared first on Novastan English.

It has been one year since the Organization of Turkic States approved the implementation of a common Turkic alphabet, designed for uniform use in all member states. Under the guise of bolstering Turkic unity, Ankara has spearheaded the initiative with the aim to draw the Central Asian states into its political orbit. However, due to limited funds, lack of political incentives, and preexisting linguistic policy, the Central Asian states have largely chosen to ignore the common alphabet entirely. 

In September 2024, the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) announced to the world the creation of a 34-letter common Turkic alphabet based on the Latin script, approved on paper by all member states. The initiative, spearheaded by Türkiye, has been in the works since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now one year since the common alphabet’s announcement, the manoeuvre has yet to make the large waves in the Central Asian information space that Türkiye had initially hoped for.

The proposed common alphabet exists within the larger regional debate surrounding the political futures of the Central Asian languages. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the newly independent republics began the process of transitioning their languages from a Cyrillic to a Latin-based script. However, in Central Asia, the decision of switching to a Latin script remains a fierce debate across the region even three decades later. 

Türkiye, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s expansionist foreign policy, has offered a guiding hand by leading the OTS initiative to create a common Turkic alphabet. Türkiye first adopted the Latin script in 1928 as a part of its early independence-era modernisation reforms. By encouraging the Central Asian states to undergo a similar process, Türkiye also aims to cement its position as the dominant centre of the Turkic world.

So far, Erdoğan’s plan has not cultivated many strong allies in Central Asia’s political elite. Most states in the region remain embroiled within national debates over the post-Soviet future of their titular languages, making Central Asian governments particularly resistant to carry out such a monumental linguistic shift at the international level.

Competition for “Middle Power” Status

In the year since the OTS announcement, regional heavyweights Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan remain resistant in adopting the common Turkic alphabet within their borders. According to Nargiza Muratalieva, a Bishkek-based political scientist, “Kazakhstan is not ready to share its leadership in Central Asia, given its attempts to promote itself as a middle power.” Kazakhstan has spent the post-Soviet decades centralizing Central Asian political power within its own borders, with the goal to secure a respected “middle power” status to both the region and the international community at large. Uzbekistan, the largest Central Asian country by population and second largest in terms of GDP, shares similar ambitions. Both countries view the Turkish-led OTS alphabet as an attempt by Türkiye to cement itself as the dominant power in the region, and thus, a threat to their respective national directives.

Read more on Novastan: The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

While both nations have yet to consider the implementation of the common Turkic alphabet, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have independently embarked on national plans to switch the script of their titular languages from Cyrillic to Latin. In both cases, the political leadership has underestimated the difficulty of this task, leading to much longer timelines for the initiative than initially expected. Currently, both states are stuck in a transitional state where both scripts are used interchangeably. Critics complain that the current linguistic paralysis in the countries is both confusing for citizens and financially taxing for administrations. The Diplomat reports that the 2018 budgetary estimate for Kazakhstan’s Latinization program sat at US$664 million, equivalent to roughly 39% of Kazakhstan’s GDP for that year.

The challenges Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have faced implementing a Latin script have meant that neither government seems willing to invest in the OTS alphabet as a third system for their citizens to learn and their country to switch to. Even Turkmenistan — a state which successfully phased out Cyrillic usage in the 1990s — remains resistant to the OTS plan to change their national standard. Largely closed off from the outside world and averse to foreign influence, the common Turkic alphabet offers few advantages to Ashgabat.

Kyrgyzstan: The Cyrillic Exception

At the unveiling ceremony of the common Turkic alphabet, all eyes were on Kyrgyzstan. To mark the alphabet’s adoption, Erdoğan gifted each represented nation a copy of two books translated into the new alphabet. One of the books was a novel written by Chinghiz Aitmatov, a regionally renowned author hailing from Kyrgyzstan. Erdoğan’s choice was hardly coincidental. Kyrgyzstan today is the only Turkic state to not even attempt to switch the national script away from Cyrillic.

Western analysts attribute Kyrgyzstan’s continued use of Cyrillic to the close relationship with Russia the country has maintained through its post-Soviet independence. Russia largely views increased Turkish influence in Central Asia as a threat to its foothold in the region, and acts to mitigate the country’s power in states like Kyrgyzstan where it still holds considerable influence. However, in the case of Kyrgyzstan’s refusal to adopt the OTS Latin-based alphabet, Muratalieva believes the reasons are more pragmatic than political. “The simplest explanation is the lack of financial resources to accept and to introduce this alphabet on a national level,” Muratalieva explains. While Türkiye has spearheaded the alphabet initiative on paper, the country has remained resistant to supplying funds to OTS member states interested in making the national switch. The lack of available funds severely limits the capacity of financially-limited states like Kyrgyzstan, the smallest economy of the OTS bloc.

When Sadyr Japarov, the president of Kyrgyzstan, was asked about his opinion on the linguistic future of the Kyrgyz language, he stated that “it is too early to talk about transitioning the Kyrgyz language to the Latin alphabet”, RFE/RL reports. Muratalieva believes Japarov’s strategy is to watch and wait how its larger regional neighbours Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan fare in their respective transitions to a Latin-based script. “If one of them succeeds, Kyrgyzstan will follow,” she theorizes.

Azerbaijan as a Potential Model

Not all hope is lost for Turkish power in Central Asia. Azerbaijan, while outside the region, provides a model for the post-Soviet Turkic states open to cooperation with Türkiye, showing how partnership with the state can lead to successful development. Türkiye and Azerbaijan have been close allies ever since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This strategic partnership has allowed for Azerbaijan to largely chart its own path, both economically and politically distant from Russia. 

One of the first directives Azerbaijan embarked on after independence was the complete transition of its national language from Cyrillic to Latin, a goal it achieved by the turn of the century. The Azerbaijani Latin-based script in its modern form is now very closely related to both the Turkish standard script and the newly proposed OTS alphabet. Such linguistic integration between the two nations has opened many new doors for transnational partnership, successes closely monitored by the Central Asian states.

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Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine War, Central Asian states have become increasingly hesitant of close partnership with Russia. Regional leadership fears Russia’s close geographic proximity to their borders may lead to future military conflict. Türkiye, attempting to offer an alternative to Russian partnership in the region, markets its distance from Central Asia as a compelling security guarantee. While maintaining territorial distance from potential Central Asian partners, Türkiye benefits from cultural and religious closeness to the region’s common Turkic heritage. The common Turkic alphabet is only one of many pathways the country is intent to forge with Central Asia through the leverage of common Turkic traditions. Turkish soft power in Central Asia, while currently marginal, is steadily increasing with time.

Türkiye has made it clear that it is willing to take on administrative and economic sacrifices to implement the new alphabet within its own borders, but has maintained its reluctance to take on the financial burdens necessary to implement the script in the Central Asian Turkic states. Combined with Türkiye’s unwillingness to meddle in preexisting linguistic turmoil in Central Asia or directly confront Russia’s lingering cultural influence over the region, has enough time passed to call the OTS common alphabet project a failure? Likely so. 

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

Joseph Fisher for Novastan

The post Dead in the Water: Has the Common Turkic Alphabet Failed to Boost Turkish Influence in Central Asia? appeared first on Novastan English.

Almost every year, countries in Central Asia are placed at the bottom of NGO Reporters Without Borders’, annual ranking for the freedom of press. Every country has dropped in ranking, compared to the previous year.

The position of media coverage in Central Asia has never been renowned for its freedom. However, it seems that this year marks a turning point. 

In the NGO Reporters Without Borders’, new report as published on the 3^rd May 2023, it is noted that if ‘the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the deployment of the Kremlin’s propaganda […] has darkened the whole region [of Eastern Europe]’, Central Asian countries have also seen a sharp decline in their freedom of press since last year.

In a ranking of 180 countries, the nations that are in theory the most liberal in the region, such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, are regressing. Kyrgyzstan is undergoing the most substantial evolution by dropping fifty rankings from 72^nd place to 122^nd place. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan fell twelve lines and is now positioned 134^th. Uzbekistan fell by four points (now at 137^th) due to the rise of attacks against the media.

The Remarkable Fall of Kyrgyzstan 

The deterioration of the freedom of press in Kyrgyzstan is evidenced by multiple attacks against journalists since 2022, as well as the promulgation of the law against false information in summer 2021. Under the scope of this law, the Kyrgyz government is intensifying the campaign against Kyrgyz service of the Radio Free Europe, known locally as Azattyk, in demanding the withdrawal of its licence on the 27^th April. At the end of October 2022, the Ministry of Culture blocked Azattyk as it refused to remove a video addressing the confrontations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, at their border. 

Amnesty International asserts that this decision was a ‘blow to media freedom’, whilst the Committee to Protect Journalists has called it ‘a deeply chilling message.’ Reporters Without Borders speaks of ‘increasingly severe censorship’ in Kyrgyzstan.

Read more on Novastan: Closure of Radio Azattyk sparks discontent from civil society and international human rights activists

Last January, the independent media service Kloop found itself in a similar situation. The Ministry of Culture had threatened to block Kloop’s website if the editors refuse to withdraw an article on the inflating of construction costs by a state agency.

Last November, the journalist Bolot Temirov was extradited to Russia following a politically motivated trial, after he had denounced cases of corruption on his YouTube channel, Temirov Live.

Kazakhstan and Online Censorship

In Kazakhstan, media censorship is issued more discretely by blocking websites that might unsettle power. A report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) indicates that authorities are obstructing access to the Azattyq website, the Kazakh service of Radio Free Europe.

Read more on Novastan: “An escalating manifestation of Russophobia” – Kazakhstan at the epicentre of an information war

From the snap presidential election of November last year till this January the access to the websites of Radio Azattyq and Current Time, another branch of Radio Free Europe, was blocked.

Kazakhstan has also promulgated a law ‘on the mass media’, a pretext to regulate, or even censor, the information that is available on the internet and particularly the information spreading in social media.

Pressure on Journalists in Uzbekistan

As in the previous year, Reporters Without Borders notes that in Uzbekistan, ‘the situation for the media has only slightly improved since the death of President Islam Karimov in 2016, and criticism of the government remains difficult.’ Nevertheless, Uzbekistan has gained twenty-four points in 2022.

Notably, the report indicates that the Uzbek authorities have ‘extensive’ control of the media and that many bloggers have close ties to the government. The country enforces ‘repressive’ laws on the media and ‘widespread surveillance, censorship and auto-censorship’, reports Gazeta.uz.

Read more on Novastan: Pressure from Russia increases on Central Asian media outlets

‘The large and medium media platforms, as well as bloggers with an audience of over 5,000 people, are subjected to intense pressures and censorship,’ as reported to Novastan by an Uzbek blogger with a small audience. ‘However, there are exceptions, with some channels having less than 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers who are also now facing pressure’, he continues.

