Eurasia News Digest (16-31 December, 2023)

Russia & Central Asia

Kazakhstan To Remove Taliban from List of Terrorist Groups

Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said in a televised interview on December 29 that the Central Asian state's Security Council had decided to remove the Taliban group now ruling Afghanistan from its registry of terrorist organizations. Smadiyarov said Astana will continue to adhere to United Nations decisions and resolutions regarding Afghanistan. Kazakhstan officially designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization in March 2005. Kazakhstan has sent several official delegations to Kabul since the Taliban took over Afghanistan after the U.S.-led military withdrawal in mid-2021. In September, some 300 Afghan businessmen and Taliban representatives attended a business forum in Astana. Click here to read... [2]

Kyrgyz migrants with Russian passports seek alternative destinations

For expatriates from Kyrgyzstan, ownership of a Russian passport was once something of a golden ticket. Russian citizenship conferred all kinds of privileges, from eased access to the labor market and the prospect of a pension far more generous than that offered by the Kyrgyz state. The invasion of Ukraine has upset all those certainties. Unwilling to get involved in a war they do not see as their own, many of these male Kyrgyz migrants have spent the past 18 months exploring alternative places to live. Click here to read... [3]

Gazprom Expands Gas Deliveries to Central Asia with Fifteen-Year Contracts

Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom, is poised to increase gas deliveries to Central Asian nations as the company aims to sign fifteen-year contracts with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan by mid-2024. The announcement came from Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, during the company’s final pre-New Year conference. Miller revealed that mid-term fifteen-year contracts, negotiated with partners in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, are scheduled to be formalized at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in the middle of the next year. Stable and reliable gas supplies under these contracts are expected to commence on November 1, 2025. Click here to read... [4]

Kazakh operator halts gas fire at well that has been burning since June

A well fire in Kazakhstan that has been burning since early June has finally been brought to a halt, according to well operator Buzachi Neft. The privately held Kazakh oil producer said its special purpose well 303-ST finally entered the wellbore of the onshore Karaturun East field’s accident well — #303 — on 25 December at a depth of about 1000 metres. This enabled the operator to start injecting heavy drilling mud via the special purpose probe into the wellbore of the accident well, it said. Click here to read... [5]

President Mirziyoyev declares 2024 year for youth and business in Uzbekistan

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, in his New Year’s greeting to the Uzbek people, declared 2024 as the year of support for youth and business, President's Press Service reports. This announcement sets the tone for the government’s economic and social policies for the upcoming year. President Mirziyoyev emphasized the importance of the development of science, innovation, and IT. The creation of “green” and digital technologies will be given special attention. This focus aligns with global trends towards sustainable development and digital transformation. Click here to read... [6]

President Sadyr Japarov has signed law on change of flag of Kyrgyzstan

President Sadyr Japarov has signed amendments to the Law on State Symbols of the Kyrgyz Republic, which were passed by the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan on December 20, 2023. The law was adopted with the purpose of improvement of one of the main state symbols - flag of the country, president's press service reported. The signed law changes the shape of the rays of the sun on the flag of Kyrgyzstan from wavy into straight ones. Click here to read... [7]

Turkmenistan and China to expand cooperation in education

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Myahri Byashimova met with Deputy Minister of Education of the People's Republic of China Sun Yao on December 28 in Ashgabat. During the meeting, the parties noted that today, thanks to regular meetings of the heads of state of the two countries, the Turkmen-Chinese relations of comprehensive strategic partnership are dynamically developing in many directions. It was stated that relations between Turkmenistan and China in the field of education tend to develop consistently and fruitfully, as evidenced by numerous exchanges of visits by university representatives, joint conferences, seminars, forums and exhibitions. Click here to read... [8]

China building up electric auto infrastructure in Central Asia

In Uzbekistan, Chinese executives are seeking to tighten their grip on the electric vehicle market. The Chinese firm Henan Suda signed a deal earlier in December with Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry to build upwards of 50,000 electric vehicle charging stations around the country by 2033. Already in 2024, 2,500 charging stations are to be constructed. The project is projected to serve about 700,000 electric vehicles when fully built-out. During the first 10 months of 2023, China exported over 20,000 electric vehicles to Uzbekistan. Click here to read... [9]