Another Uzbek journalist with a critical stance on the government tells Novastan about the recent pressure imposed by the authorities upon journalists and bloggers, ahead of the constitutional referendum of the 30^th April 2023. ‘I know of at least three examples where managers of Telegram channels and journalists have been summoned to the State Security Service for a conversation’, he testifies.

Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, Always Bottom of the Ranking

Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, whose political regimes are the most repressive, remain at the bottom of the ranking. Compared to last year, Tajikistan drops one position on the list, now ranking 153^rd place. According to the NGO, the country has transitioned from a ‘difficult’ to a ‘very difficult’ position with regard to its freedom of press. The report notes that more and more journalists are choosing to exile.

Over the past year, repression has intensified against all forms of opposition, particularly in the Gorno-Badakhshan region and against the Pamiris ethnic minority. Certain activists for the community, who have been exiled, have been extradited to their countries of origin and sentenced to long-term prison sentences.

Read more on Novastan: Human rights in Tajikistan: Interview with the UN Special Rapporteur

Turkmenistan ranks 176^th place and remains among the five worst-ranked countries. Reporters Without Borders notes that censorship in Turkmenistan increased after Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow’s son, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, rose to power in March 2022.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

The post In Central Asia, the Freedom of Press is in Decline appeared first on Novastan English.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has issued a strong statement condemning the presence of Central Asian presidents at the May 9 parade held in Moscow to commemorate Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War. The parade saw the participation of the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, along with the Prime Minister of Armenia.

In its official statement, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs underscored that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who led the parade, is currently wanted internationally for committing war crimes due to the Russian military’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“The participation of foreign leaders in a public event alongside a war criminal, who proudly instigated a war in Europe on an unprecedented scale since World War II, is viewed as an immoral and unfriendly act towards Ukraine. It demonstrates a disregard for the Ukrainian people who are fighting for their survival and freedom,” stated the ministry.

Moreover, the ministry emphasized the invaluable contributions made by the peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus to the victory over Nazism 78 years ago. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly believes that these nations should not be exploited by the Kremlin for participating in an event that lacks any connection to the heroic acts of the victorious nations over Nazism.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan: commemorating Victory Day without military parade

Russia initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which was met with condemnation from countries within the European Union and the United States. As a response, these nations implemented unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin, specifically for war crimes committed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the arrest warrant and warnings from Western countries, including the European Union, President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan extended an invitation to Putin for an official visit to Bishkek, which Putin accepted.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

The post Ukraine criticizes Central Asian presidents’ participation in Moscow’s May 9 parade appeared first on Novastan English.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has invited his counterparts from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9. The occasion marks the first time the Central Asian presidents will meet Putin after the latter’s indictment by the International Criminal Court.

On April 25, the office of the Kyrgyz president issued a press release stating that Kyrgyzstan’s Sadyr Japarov would attend the annual military parade on Red Square on May 9 as a “guest of honour”. Several days later, on May 5, Putin also invited Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon to Moscow.

The day before the parade, on May 8, a rapid fire of invitations sent the presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan all flying to Russia. It will be the first time in years that all five Central Asian presidents will take part in the Victory Day celebrations.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has paid significantly more attention to Central Asia. In 2022 alone, Putin visited all five countries in the region – something that had not happened in a long time. While the Russian president is increasingly cornered internationally, Moscow clearly holds on tight to its few remaining allies.

Yet, this will be the first time for Central Asian leaders that they share the stage with the Russian president after he was charged with war crimes.

A wanted man

Recently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president on allegations relating to the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied areas to Russia.

Last week, South African authorities warned that Putin risks being arrested during the upcoming BRICS summit in August, should the Russian president decide to make an appearance. South Africa has ratified the founding treaty of the ICC and hence obligated to act should Putin set foot in the country.

In Central Asia, Tajikistan is the only state party to the treaty and thus – in theory – bound to cooperate with the Court. Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan both signed the treaty some twenty years ago, but have so far failed to ratify it. By contrast, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are non-signatory states. Hence, should the Russian president decide to visit the region, as he did so often last year, chances of Central Asian authorities refusing Putin entry because of the arrest warrant are slim.

An offer one can’t refuse

In many ways, Central Asia still is highly dependent on Russia. According to political analyst Arkady Dubnov, who was interviewed by Kyrgyz news outlet Kloop about the Kremlin’s invitation to Japarov, Bishkek had no choice but to accept.

Kyrgyzstan still has deep economic ties with Russia. Although China is making significant inroads in Central Asia as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, Russia remains incredibly important in terms of trade and remittances.

Read more on Novastan: Effects of sanctions on Russia strongly felt in Dushanbe

The most recent data from the World Bank show that over 30 percent of Kyrgyz GDP consists of remittances. 97 percent of these remittances are sent by Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia. Hence, it is safe to say that economic ties with Russia are highly asymmetrical and Moscow is well aware of this.

In the case of Tajikistan, economic dependence on Russia is just as significant. As Tajik news media Asia Plus reported that last year, remittances from Russia reached a record high. Russian authorities also registered a post-pandemic spike in migrant inflow. In 2022, nearly one million people from Tajikistan travelled to Russia for work.

Central Asia as a sanctions loophole

The war in Ukraine, however, has somewhat tilted the balance in favour of Central Asian economies. Countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have transformed into important hubs for reexporting goods to Russia.

Radio Azattyk, the Kyrgyz service of Radio Liberty that was recently forced to shut down, interviewed Temir Shabdanaliev, head of a Kyrgyz lobbying group, about this trend. He explained: “If goods from Europe were previously sent to Russia, now they are registered as deliveries to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But as soon as they are unloaded here, they are immediately taken to Russia.“

As a result, trade to and from Central Asia has boomed since the start of western sanctions. In Kyrgyzstan, there has been a remarkable uptick in trade of “shampoo, toothpicks, soap, and car parts”, according to RFE/RL.

Read more on Novastan: Turkey continues exporting drones to Central Asia

Relevant authorities in Tajikistan also signalled an increase in trade with Russia. Last year Tajik authorities were even accused of supplying Moscow with Iranian-designed drones for its war in Ukraine. These accusations were based on a recent deal Dushanbe signed with Tehran to produce drones under license in Tajikistan. However, US-based magazine The Diplomat found no visual evidence to support claims that Tajik-manufactured drones were roaming Ukrainian skies.

Risky business

But there is a certain risk in reexporting goods to Russia. The EU has warned the Central Asian republics that it could impose secondary sanctions on businesses helping Russia dodge sanctions.

For countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, there is little room for manoeuvre. Economic dependence on Russia often outweighs western pressure. However, the invasion of Ukraine has made many in Central Asia aware of existing neo-colonial power relations.

Several weeks ago, Eurasianet reported about a Russian ban on the import of Kyrgyz dairy products after Bishkek moved to adopt a law to promote the Kyrgyz language. The Kremlin sees this development as an attempt to curb its cultural influence in Central Asia.

Patronage to Putin

May 9 is yet another important reminder of the region’s colonial past. That is why over the past decades, most Central Asian countries have gradually said goodbye to Soviet-imposed Victory Day. 

In Kazakhstan, military parades have been scrapped “to maintain the required level of combat readiness”, press agency Kazinform reported. In Turkmenistan, May 9 has not been a public holiday since 2018. Victory Day in Uzbekistan has been transformed into a ‘Day of Remembrance and Honour,’ emphasizing commemoration over military pomp.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan: commemorating Victory Day without military parade

Although Victory Day in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan still bears significant resemblance to the Soviet era, times are changing there as well. In many places, celebrations are scaled down or rescheduled to both countries’ respective independence days. Owing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this process will likely accelerate.

Yet, nation-building and symbolism remain subject to real-world constraints. As long as economic dependence continues, regional leaders have no option but to pay patronage to where the money comes from: Putin’s Russia.

Correction: in an earlier version of this article it was stated that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are parties to the ICC. Although the two countries have signed the founding treaty of the ICC, both have failed to ratify it as of yet. Hence, neither Tashkent nor Bishkek is legally obligated to cooperate with the Court.

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Written by Julian Postulart

The post Central Asian presidents invited to attend Russian Victory Day Parade appeared first on Novastan English.

A dancing mountain goat, a flowering garden of embroidery, a trickster’s tales, a silken thread spun from a worm’s cocoon – these are the diverse array of Central Asian cultural practices recently recognised by UNESCO as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. Novastan takes a look at these four vibrant traditions, as well as considering where the List has its limits in truly celebrating the cultural diversity of Central Asia. Every year, a UNESCO committee inscribes cultural practices from around the globe into a List designed to showcase and safeguard traditions seen as universally significant. Intangible cultural heritage, according to UNESCO’s 2003 Convention, encompasses the practices, expressions, knowledge, and spaces which play an important part in a community’s cultural identity.

UNESCO’s List has long featured a rich variety of cultural practices from across the Central Asian countries, including Nowruz (New Year) celebrations, Tajik Chakan embroidery, and Turkmen carpet making. Among the eclectic group of traditions newly featured on the List this year – from Cuban rum mastery to the French baguette – are four cultural practices from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Orteke

A new entry on the list for Kazakhstan, Orteke is an indigenous performing art which brings a wooden puppet of a tauteke, or mountain goat, to life as it dances along to music. The tauteke puppet is attached to the surface of a drum by a metal rod, extending to a cord connected to the fingers of a musician playing a traditional two-stringed instrument, the dombyra.

As the player strums the strings, the tauteke puppet becomes animated, appearing to gallop along to the lively rhythms of the dombyra. However, true mastery of Orteke involves not only dictating the energetic pace of the tauteke’s dance, but also making the puppet move with grace – a feat some experts can achieve with as many as four puppets at a time. As playful as it is fascinating, Orteke appeals to adults and children alike and remains a core element of Kazakh folk heritage and intergenerational communication, maintained by the traditional Ustaz-Shakird (master-apprentice) teaching system and supported by educational institutions and competitions.

Turkmen-style needlework art

Described in Turkmen state news as capable of transforming anything into “flowering gardens and meadows” with merely a needle and thread, Turkmen-style needlework art is an elaborate type of embroidery popular across Turkmenistan and some regions of Iran. It is a defining feature of national dress for people of all genders and ages, used for occasions including weddings and Nowruz celebrations, as well as everyday items.

To begin the needlework, three thin silk threads are twisted together to form one shinier, sturdier thread. The needleworker then pierces the fabric with a thin needle and creates a series of loops with the silk, forming a distinctive pattern by holding the last loop with the thumb of the other hand before sewing the next. With colourful designs often showcasing needleworkers’ regional identities, the art form continues to be passed down within families and communities through generations of women needleworkers, while also remaining important in cultural and educational institutions.

Telling Tradition of Nasreddin Hodja/Molla Nesreddin/Molla Ependi/Apendi/Afendi Kozhanasyr

Centred around the telling of witty anecdotes associated with the wiseman and trickster Nasreddin, this variously named oral folklore tradition spans a vast region encompassing all Central Asian countries, as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan. The anecdotes are known for their shrewd commentaries on social norms and daily life, characterised by their punchy combination of wisdom, witticism, and surprise. In one anecdote, a shopkeeper angrily confronts Nasreddin for failing to pay his debt of 75 piastres. Nasreddin incredulously replies: “Now, now, you must know that I intend to pay you 35 piastres tomorrow, and next month another 35. That means I owe you only five piastres. Are you not ashamed of yourself for accosting me so loudly in public for a debt of only five piastres?” Read more on Novastan: “I want our theatre to be the new face of Tajik theatre”: Khurshed Mustafoev on the future of Dushanbe’s Russian theatre The anecdotes are drawn upon in daily conversation in communities across Central Asia, used for their instructive and entertaining qualities to strengthen arguments or enliven explanations.

Sericulture and traditional production of silk for weaving

Silk culture – encompassing an entire process from sericulture to the end silk products – is a major tradition of Central Asia, spanning centuries and giving the Silk Road its name. Inscribed in the UNESCO List as a practice of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (alongside Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey), sericulture and traditional production of silk for weaving comprises multiple stages of the process for creating colourful fabrics and carpets. Farmers grow mulberry trees and feed the leaves to silkworms, from which the worms form cocoons of silken fibres. The fibres are reeled from the cocoons and spun into silk thread, before being cleaned, dyed, and woven into bright fabrics commonly seen at weddings and family occasions. Read more on Novastan: Tajikistan: Nine new sites on tentative World Heritage list Sericulture and silk production is still largely carried out by villagers and small private farms, also benefitting from government support in Turkmenistan and specialist teaching and research at higher education institutions in Uzbekistan.

Where UNESCO falls short: Uyghur culture

As is clear from this diverse group of Central Asian traditions, the UNESCO List raises awareness and mobilises much-needed support for diverse, often endangered, cultural practices. However, the List has faced criticism as a tool for obscuring the very cultural diversity that UNESCO purportedly seeks to celebrate. The inscription of Uyghur traditions in the List as practises of China is a case in point. Among the repressive actions by the Chinese government against Uyghurs is the destruction of the community’s culture – from banning the Uyghur language in schools to destroying religious sites. Attempts to erase Uyghur heritage have been reinforced by the UNESCO List’s inclusion of two Uyghur traditions – Meshrep, a rich event combining song, dance, and entertainment, and the Muqam song and dance tradition – via nominations by China. What has followed is the co-opting of the traditions by the Chinese government. As ethnomusicologist Rachel Harris explains, grassroots gatherings are banned in favour of “sanitised, commodified and secularised” renditions of the practises devoid of key religious and community aspects.

The UNESCO List showcases many Central Asian traditions in all their splendour. However, the manner of involvement allowed from China currently means that support for Uyghur cultural heritage is overshadowed by silence on its erasure.

Written by Emma Bain

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DECODING: President Xi Jinping made an official visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan during the last SCO summit, his first trip since the pandemic. It’s a strategic destination for Pekin, which would seem to benefit from regaining influence in Central Asia, as the Central Asian states reinforce their bilateral relationships with China.  An official visit from the Chinese president comes at a pivotal moment for Russia, which has been losing regional influence since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The traditional competition between Pekin and Moscow in Central Asia seems to have resulted in a decisive victory for China, unless the Kremlin reacts. Decoding the political upheaval in the Russian “near-abroad”.  This article was originally published by Novastan’s French website on 26 September 2022. It’s Xi Jinping’s first trip abroad for more than two years. On 14 September, the Chinese president visited Kazakhstan, before attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) forum, taking place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on 15 and 16 September. The heads of state of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, India, Iran and Russia were all present. Although this visit for the SCO summit has been planned for a long time, it came at an opportune moment for China due to the scepticism of Central Asian states towards Russia. The war in Ukraine has forced the heads of state in Central Asian countries to distance themselves from Vladimir Putin.

Is an ever greater asymmetry developing between Russia and China in Central Asia? “It used to be said that Russia looked after security, and China after the economy,” explains Thierry Keller, a lecturer of political science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). “However, nowadays, China is looking to be more present in security matters.”

Kazakhstan, a thorn in the Russo-Chinese relations

During his visit to Nur-Sultan, the Chinese president made it clear that a ‘red line’ of Russian politics exists in Central Asia. As reported by the Kazakh media Vlast, the president declared that, “regardless of the evolving international situation, we will continue to resolutely support Kazakhstan by protecting its independence, its sovereignty and its territorial integrity”. Given the context of the war in Ukraine, this message was addressed directly to Vladimir Putin, warning him that his expansionist inclinations should not extend to Central Asia. Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan’s gradual divorce from Russia Some consider this indicative of a weakening in the Sino-Russian partnership. For Timur Dadabayev, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Special program for Eurasian Studies at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, this declaration should be understood as a ‘pragmatic’ act by China. He reminds that Pekin has supported Russian positions towards the West and has shared the same rhetoric as the Kremlin in its anti-Western discourse. He adds that, “to a large extent, any weakening of the Russian position in its face-off would also imply the potential defeat of Chinese positions in disputes with the US, the EU or elsewhere.” The partnership between Russia and China is thus still persevering, as long as Russia does not threaten the security, economic or commercial interests of Central Asia, explains Thierry Kellner. In this sense, the position adopted by China with regard to the defence of Kazakhstan’s sovereignty does not necessarily negate the Sino-Russian partnership.

Shift towards China

Central Asian states, fearing the inconsistency of Russian foreign policy, are turning instead towards Pekin. Following the SCO summit, the roadmap including China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan has been relaunched by the signing of an agreement, which could serve to indirectly bypass Russian transport infrastructure, explains the American Media Eurasianet. In addition to abstaining from Russia, states are revealing themselves to be conciliatory towards China. Before the arrival of the Chinese president in Kazakhstan, Kazakh activists protested in Almaty on 5 September, demanding to be reunited with their loved ones in Xinjiang. Two of the activists have been arrested by the Kazakh police. The president Kassym-Jomart Tokaeyev is attempting to turn a blind eye to the Kazakhs in Xinjiang so as to not offend China and lose the guarantee of security, explains Temur Umarov in an interview for Radio Azattyq, the Kazakh branch of the American media Radio Free Europe.

The Growing Isolation of Russia

 At this time, Russia is finding itself to be more and more isolated. During the last summit in Samarkand, “the welcome of Xi Jinping and that of Putin were radically different. The Chinese president was given a warm welcome, folklore performances… things that were not replicated at the arrival of the Russian President,” says Thierry Kellner. This element is significant for understanding the diminished position of Russia in Central Asia, because the SCO forum is above all a space of declaratory diplomacy where symbolism counts a lot, − explains the Belgian specialist. Other messages of this kind have also been noted, such as the images of Vladimir Putin waiting for the Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, whereas it is usually the opposite case. The visit of Xi Jinping to Central Asia therefore reveals the unprecedented isolation in which Russia finds itself with its closest neighbours, the countries of the CIS. It explains why Russia is seeking to find a ‘new frontier’ in Central Asia, persisting in developing its influence in education, the media and business, concludes Timur Dadabayev.  

Written by Emma Collet

Translated from French by Chloe Henshaw

Edited by Maya Ivanova and Anna Wilhelmi

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The post In Central Asia, China is taking advantage of Russia’s isolation at war appeared first on Novastan English.

Many Central Asian migrants have joined the Russian army since partial mobilisation was announced in Russia.  They are being pulled into Russia’s war in Ukraine against the advice of their countries’ consular organs.This article was oroginally published on Novastan’s French website on 19 October 2022.

On 21 September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilisation of 300 000 reservists, called up from a pool of 25 million potential fighters.  Some of these are seasonal workers and precariously employed migrants from Central Asia. Russia amended their federal law “On Conscription and Military Service” in 2013 so that every young person with Russian citizenship is required to perform mandatory military service, even when they have already served it in their land of origin.  According to reports by the Kyrgyz news portal Kaktus, recruitment of Central Asian migrants has taken place in the Sakharovo migration center in Moscow since 21 September. This marks a turning point in the war, as the government is no longer hiding their desire to recruit foreigners to expand the ranks of their army. There are no official figures for how many Central Asian citizens have been recruited to fight in Ukraine.  According to Radio Azattyq, the Kazakh branch of Radio Free Europe, the overwhelming majority of Central Asian migrants come from three countries: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

High salaries and Russian passports as bait

Russian recruitment authorities want to mobilise migrants from Central Asia and do so by promising high salaries and Russian citizenship.  In some cases, the authorities use subterfuge.  “They told us that there was a lot of construction happening in Kherson and that we have to go there.  And that we could expect salaries of 220 000 rubles (£3065.94),” one witness told Eurasianet.  “Some from our group went but it turned out they had been taken along to fight.” The lure of profit and citizenship is an effective mode of manipulation. The use of migrants and refugees in war is, according to an article in the American journal Foreign Affairs, a widespread phenomenon. Their lives are used like chess pieces in the game of war. The Russian human rights activist Valentina Chupik spoke with Central Asian media agency CABAR about her experiences with Tajik migrants in an interview. According to Chupik, many have said that they have received anonymous calls from law enforcement officials with offers to join the Russian army and receive Russian citizenship within three months. Furthermore, one of the Tajik migrants questioned said that some of his friends and relatives had decided to serve in the army in order to earn more money to send home to their families. Even before partial mobilisation was announced, people with a Central Asian background or nationality were recruited. In fact, an investigation by MediaHub discovered that in Uzbekistan, certain online platforms advertising security-related jobs in Russia actually sent workers directly to a military base controlled by the private Wagner Group.  This Russian mercenary group is used in wars worldwide, including in Ukraine.  Ukrainian intelligence agencies say that “Central Asian recruitment campaigns for mercenaries” have been in operation since the beginning of the war.

The embassies react

The embassies from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan have called on their citizens not to involve themselves in the war in Ukraine. They claim that involvement is a criminal offense according to the domestic laws of their respective countries. The risk of being sucked into the war is particularly high for young men from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan who have already acquired Russian citizenship. With a diaspora of 650 000 Kazakhstanis, 1.9 million Uzbekistanis, and 104 000 Kyrgyzstanis (numbers from 2002), able-bodied men from these groups could be subjected to forced recruitment. For Turkmen, Tajik, and Uzbek citizens, participation in a foreign conflict can lead to imprisonment upon returning home.  Particularly affected by this are the 1.2 million Tajik migrant workers (number from 2021) in Russia.  

Originally written in French by Matthieu Petrov 

Translated into German from French by Robin Roth 

Translated from German into English by Mari Paine 

Edited by Maya Ivanova

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The Turkmen authorities have announced the launch of an instant messaging and email platform developed by domestic companies. These new applications will provide the Turkmen people  with alternatives to Western websites − the majority of which are blocked in Turkmenistan – but it also risks facilitating mass surveillance of internet users. This article was first published on Novastan’s French website on 29 March 2021. On 12 November, the official Turkmen government news agency reported that on the previous day, the Deputy Prime Minister for Transport, Communications and Trade, Bairamgeldi Ovezov, had presented the two new digital innovation projects to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. According to US media outlet Eurasianet, Tmchat is an instant messaging service for creating group chats, making video calls and sending files. It is a local equivalent to WhatsApp or Telegram. The free Android application was developed by the Turkmen telephone operator Altyn Assar. According to Eurasianet, the second project, Sanly.tm, is a standard email service with a storage volume of 1GB. It was developed by the country’s leading internet service provider, Türkmentelekom. Local media outlet Business Turkmenistan reported that the two applications were presented to the general public in early December by Türkmenaragatnaşyk − the government agency in charge of promoting new technologies in the country − on the 25th anniversary of Turkmenistan’s permanent neutrality policy.

This launch campaign, however, does not reflect the country’s digital infrastructure. According to the NGO Freedom House, Turkmen internet remains one of the slowest and most expensive in the world. The government also employs mass surveillance on the few foreign platforms still authorized in the country. In reality, there is a paradoxical relationship between the Turkmen authorities and new technologies, which over the past few years have sparked uncertainties for the public and opportunities for the authorities.

With forced digitalization come contradictions

Tmchat and Sanly.tm are not the Turkmen government’s first attempts to develop internal digital services: since 2018, Ashgabat has announced the launch of nearly ten applications, social networks and messaging services created by Turkmen companies. And for a good reason; Turkmenistan’s digitization is considered a strategic priority for its President, asserts Eurasianet. Last December, he publicly demanded that the country’s engineers master “innovative technologies” such as 5G and Big Data as quickly as possible. Read more on Novastan: In Tajikistan, government control still slows down internet After Arzuw, Yashlyk and Iminami − copies of Facebook or its Russian equivalent VKontakte − failed to gain popularity, at the end of 2018, Turkmenistan launched its first messaging company called BizBärde, and more recently a video hosting site called Belet. The official Turkmen Portal then presented this YouTube replica as a platform for online access to major local and international channels, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, as well as most Russian media. However, the cost of using this platform is 10 manats (2.3 euros) per month, a significant amount in a country where the average salary was no higher than 200 euros (170 GBP) per month in 2020. This frantic search for alternatives is mainly due to the fact that Western and Russian platforms are all but impossible to access in Turkmenistan. The specialized site Coda Story reminds readers that the most popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), messaging services (Messenger, Telegram), and also IT development sites like Github are theoretically inaccessible from Turkmenistan. The government is indeed projecting its political isolationism into the digital sphere, drastically limiting access to foreign and independent sources of information, as well as access to platforms where anti-regime protests could be organized. The latest victim of this censorship is Wikipedia: according to the NGO International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), the online encyclopedia was blocked last March after comments criticizing the President of Turkmenistan were made by the American Embassy. These comments were published several years ago by WikiLeaks, and had been posted on Berdimuhamedow’s Wikipedia page in Russian. This presents a contradiction that does not work in the favour of locally developed services, such as BizBärde, Belet, and soon perhaps Tmchat and Sanly.tm. The Turkmen people are increasingly wary of government-sponsored platforms, which therefore remain largely unused by the population. According to Turkmen Portal, the app’s developers have announced that they will wait until they reach 10,000 users before expanding to the iOS platform, which remains too expensive for the time being. Altyn Assar, probably aware of internet users’ hesitation, hastened to praise the security of his messaging service: in addition to the possible setting of a two-factor authentication (2FA), all the data would be stored on servers − reliable and inaccessible to third parties − in other words, to law enforcement agencies.

Content blocked, malicious codes, and wide-spread or targeted surveillance

This public mistrust is the product of numerous surveillance scandals and arrests of opposition members, who have spoken out on platforms still accessible in Turkmenistan. Eurasianet recalls that the government tightly controls the online activity of journalists, bloggers, students and key activists within its territory. Several opposition members, once exiled in Russia, have reportedly returned to Turkmenistan with the help of Russian domestic intelligence, as reported by independent Turkmen news outlet Chronicles of Turkmenistan. The population has long relied on VPNs to access foreign resources and partially hide their identity when using the internet, but soon after the establishment of a new government cybersecurity service in September 2019, these applications started to be targeted by authorities, reports the NGO IPHR. The only messaging service still tolerated in the country is IMO, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Joyy. Read more on Novastan:Turkmenistan: according to the authorities, there are no restrictions on the use of the Internet Today, the Turkmen government controls the digital sector, which relies on offensive technologies acquired from foreign companies. The Canadian Citizen Lab and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have revealed that the Ministry of Communications and the Turkmenistan Secret Police (MNB) are using malware sold by European companies, including FinFisher, sold by the German-British company Gamma Group for wiretapping, de-anonymization and remote control of computers. According to the American media outlet Radio Free Europe, the Turkmen government has more recently held talks with the German company Rohde & Schwartz about the acquisition of technologies that would allow certain sites to be blocked or make eavesdropping possible. 2020 and the global pandemic have only accentuated this struggle for internet control. Radio Free Europe states that VPN users are being targeted and more online resources have been blocked, while Ashgabat continued to proclaim that no cases of Covid-19 have been identified in the country.

Is digital technology serving the diversification of the Turkmen economy?

The “made in Turkmenistan” stamp used in the branding of these applications is another step towards full control of the digital space by the regime of Gourbanguly Berdimuhamedow. By eliminating Western, Russian or Chinese platforms and then replacing them with national services, Ashgabat consolidates its ability to block content that it deems unfavourable, track down opponents under their true identity and spread official discourse without obstacles. In short, it is a shift from offensive and costly methods to techniques that are certainly “softer” , but cruelly more effective as Turkmen internet users sign up to online platforms for “free” . Defining Tmchat and Sanly.tm as just a way for the ruling party to gain social control would risk masking the government’s second ambition in the field. In a period of economic crisis worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkmenistan is banking on the creation of a digital industry capable of attracting foreign investors who look to outsource in low-cost labour markets, following Belarus’ example. Ashgabat hopes that this policy of “digital development of the economy” will eventually make it possible to generate a new source of foreign income, in particular by boosting its tourism sector and increasing hotel bookings, bus services, and other forms of transportation, says Chronicle of Turkmenistan. However, the government is still struggling to create the right conditions for this political project to grow. The country undoubtedly lacks qualified specialists in programming, system and network administration, and even cybersecurity. Blocking resources that are useful to computer science students − in particular Github and other digital libraries − considerably reduces the likelihood of progress in the field. It is also difficult to go abroad to study, and the few people who decide to return to Turkmenistan, cannot have their degrees recognized as equivalent. Little hope remains that Turkmenistan will become the new El Dorado for digital companies in the near future. Despite a general drop in internet prices, announced on February 8 by Business Turkmenistan, a fixed and unlimited connection at Türkmentelekom still amounts to 170 manats, around 40 euros, a month. This sum does not guarantee speed: according to Speedtest‘s measurements, the country ranks 175 (out of 175) for the speed of fixed internet lines, with only 2.77 megabits per second (Mbit/s) in download going down in February 2021, compared to 53 Mbit/s in Kazakhstan and 82 Mbit/s in Russia.  

Written by Vadim Alinov

Translated from French by Alice Coveney

Edited by Maya Ivanova

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Isolated on the international scene and weakened domestically, Turkey seeks support. Turkish powers have chosen a proactive foreign policy in Central Asia and enjoy good relations with countries of the region.This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on 13 April 2021. As Turkey is increasingly breaking away from its European and American allies, the country seeks to strengthen its partnership and alliance networks. The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met each of his five Central Asian counterparts in March. After visiting Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic from 5-10 March, the Turkish head of diplomacy hosted his Kazakh counterpart, Mukhtar Tileuberdi, in Ankara on 17 March. Afterwards, he went to Tajikistan from 28-30 March. Each of these were opportunities to signal to the world that Turkey must be taken into account in Central Asia.

The challenge of transportation

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s Central Asian agenda is indeed political but also commercial and economic. The Turkish lira has dropped and the economy of the country is not performing well. The Turks seek to develop trade in Central Asia by creating outlets for their businesses and ease the transit of goods coming from China through the “Middle Corridor” fulfilment. On 5 March, the Turkish chief of diplomacy chose Ashgabat, with its immaculate white marble, to begin his diplomatic Central Asia tour. According to the Anadolu agency (AA), the priority for the Turkish delegation dealt with logistics and transport in Turkmenistan. Turkish trucks will be allowed to transit during a time in which they would otherwise be banned due to the Covid-19 pandemic – provided that drivers take a test prior to their arrival at Turkmenbashi port near the Caspian Sea shore, explains Anadolu.

Diversifying Turkey’s energy supply

Transportation is an important topic for Turkey because it may enable access to more energy resources. Bayram Balci, the director of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul, said in an interview with Novastan that “Turkey is an industrial country which only produces 3% of its energy needs.” Turkmenistan, possessing the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world, could become a key player for Turkey if Turkmen gas could be pumped into the country. Read more on Novastan: Turkmenistan became China’s number one gas supplier Therefore, the joint project between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan regarding the exploration and use of hydrocarbon deposits in the Dostluk field in the Caspian Sea is a topic of interest to Turkish leaders. It is estimated that this hydrocarbon field may hold natural gas and up to 59 million tons of oil, reported Anadolu. Turkey considers this project as an opportunity to diversify its energy intake and desires to involve its public businesses.

A Turkish general consulate in Samarkand

After his visit to Turkmenistan, Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu spent three days in Uzbekistan. He visited Samarkand to underline the significance of Turkish-Uzbek relations before continuing to Tashkent. Çavuşoğlu and his Uzbek counterpart Abdulaziz Kamilov inaugurated the new Turkish general consulate on 7 March. This marks an improvement in Turkish-Uzbek relations since 2016, when Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev came into office. Unlike his predecessor, Islam Karimov, the current Uzbek president champions an open foreign policy which is friendly towards Turkey and its Central Asian neighbours.

In Uzbekistan, Çavuşoğlu underlined the symbolic importance of diplomatic representation opening in what is considered to be the birthplace of Turkish civilisation. While he was paying tribute to the transformation in Samarkand, he recalled that Turkey had been the first country to establish an embassy in Uzbekistan in 1991. As the historical heart of the Silk Road, Turkey did not hesitate to consider its touristic potential.  The Anadolu agency (AA) reports that since March 2018, Turkish Airlines has offered direct flights between Istanbul and Samarkand.

The renewal of educational foreign aid service in Kyrgyzstan

For his last stop in Kyrgyzstan on 10 March, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs chose to visit Manas University, a contemporary building situated in Bishkek’s city centre. Founded in 1995 through an agreement between Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, it educates more than 5000 students from 14 different countries. The university courses are free of charge and are taught in Turkish and Kyrgyz, with classes in English and Russian also offered. Besides being a symbol of Turkish soft power, Ankara desires to influence Kyrgyz educational policy as in 2018. Anadolu reports that the Turkish diplomatic chief reminded his counterpart that ”FETO” – Fethullah Gülen’s organisation – was a threat to Turkey and its allies since it is regarded as terrorist group by Turkish authorities. Gülenist networks were once conduits of Turkish soft power in Central Asia via their schools. Fethullah Gülen is in open conflict with Turkish authorities since being accused of plotting a coup in July 2016. Consequently, the authorities requested all partners to close Gülenist schools. Kyrgyzstan denied that request in 2018 due to sovereignty issues and “attachment to these schools which train Kyrgyzstan’s upper class,” an analyst at the Institute of Applied Geopolitics Studies, Magomed Beltouev, explained to Novastan. The Kyrgyz government focused on increasing its power over these schools by changing their status, according to the researcher in this article. The Turks have not seemed to come to terms with this choice. However, the Kyrgyz government has consented to the establishment of a new Turkish organisation, Maarif. Founded by the Turkish state, this new organisation is intended to take over activities previously led by Gülenist schools. Maarif schools, ranging from nursery schools to high schools, should open soon, says the Anadolu Agency (AA).

The premise of a defense cooperation with Kazakhstan

The progress of regional integration with Turkey allows Central Asian republics to diversify partnerships and display to their great neighbouring countries – Russia and China – that they can develop other connections and agreements, declares Balci. However, a Turkish defense cooperation has never materialised, as Russia finds it difficult to accept interference by external actors in what it considers its “near abroad.” Nevertheless, Turkey seems to have new ambitions in Central Asia, bolstered by its success in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turks have provided combat drones of their own making to their ally Azerbaijan, which have been key to Azerbaijani military superiority. Discussions with Kazakhstan have taken place in order to begin cooperation with the Turkish defense industry, as reported by the Anadolu Agency (AA) in February. Furthermore, Daily Sabah reported the testing of combat vehicles and weapons systems made by two Turkish firms – Otokar and Aseldam – in the Karadanga region in March. Official communications also announced that a defense collaboration has been discussed between Turkey and Uzbekistan. This first step between the two countries resulted in the signing of a military financial cooperation agreement in October 2020. During his tour stop, the Kazakh Minister of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Tileuberdi had a discussion with his Turkish counterpart and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 17 March. They jointly discussed the “high investment potential” of Turkey but also opportunities to extend cooperation into various fields such as medicine, information technology and energy.

The great ambitions of the past

More broadly, Turkish ambitions in Central Asia have evolved considerably; they are shaped as much by the interests of other states as by the means available to achieve its goals. The five Central Asian republics declared their independence and initiated relations with other sovereign states after the fall of Soviet Union in 1991. Balci explains that Western powers dreaded the possibility of these predominantly Muslim societies yielding to the influence of Iran or Saudi Arabia. “Therefore we thought that Turkey, inspired by a European model, should be a model for these countries as they open up internationally,” adds the researcher. At the same time Pan-Turkism, an ethnic movement advocating the cohesion of nations with Turkic culture and language, was well received by the Turkish elite according to Beltouev. Initially, Central Asian republics agreed to the principle of a Turkish leadership but the Turkey of 1991 is not the same as Turkey today, explains Balci. Less wealthy and less powerful, it proved unable to offer protection and economic opportunities expected by some Central Asian leaders.

A modest cooperation

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia looked unfavourably on foreign incursions into its sphere of influence. The country quickly created regional institutions in order to reaffirm its ascendency over the new Central Asian republics. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) first saw the light of the day in 1991, while the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) was founded in 2000, which became the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2014. Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan’s gradual divorce from Russia Turkish leaders had to lower their ambitions; Turkey could not become a protective power in Central Asia. As a result, Turkic solidarity developed mostly around cultural, educational and linguistic cooperation. Aware of the need to respect the cultural and political features of each of their partners, the Turks have focused on the development of bilateral relations. Nevertheless, Turkey has pursued its Turkic integration project. The International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY) began in 1993 in Almaty, the then capital of Kazakhstan. Many years later, the Turkic Council, initiated in an informal manner in 1992, was officially established in 2009. This intergovernmental forum now includes all Turkic-speaking states except for Turkmenistan, which is strongly attached to its neutrality policy.

A desire to carry regional influence

For Balci, the institutionalisation of the Turkic Council is an ongoing process. The accession of Uzbekistan to the council in 2019 was made possible only thanks to warming relations after the passing of Islam Karimov in 2016. At this point, the only Turkic country not represented in the council is Turkmenistan. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared his desire to see Turkmenistan become a member “as soon as possible” in December 2020,says Anadolu. The myth of Turkic unity remains strong even today. The Turkic Council held a videoconference on 31 March, where various leaders discussed a roadmap for the future called “2040 Turkish world vision.” Baghdad Amreyev, the general secretary of the Turkic Council, discussed this roadmap with the Anadolu Agency (AA). The document aims to establish “better coordination in terms of foreign policy, cooperation in the field of security, free-trade agreements, open borders for transit, as well as the reinforcement of linguistic and alphabet cooperation,” explains Amreyev. He also underlines that it is the “first summit of Turkic leaders after the Azerbaijani victory in Nagorno-Karabakh” in November 2020. It is also a victory for Turkey which seeks to extend its reach beyond the Caucasus. According to Balci, “Turkey’s approach to the Karabakh war has been closely observed by Central Asian states.” Besides the desire to see its power recognized by Russia and the West, Turkey has also “displayed its capacity to militarily support its partners,” adds the researcher. In addition, Turkey desires to play a part in the Afghan issue. The Tadjik capital, Dushanbe, hosted the ninth ministerial meeting of the Istanbul process in late March; it is the fruit of a 2011 Turkish initiative aimed at creating a regional dialogue to support the economic development of Afghanistan. A summit meeting devoted to the Afghan peace process between the Kabul government and the rebels will take place in Istanbul on 16 April, describes the American media The Diplomat. Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States will be present according to the Anadolu Agency (AA).

Beyond talk, few concrete actions

Diplomats and official media tend to highlight Turkey’s good relations with its Central Asian “brothers.” The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs also emphasizes the assistance Turkey has been providing to its Central Asian partners during the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.  For instance, Anadolu claims that Turkey is providing Tajikistan with the third highest amount of aid. In a seemingly favourable regional context, Turkey desires to increase its presence in Central Asia. However, Beltouev encourages a nuanced approach. “The economic importance of these countries for Turkey is marginal,” he says. The link with Asia is, more than anything else, symbolic. “Speeches about Turkish brotherhood and Silk Roads are always grandiloquent but there is a clear difference between the discussions which take place and their subsequent translation into bilateral agreements, which are not very ambitious,” concludes the general secretary of the Turkic Council.  

Written by Guillaume Gérard

Translated from French by Emma Bekrine

Edited by Mari Paine

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Hundreds of dead seals were discovered in Turkmenistan, with the cause of their death unclear.  Government officials seem to want to conceal the mass deaths of the Caspian seal, which is listed as an endangered species.This article was originally published on Novastan’s German website on 17 March 2021. The Caspian Sea has been the site of an ecological tragedy, the cause of which is not yet known. Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen service of Radio Free Europe, reported that on 4 February, hundreds of seal corpses and thousands of dead fish were found along the Turkmen coast. The Caspian seal is classified as an endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). According to an eyewitness account last December, the corpses washed ashore on a stretch of coast near the harbour city of Türkmenbaşy. “Members of the naval forces recovered many dead seals in January. There were hundreds. In addition, there are many dead fish and birds on the coast […] our superiors require us to stay silent. Scientists from Ashgabat are trying to find out the seals’ cause of death, whether it might be a virus or waste dumped by local factories,” a Turkmen border guard interviewed by Radio Azatlyk explained.

The journalists of Radio Azatlyk were not able to obtain a comment from the Turkmen Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection. However, there are indications that the cause of death was natural. At about the same time, numerous dead seals were discovered on the opposite coast of the Caspian Sea.

Parallels with Dagestan

The Moscow Times reported on 12 December 2020 that hundreds of seal carcasses were washed onto land in the Russian Republic of Dagestan in the days preceding the announcement. The Russian authorities started investigations, but had not been able to determine the cause until now. Initial investigations indicated that the seals may have died of natural causes. “The condition of the seals’ inner organs does not corroborate the hypothesis of poisoning by heavy metals or pesticides,” said biologist Vyacheslav Bisikov, who was involved in the investigations, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. The scientists were also able to rule out the possibility that the seals were collateral damage of fishing activities. On 26 January, the Russian news agency TASS reported that one of the possible causes of death could be the release of natural gas, according to Scientists from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Similar changes in the tissues of internal organs were found in all the pathologically examined seals. […] These changes may develop as a result of hypoxia and they indicate death by asphyxiation,” TASS quotes from a statement by the scientists. The researchers name the release of gases from seismic tremors or mud volcanoes at the bottom of the Caspian Sea as the most likely cause. The researchers furthermore succeeded in establishing that the seals died one to six weeks before they were discovered, meaning that they had died in November. Considering the prevailing winds and the surface currents, it is assumed that the animals died out in open water. Furthermore, 40 seismic tremors were registered in November alone. “Under calm wind conditions, local methane emissions above the sea surface can form gaseous air bubbles, which are unsuitable for respiration. This could very likely have led to the mass deaths of the Caspian seals, which were migrating north along the coast of Dagestan to their breeding grounds at the time,” the scientists conclude.

An endangered species

The Caspian seal is the only mammal in the Caspian Sea. The IUCN granted it the status of an endangered species in 2008. Since 2020 the seal is registered in Russia’s Red Book. The number of seals, whose colonies are spread out over Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia, is contested. “The last aerial count – a type of population census – was conducted in 2005. About 10,000 animals were registered at the time,” the Kazakh biologist Assel Baimukanova explained in September 2018. According to Interfax, Vyacheslav Bisikov assumes that “the populations of Caspian seals […] encompass 270,000 to 300,000 individuals”. On the Russian channel TV Rain, zoologist Ilya Gomiranov estimates that the population has decreased from a million to between 40,000-60,000 seals. According to Assel Baimukanova, the reasons for the population reduction are varied, including the decrease of ice cover due to global warming, and the pollution of the Caspian Sea with toxins and illegal fishing. Mass deaths of seals occur time and again. In 2000, for instance, more than 10,000 Caspian Seals died of a viral infection. Read more on Novastan:Troubled waters: Turkmenistan’s environmental policy As Interfax reports, hundreds of dead seals washed ashore on the Dagestani coast in 2012 and 2016 after severe autumn storms. The precise cause of death could not be established, Russian fishing authorities said. Last October, mass animal deaths occurred not far from the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia.  According to official reports, the causes were natural. The investigations in Dagestan suggest that the animals which washed ashore in Turkmenistan died of the same causes. Nevertheless, the Turkmen authorities would do well to investigate the cause of death of the endangered animals instead of covering it up.  

Written by Robin Roth

Translated from German by Nora Neinonen

Edited by Mari Paine

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DECODING. According to the last report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), Central Asia is one of the rarest regions in the world where both droughts and excessive rainfall in large quantities are observed. The average temperatures of these countries in the region have already crossed the 2 degrees Celsius threshold since 1990.However, there is no time for panic: Central Asia is already used to the harsh climate, where the temperature difference can sometimes differ as much as 80 degrees Celsius over the course of a year. Simultaneously, the researchers of IPCC are faced with a lack of more detailed data regarding Central Asia, which makes modelling difficult. How will the climate in Central Asia change? Novastan tries to make sense of it. This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on September 13, 2021. In recent years, the extreme climatic events in Central Asia are becoming more and more visible: more frequent heat waves, flooding, low rainfall, etc. The region, like the rest of the world, is not immune to what appears to be an accelerating climate change. On 9 August, the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) published the first part of their report describing the state of the world’s climate. The nearly 4000 pages report focuses on the known physical change. Central Asia is squeezed between the two paragraphs, as an illustration of its position in today’s information flows.

Extreme Rainfall and Drought

“The vast regions of Central and Eastern Asia have been drying up at the start of the 2000s due to hotter temperatures, lower humidity, declining soil moisture (Wei and Wang, 2013: Li et al., 2017d; Hessl and coll.,2018)’’, described the IPCC scientists. “The Himalayan glaciers supply ten of the most important river systems in the world and are critical water sources for almost two billion people (Wester et al., 2019). However, they are part of the most vulnerable “water towers” (Immerzeel et al., 2020) which are expected to experience volume losses of around 30% to 100% by 2100, according to global emission scenarios (Marzeion et al., 2020). According to the global emission scenarios, the glaciers of this region should reach their maximum run-off between 2020 and 2040 (Marzeion et al., 2020)”, went on the panel. Read more on Novastan: Aralsk: Pictures Of The Vanished Aral Sea On a wider level, Central Asia is one of the few regions in the world which receives both the most extreme rainfall and experiences hot weather episodes, or even droughts, describes the IPCC. According to Alisher Mirzabaev, a researcher on climate change at the University of Bonn, this situation is due to the fact that the region is subject to a large variety of climates. “Most of the cultivated land of Kazakhstan receives rainwater, while other countries irrigate their land mainly with water coming from the glaciers”, explains the Uzbek researcher, contacted by Novastan. This distinction between the origin of water appears essential for the years to come.

A Change of the Origin of Water

“The north of Kazakhstan generally experiences a drought every three to four years. With climate change, this area may experience heavy rains in certain years while in some other years there will be much greater droughts”, wrote Alisher Mirzabaev. “This situation leads to more variability for the grain harvests. In the mountainous regions, especially of Tajikistan and of Kyrgyzstan, strong rainfall episodes will lead to a higher risk of floods leading to a landslide”, explains the Uzbek specialist. Read more on Novastan: Life By The River: The Naryn In Kyrgyzstan“Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are likely to receive more precipitation during winter, but less in summer. It is problematic because there are neither crops in winter, nor irrigation. Water will accumulate in the reservoirs, which are fortunately numerous. However, the mountainous zones are going to face challenges due to more flooding”, estimated the researcher. What is most problematic is the shift in water supply, when the areas used to receive it through the snowmelt get it from the rain instead. This change may explain how Central Asia have both more rain and more drought, since the water received by the rain may not be accumulated in mountainous areas. However, this change does not seem to overly worry Alisher Mirzabaev. “Solutions do exist, particularly [the problem can be solved] by the construction of reservoirs or through better coordination between countries upstream and downstream. There is no need to panic at this stage, these solutions must simply be explored and implemented on a larger scale,’’ estimated the Uzbek researcher.

A Sharp Rise in Temperature

Beyond the water, one of the most evocative points of the report about Central Asia is the changing temperature of the region. “Aridity in eastern and western Central Asia is likely to increase, especially after the second half of the 21^st century, with an average 2 degrees rise of temperatures worldwide”, describe the IPCC researchers. It is regularly reported that the temperature in Central Asia has already exceeded the 2°C increase and the region is warming twice as fast as elsewhere in the world.

“These days, when we talk about global temperatures, it is about the surface average between the temperature of the land and the ocean. But the land is getting warmer much faster than the ocean. The temperature on the land is already above 1.5°C in most parts of the world”, says Alisher Mirzabaev. “Due to the continental location of Central Asia, this twice as fast increase is not as dramatic as it would seem”, relativizes the researcher. Alisher Mirzabaev also points out that the region has a very high degree of temperature variability, particularly in certain regions of Kazakhstan where the thermometer can show -40°C in winter and +40°C in summer. “The key issues for Central Asia are extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts or sudden snow and spring frost”, estimates Alisher Mirzabaev. In this respect, the increase in temperature variability could be the real danger, says the Uzbek researcher.

A lack of Accurate Data in Central Asia

More broadly, however, accurate data for effective modelling seems to be lacking in Central Asia. Weather data do not make up for nearly 400 weather stations in the region and a dense network when it comes to climate change. “To be more precise, you must have information regarding the evolution of glaciers, sand and dust storms… There are so many parameters. Usually, this type of information is better in Central Asia than the developing countries but is much poorer than the level of developed countries”, described Alisher Mirzabaev. Collected information also seems difficult to access, which may prevent the publication of scientific articles on the topic, which will then be used in IPCC reports. “The modelling skills are missing. We should have more studies bringing global modelling at a local level’’, added the Uzbek researcher. On the specific point of IPCC, Alisher Mirzabaev is the only Central Asian researcher who has directly been involved in writing reports or editing them. Read more on Novastan: Troubled Waters: Turkmenistan’s Environmental Policy This situation could change in the future, with the integration of the Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia (Carec) as an IPCC Partner in May 2020. This centre based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, is one of the best in the region. For the seventh IPCC report, planned in 2028, Alisher Mirzabaev wants to believe that he will not be the only person to bring a more local point of view. Meanwhile, the second and third part of the IPCC report, on the impact and adaptation of climate change as well as the ways of fighting against climate change should be published by spring 2022. This makes a more and more concrete climate threat, in which human responsibility is unambiguously asserted.  

Etienne Combier Editor-in-chief of Novastan

Translated from French by Susan Higgins

Edited by Emma Bekrine

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DECODING. Turkmenistan ranks fifth in methane emissions in the world, after Russia and the United States. This does not come as good news for Central Asia’s most secretive country – and is also out of all proportion for the country with such a small population.These emissions derive mostly from gas extraction, Turkmenistan’s primary source of wealth. The culture of secrecy and outdated infrastructure leave them to be observed through satellite. With COP26 in full swing, the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkmenistan has promised to reduce methane emissions, which are 28 times more polluting than CO2 emissions. Here is an explanation of this delicate Turkmenistan situation.This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on 8 November 2021. The International Energy Agency’s report does not cast a positive light on Turkmenistan, the fifth-largest emitter of methane in the world. In its Methane Tracker, the IEA makes it clear that Turkmenistan emits more methane than China. As Glasgow hosts the COP26 until November 12, this is an unenviable position.

Ashgabat’s poor ranking was highlighted by the Bloomberg agency on 19 October. The article named Turkmenistan as the world’s third-highest methane emitter, right after Russia and the United States. Since then, this ranking was updated, although it was officially published in January 2021. Novastan requested a comment from the agency, but Bloomberg did not respond. Whether it be third or fifth, Turkmenistan emits slightly more methane than China (with its 1.4 billion people), despite having only 2.7 million inhabitants – or 6.2 million according to official statistics. Methane is especially harmful to the environment, as it fuels global warming 28 times faster than CO2.

Ageing gas infrastructure

To explain this phenomenon, one must turn to the gas industry. Turkmenistan possesses the fourth-largest reserves of blue gold in the world. It extracts next to 60 billion cubic meters per year, with China as its main buyer. As Turkmenistan’s main resource, gas is intensively exploited. The problem is that “most of the equipment is dilapidated, and leaks occur on a regular basis in the networks and deposits,” a reliable source states. “The government focuses on new developments, but companies lack skills”. Massive methane leaks from these infrastructures have been detected over the past few years. In 2019, 2020 and February 2021, companies specialized in satellite data analysis warned of these leaks. “What is certain is that these emissions do not stem from the ‘regular’ gas or oil production process. Methane leaks can be avoided”, says Antoine Halff, lead analyst at Kayrros, a French company that participated in revealing the problem.

General lack of transparency

“Generally speaking, large emissions can be caused by two things: either lax attitude towards industrial practices, bolstered by loose regulations, which means methane is intentionally released into the atmosphere during maintenance operations on pipelines, or equipment problems, such as poor or unsuitable infrastructure that leaks a lot of gas” Antoine Halff further explains. The second option probably applies to the Turkmen case. Read more: Troubled waters: Turkmenistan’s environmental policy Information from Turkmenistan is scarce, making it hard to say for sure. The authorities have never reacted to the leaks detected by Karryos or GHGSat, a Canadian firm also specializing in this sector. “It takes a lot of effort to determine the causes for Turkmenistan’s emissions, and whether they are intentional. Few public documents give information about the regulation of the hydrocarbon sector, and it is virtually impossible to know whether reports of incidents or leaks have been filed – at least, from a foreign perspective”, says Itziar Irakulis Loitxate, a scientist specializing in remote detection at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain).

Satellites come to the rescue

In the face of this silence, satellite observation, among a few other things, can help determine the amount of methane emitted into atmosphere – and thereby make it possible for the IEA to rank countries. “The so-called ‘monitoring’ satellites make it possible to capture large emissions, which are occasional and therefore cannot be observed by sporadic checks”,  Antoine Halff says. “Furthermore, such observations are totally independent, do not require operators’ approval, and can better quantify large leaks than any other technology, especially ground-based sensors”. “On the other hand, it should be kept in mind that satellites can only see large emissions provided that the weather is not cloudy”, Itziar Irakulis Loitxate states. “Huge progress is being made in pushing the limits of emission detection. Several promising satellite missions are expected in the next few years, specializing in the precise detection of greenhouse gases”.

Turkmen authorities promise to reduce methane emissions

As it turns out, the Turkmen authorities have reacted to Bloomberg’s article. On November 4, Deputy Prime Minister – and President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s son – Serdar Berdimuhamedov said he was paying great attention to reducing methane emissions, the official press agency TDH says. Independent media Turkmen.news reports that he also flew to Glasgow in order to make sure his position was heard by the members of the COP26. Serdar Berdimuhamedov seems to get ready to follow his father’s steps, which makes it a loaded statement. “Once identified, large methane emissions can be avoided easily.  The technology already exists, and its costs are negligible, if not negative, considering the benefits”, Antoine Halff claims. “Turkmenistan will have to work on upgrading old facilities and improving the skills and the sense of responsibility of technicians”, a local source tells Novastan. According to Itziar Irakulis Loitxate, “Turkmenistan can drastically reduce its emissions, but in order for that to happen, money should be invested in maintenance and stricter control over infrastructure”. In her opinion, Turkmenistan has the means to do so – “only time will tell how fast [it will be implemented]”.  

Etienne Combier Editor-in-Chief of Novastan

Translated from French by Andreï Fedorovsky

Edited by Anna Wilhelmi

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China’s involvement in the race for vaccinations in Central Asia confirms its aim to increase relations with neighbouring countries, primed for over a decade with the New Silk Road project. However, resistance among citizens continues to slow Chinese ambitions. This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on 1st of March 2021. While the development of Coronavirus vaccinations takes a strategic turn, China plays its hand in Central Asia. According to the Chinese press agency Xinhue, Beijing pledged to provide doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines to Kyrgyzstan on the 5^th of February 2021, the first case of such an offer worldwide. At the same time, Uzbekistan began testing of another Chinese vaccination, developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom. The trials launched in November 2020 and are set to continue until May 2021. Radio Ozodlik, the Uzbek branch of the American media Radio Free Europe, confirmed that Tashkent could even share co-authorship of the Chinese vaccine as they plan to produce it. Read More on Novastan : Mass Vaccination Programme Starts in Uzbekistan Diplomacy surrounding vaccinations is particularly delicate in Central Asia, where Russia and China both try to promote their respective vaccinations as a part of their competition for regional dominance. The Russian vaccination Sputnik V has been chosen by the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz authorities for their mass vaccination programs. Read More on Novastan: Covid-19: Kazakhstan Starts Rollout of its QazVac jab The race to deliver vaccinations is not, however, the only outcome of the current health crisis: the economic situation in Central Asian countries is rapidly deteriorating due to the shrinking global economy. This is particularly true for Turkmenistan, a country that depends almost entirely on oil exports, China being their main buyer. However, China’s decreased oil demand, which is linked to the pandemic, has destabilised this unique source of foreign income for Turkmenistan. The country’s difficulty of exporting oil has paradoxically led to closer relations between the two countries, as Ashgabat depends more than ever on Chinese imports.

The New Silk Road

The new strategy is only the latest in a long list. In an interview with French media Le Monde, researcher Niva Yau describes China’s strategy in Central Asia, which has long favoured importation of mineral and energy sources from Central Asian countries to meet the extremely high demands of the Chinese economic system. Certain Central Asian countries have therefore adapted their production to satisfy Chinese demand, especially oil production. Both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are an example of this, two countries whose oil exportation is largely dependent on Chinese demand.

The New Silk Road project, launched in 2013 in Astana, aims to create rail links between China and Europe, as well as seeks to promote cooperation within Eurasia. According to Niva Yau, China intends to work towards strengthening oil infrastructure in Turkmenistan and gas infrastructure in Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, China’s strategy is not limited to simply building new infrastructure. In 2013, China launched a program to outsource their industrial capacities, aiming to share industry expertise with the countries of Central Asia. What’s more, several Central Asian cities use Chinese ‘smart city’ technology, developed by Huawei, which aims to control populations with security cameras. In the Tajik capital Dushanbe, for example, there are over 800 of these cameras in operation. American media Eurasianet reported that other than outsourcing industrial expertise, China aims to gradually open its market to the countries of Central Asia, thus demonstrating new interest in this area. Indeed, since 2019, Beijing has signed numerous agreements relating to agrochemical standards, approving importation of food items, and even encouraging Central Asia businesses to enter the Chinese market. Kazakh media Astana Times reported that in September 2019, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev promised a three-time increase in wheat exports to China as a response to China’s gestures. Similarly, in September 2020, Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev promised a fivefold increase in food exports. However, two hurdles remain before entering the Chinese market, according to Eurasianet: while China is an ultra-competitive market, the Central Asian countries would have to improve their border infrastructure and logistical systems in order to transport their goods to China at a low cost.

China’s Presence in Central Asia is Highly Contested

Opinions in Central Asia remain divided when it comes to China’s increased presence. Researcher Niva Yau states that several anti-Chinese protests have taken place, particularly over the past few years. Le Monde reminds readers that Kyrgyzstan in particular has been the stage of anti-Chinese sentiment, exemplified by the cancellation of a project to create a Chinese logistical centre in At Bashy in February 2020. In February 2019, several demonstrations organized by Kyrk Shoro, a nationalist movement, undermined local Kyrgyz authorities. Sinophobia is equally present in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country heavily implicated in the New Silk Road project with Khorgos, their free trade zone. These movements are obstacles to China’s strategy, which needs full cooperation and loyal allies in the long term. Niva Yau notes that Central Asians are generally opposed to Chinese projects on their territory because of the policies linked to Chinese investment. These policies benefit local governments but leave local communities behind because of the total absence of redistribution of wealth by the ruling elite. In this regard, the diplomatic push for vaccines is unlikely to have any effect.

Corentin Goupil Editor of Novastan

Translated from French by Alice Coveney

Edited by Dagmar Nared

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Being far ahead of the other regional gas suppliers, Turkmenistan became the first energy partner of China in late January 2021, ahead of Russia. In the context of generally rising gas prices at the beginning of 2021, the roles seem to be redistributed in the world of gas producers.

This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on the 29th of March 2021.

Turkmenistan, a country with gas wealth in no need to prove, is the leader in gas supply on the Chinese energy market since the beginning of 2021, according to the Turkmen media Orient. In January 2021, a total of 2,786 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas were delivered to China, out of the 4,685 billion cubic meters imported by the Chinese authorities. For the first months of the year, almost 60% of the Chinese gas is supplied by Turkmenistan, according to the Russian agency Interfax.

Turkmenistan is thus ahead of Russia, which supplied only 916 million cubic meters of gas to China through the “Power of Siberia” pipeline. Apart from Russia and Turkmenistan, China gets its resources from other Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which export 319 million cubic meters and 307 million cubic meters accordingly.

Turkmen gas prices at their highest

The official figures of Turkmenistan’s exportations are difficult to find: president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov is usually very discreet about the country’s economic performance, so it is hard to obtain them.

Yet the data of the General Administration of Customs (GAC) of China reveals the price of Turkmen gas which appears to be one of the most expensive on the Chinese energy market. Indeed, the price of a thousand cubic meters comes to 187 dollars (£138), whereas Kazakh price is up to 162 dollars (£119.5), and Uzbek price is up to 151 dollars (£111).

Blue gold prices on the rise

The high price of Turkmen gas can be explained by the rise of gas prices on international markets. Indeed, in North-East Asia, a cold wave led to the high demand for liquefied gas. The cooling in the region had for consequences a rapid increase of gas prices on the international market: the maximum value of JKM Platts, which measures the price of liquefied gas in Asia, jumped to 1 160 dollars (£856) for a thousand cubic meters at the beginning of January 2021, according to Interfax.

The rise of energy’s value is also to be seen in Europe where the average price of gas is up to 257 dollars (£190) for a thousand cubic meters in late January, according to the Interfax agency.

Turkmenistan’s dependence on gas exportations

The fourth exporter of gas in the world strengthens its commercial relationship with China, which remains the first trade partner for Turkmenistan. In 2019, according to data furnished by the Observatory of Economic Complexity, China accounted for 82% of Turkmen exports, far ahead of Uzbekistan (4%). Regarding importations, China is second with 14,3% behind Turkey (24,7%).

This new position also strengthens Turkmenistan’s dependence on exportation. Close to being a windfall economy, the state’s incomes are based on hydrocarbon sales. According to the specialized website Oilcapital.ru, 15% of consumed gas in China was Turkmen in 2020. Although economic repercussions are satisfactory nowadays, as soon as the price and foreign demand will decrease, the Turkmen economy will drop as was the case at the beginning of the pandemic. Indeed, while China’s gas suppliers are diversified, Turkmenistan’s customers are not: the country mainly exports to China and Russia.

Read more on Novastan: Agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan paves the way for Trans-Caspian Pipeline

Nevertheless, some projects are underway to diversify exportations: the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline (TAPI), which has been stalled since 2015, should be relaunched soon. Besides, with the rapprochement of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, the project of the Trans-Caspian pipeline is about to become reality, which means Turkmen gas will reach the European market.

Emma Collet Writer for Novastan

Translated from French by Flavie Deschamps

Edited by Anna Wilhelmi

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In a book focusing on Central Asia’s relationship to Russia, researcher Michaël Levystone provides a careful insight into ties whose nature keep on changing. As they perform a balancing act between historical closeness and desire for independence, Central Asian countries strive to tip the scales in their favor in regards to their relationship to the “Russian older brother”.

This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website on 22nd September 2021.

A specialist in political, economic and cultural relations between Russia and Central Asia, Michaël Levystone has published in May 2021 “Russia and Central Asia at a crossroads”, a book which tackles the stakes concerning Central Asia vis-à-vis neighboring world powers Russia and China.

Michaël Levystone is working as a researcher at the Russian / CIS center within the French institute for International relations (Institut français des relations internationales). In the past, he worked at the French embassy in Kazakhstan and at the French Russian observatory of Moscow. His latest book provides analysis of an area which remains largely uncharted territory. His desire to develop knowledge of this region came from the years he spent studying at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques), when he wrote a dissertation on bilateral relations between Russia and Kazakhstan.

Military, political and cultural Russian influence on shaky ground

Michaël Levystone’s book offers a better understanding of economic, political and cultural relations which link Russia and the five Central Asian countries. Not only does it highlight the way these countries stand in relation to Russia, it also deals with the strategic role they play regarding China.

Answering Novastan’s questions, Michaël Levystone states that his book, although focusing on Russia’s both economic and security-related role in Central Asia, “could not exclude China from the realm of analysis, given its all-pervasive influence. A lot is at stake when it comes to Beijing.”

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The takeaway here is the fact that Russia has been relentlessly trying to maintain control and influence over those countries ever since they gained independence in 1991. It has notably been aiming to remain their major partner in energy and military issues. Further into the book, Michaël Levystone however emphasizes Central Asians’ late attempts not to be overpowered by their age-old Russian inquisitor.

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However intense this desire can be in a given country, it is bound to be faced with Russian diplomacy’s unwillingness to relinquish such power. As a matter of fact, all of these actors participated in a video conference which took place on 15th October 2020 about a joint declaration “on the strategic directions taken by cooperation”.

Therefore, Central Asian countries try to further their independence from Soviet patterns, especially on the cultural level, as they uphold use of local languages over use of Russian, or as they gradually close down schools that were opened under Soviet rule.

Long-lasting fidelity put to the test

Central Asian countries are also challenging their historical ally by turning towards the Asian market, in particular towards Beijing and what it has to offer. This could lead to rising tensions between China and Russia. However, the book makes it clear that both countries have come to a “tacit agreement”, albeit still fragile.

Although Moscow seems less and less reluctant to let China achieve economic leadership in Central Asia, notably through the advent of the Belt and Road Initiative, Russia keeps on wielding “hard power” when it comes to weaponry and military matters. Its military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as its arms supplies at a preferential rate through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are a testament to this.

China as an actor that can no longer be dismissed

This distinction appears not to be so clear-cut as it used to be. “Nowadays, Chinese influence is gradually but undeniably taking over. Chinese military presence is rising, as shown by their unofficial military base in Tajikistan, but also by strong synergies regarding security”, the author writes. Simultaneously, Beijing is each Central Asian country’s number one economic partner.

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China’s growing influence over Central Asia is not a myth. It partakes of Russia’s decline, which is military as well as industrial.

What makes this book fascinating lies in the chapters which explain the nature of different organizations in the region: the CSTO, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union). Michaël Levystone therein points out that Russian supremacy was fueled by the creation of these institutions which all aim at maintaining control over independent yet formerly Soviet countries.

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Whether such domination be economic or cultural, Moscow’s attempts to keep a tight grip on those five countries – through culture, energy, the economy or military affairs – are clearly put into light in these passages.

Europe and America are nowhere to be seen

Although this may come as a surprise to the reader, the United States and most European countries lack interest towards Central Asia, in spite of this region’s growing challenges. While some effort has been put into developing presence there in the past few years, it remains quite limited.

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Being at a crossroads between two continents which each have strong ambitions makes it a new economic hub. It also makes it vulnerable to threats posed by some neighboring countries’ extremist, if not terrorist aspirations. There is more to Central Asia’s role in diplomatic relations than meets the eye.

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To put it simply, Michaël Levystone’s book delves into the ties between Russia and Central Asia while pointing out growing indifference towards the former on the latter’s part, for the Russian neighbor regularly and considerably infringes on domestic affairs and capacity for self-determination. Today, this region is of great importance as it is at a crossroads between Europe and Asia.

While it wishes to get rid of the enduring Soviet yoke, Central Asia is no less coveted by China, which brings about new opportunities for those countries, although some fear that they might mean trading subjugation to one world power for subjugation to another.

Michaël Levystone’s book Russie et Asie Centrale à la croisée des chemins (not translated into English yet) was published by L’Harmattan (Paris 2021, 176 pages, €18.50(£15.82)).

Written by Emma Parisien

Translated from French by Andreï Fedorovsky

Edited by Emma Bekrine

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Dr Jade McGlynn has published an article for The Diplomat discussing the modernisation of Britain’s Central Asian Trade Strategy, based on her report for the Henry Jackson Society, entitled ‘A Steppe Change: Should Britain Be Bolder In Central Asia?’. In it, she states the UK “needs to think more ambitiously and coherently about its business aims with Central Asia”. In developing relations with the Central Asian states, the UK could balance trade with human rights and developmental assistance. So far, the UK has failed to develop such a strategy, and efforts remain focused on trading opportunities. McGlynn wants the UK to take head of the political realities of these states and ensure it champions and actively encourages democracy and greater human rights while simultaneously organising and developing trade agreements. Novastan spoke to Dr McGlynn to find out more about her strategy. An example of where the UK has failed to do as much is their increasing arms deals with Turkmenistan, considered by human rights groups as one of the world’s most repressive and authoritarian regimes. In comparison, the UK’s assistance to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan has benefitted both nations and given the UK considerable soft power through showing commitment to the region beyond trade. The emerging signs of democratisation in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s two largest economies and nations, show the region to be making a gradual change from what has long been considered an authoritarian area of the world. The landslide election of Sadyr Japarov in Kyrgyzstan should be cautiously championed for implementing democracy. By providing vocal support for Kyrgyzstan, the UK reminds the other nations that its trade, investment and support are connection to Kyrgyzstan’s continued democratic style of governance. This in turn could increase the likelihood for democratisation in the neighbouring states. The UK should take inspiration from the Obama administration’s C5+1 initiative and build on its positive reputation gained from development work in the region. This would then allow the UK to maintain channels with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and shows they are open to trade should they ever move towards democratisation. The UK has not paid enough attention to Central Asia. When it has, only specific countries or aspects, for example trade with Kazakhstan, have been made the point of focus. A region-focused approach instead would benefit both Britain and countries where regional cooperation has not always been strong. Human rights must remain a priority As much as increased trade negotiations with these countries should be encouraged, she maintains that the UK cannot sign deals at the expense of human rights and jeopardization of a free and fair society. The UK’s current arms deals with Turkmenistan are a shocking example of sacrificing ethics in order to bolster trade. The lack of pressure on the UK to halter these deals is due to a lack of knowledge and media coverage of the area. Too often the mainstream, generalised media focuses on the bizarre rules put in place by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, shining the country in a comedic, ridiculous light. The reality of the brutal human rights abuses and widespread poverty despite the wealth of natural resources in the country is forgotten. Larger organisations rather than just specialised areas should give the country more attention in order to increase knowledge of Turkmenistan, something which would elevate pressure to stop these morally and ethically entirely unacceptable arms deals. These deals undermine the UK’s pronounced championship of human rights and should be stopped. Elsewhere, little has been done to improve the state of human rights for the citizens of Central Asia: despite claims by the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as to the development of human rights, little evidence of this has yet been shown. Recent human rights abuses include censorship of journalists and oppression of the LGBTQ+ community. While democratic, the election of Sadyr Japarov in Kyrgyzstan and imprisonment of the most outspoken critic and presidential hopeful, Omurbek Tekebayev, puts the country as risk of returning to the populist authoritarianism overturned in 2010. It would be hypocritical of the UK to adopt a trade policy with such countries after public anti-authoritarian efforts in China and Russia and could demoralise activists in these countries who need the UK’s support. Implementing a human rights checklist backed up by independent NGOs from the region in order to assess milestones in terms of achieving greater democracy and freedom could encourage increased democratisation. This would enable the UK to measure economic engagement against human rights and democratisation milestones. Goals could be set for countries like Uzbekistan that claim to be installing more democratic milestones such as free access for election observers, the establishment of NGOs and funds to support independent media. Once reached, the country could continue to the next stage in economic relations. Putting a permanent representative in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, would symbolise the UK’s commitment to supporting the democratic potential of the region. Kyrgyzstan is currently the most democratic country and would demonstrate the UK’s hope that they should stay on this path. It would also reward and prioritise the most democratic country and encourage Sadyr Japarov, President of Kyrgyzstan, to continue this work. The UK alone would have enough power to rely on their influence to speed up democratisation in Central Asia. However, the European interest, particularly from countries who keep human rights as a core component of their foreign policy, namely Scandinavian countries, and desires in Washington for the Biden administration to continue with Obama’s policy, allow for a combined effort which ups the pressure for Central Asian nations. Background of Central Asia The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and subsequent independence for Central Asian countries led to a long-term struggle for democracy. Many of these countries contain deeply embedded ethnic tensions dating back to Stalin’s policies, for example in the Osh region of Kyrgyzstan. These countries have had to deal with civil wars, widespread humans rights abuses and as a result their economies have struggled to achieve their full potential. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan still rely heavily on remittances. However, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have seen a near doubling in per capita income in purchasing power parity since independence and political conflicts have not deterred interest from abroad in trade and investment. These countries are rich in natural resources, which constitute 65 per cent of exports in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as over 90 per cent in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The UK has now left the EU and thus has the freedom to pursue its own trade deal. Economic, security and geopolitical considerations make Central Asia a good trade partner, including the appetite for British goods in countries such as Kazakhstan and the pre-established trade and diplomatic presence of the UK in each of the nations. The Department of International Trade has put in effort to build on existing standing especially in Kazakhstan, where UK cultural, service and educational exports are popular. For example, 4,000 Kazakh students are currently studying in the UK and more visas are issues to Kazakh students than Australians. With two established UK trade offices in Kazakhstan, a comparatively large economy and a consistently open approach to free trade, McGlynn deems the country a promising contender for UK export growth. In comparison, Uzbekistan also has potential since the United Kingdom-Uzbekistan Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) signed in 2019 enabled the two to grant each other the most favoured nation (MFN) treatment. This is important because Uzbekistan does not belong in the World Trade Organisation. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have less ample economic opportunities due to widespread poverty, a relatively low GDP of $8.09 and $7.52 billion respectively, although it is still important to include them. The UK accounts for almost half of all Kyrgyzstan’s export, mainly gold, which provides leverage to promote democratisation. Trade between the UK and Turkmenistan has flourished under the auspices of the Turkmen-British Trade and Economic Council, even if it allows for a growth in controversial arms deals. The UK is not alone in the rush to take advantage of such lucrative deals: Italy has established a business forum with Central Asian countries, signing arms deals with Turkmenistan. The USA has just launched the Central Asia Investment Partnership and the Scandinavian nations have recently held the Kazakhstan Northern European Investment Forum. McGlynn advises the UK to hurry in these countries’ footsteps but paying heed not to lose sight of their moral and democratic values. Impact on other countries

Economic investment can also improve security interests, namely in helping to stabilise the countries. With a combined population of 75million, the average age of a Central Asian citizen is 27.6, highlighting the need for economic opportunities for young people. Without such opportunities, the likelihood for young people to become radicalised or turn to extremist groups is far greater. The UK’s trade influence can be used as a positive counter example to major geopolitical players in that region- Russia and China. The UK has condemned China’s campaign against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, a campaign which has also targeted ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, the Kazakhs being the second largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in the region after the Uyghurs. It also contains many ethnic Kyrgyz. The UK’s economic approach must take into account these people, support them and help refugees.

 Lily Shanagher Edited by Tommy Hodgson

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