China Surpasses Russia as Top Trade Partner in Central Asia

China has eclipsed Russia as the main trade partner of all five Central Asian states, according to official statistics. Kazakhstan is the most recent Central Asian country to see Beijing pass Moscow in terms of annual trade turnover. For the first nine months of 2023, China accounted for a 21.3 percent share (valued at $21.7 billion) of Kazakhstan’s total foreign trade, according to statistics compiled by Kazakhstan’s National Statistics Bureau. Russia’s trade turnover share amounted to 18.6 percent ($18.9 billion). Click here to read... [10]

Africa Becomes a Focal Point in Russia's Global Strategy

When Wagner mercenary force founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a fiery plane crash in August, exactly two months after leading a rebellion that challenged President Vladimir Putin’s 24-year grip on power, it cast a thick cloud over the future of Russia’s footprint in Africa. Ever since the West began isolating Russia following Moscow’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, Putin had attempted to rekindle Soviet-era ties with nations in the Global South, especially in Africa, using Prigozhin’s paramilitary company as one of his most important tools of influence. Click here to read... [11]

U.S. has golden opportunity to engage Central Asia's Turkic states: analysts

Conditions are aligning for the U.S. to strengthen engagement with the mostly Turkic states of Central Asia, which collectively cover an area approximately 40% that of the continental U.S., lawmakers and analysts have noted in recent weeks. The biggest catalyst is that Russia has been forced to redeploy much of its troops and defense equipment from Central Asia to Ukraine. This has left a security vacuum, with Central Asian governments -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- looking for alternative security guarantors. Click here to read... [12]

Iran and the South Caucasus

Azerbaijani regime rushes to cement legitimacy as internal tensions brew

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's decision to call a snap presidential election for February 7 puzzled observers at home and abroad. His current term had been set to expire in spring 2025. Some had expected him to move up the parliamentary elections, also scheduled for that year, or possibly hold a referendum on empowering local municipal governments. But Aliyev, who has been in office since 2003 and is at now the pinnacle of his popularity following Azerbaijan's recent takeover of Karabakh, decided he needed to renew his own mandate instead. Click here to read... [13]

Pashinyan: EAEU and its economic principles should not be intertwined with political ambitions

From January 1, Armenia will take over the presidency of the bodies of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) from Russia, "in connection with which we hope for the support and effective cooperation of the member states in order to implement the tasks before us," Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated, speaking in Saint Petersburg at the session of the Eurasian Economic Council. He considered it symbolic that Armenia's presidency coincides with the tenth anniversary of the signing of the EAEU treaty, "which is based on the basic principle that the EAEU is an economic union that should not have a political and, even more so, a geopolitical agenda." Click here to read... [14]

President Aliyev and PM Pashinyan Discuss Peace Agenda in Informal Meeting

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev held an informal meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia on the sidelines of an informal CIS Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, this week. The outcomes of the meeting on December 26 were not publicly disclosed; however, officials from Azerbaijan stated that the two leaders discussed the details of the peace agenda. Elchin Amirbayov, Azerbaijani President’s Representative for Special Assignments, mentioned that Baku has been awaiting Yerevan’s response to its comments on the latest draft proposals. Click here to read... [15]

Georgia's billionaire boss re-enters politics … again

The billionaire founder of Georgia's ruling party is once again, reluctantly, emerging from the shadows to take an active role in politics. Bidzina Ivanishvili announced at an unscheduled congress of the ruling Georgian Dream party on December 30 that he had decided to become the party's "honorary chairman." He said that he took the "unpleasant" decision because the country was facing challenges arising from the "complicated geopolitical situation." He lamented that the ruling team once again needed his steadying hand because the opposition has become so marginalized that it's unable to keep the country's rulers honest. Click here to read... [16]

Azerbaijan positioning itself as trans-regional energy hub through expanding green projects

Green energy holds the secret to human survival in the future because of the increasing incidents of climate disasters around the globe. States, societies, and systems are in the line of fire because of the looming threat of climate change in the world. It is obvious that the deployment of renewables in the power, heat, and transport sectors is one of the main enablers of keeping the rise in average global temperatures below 1.5°C. In the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario, renewables facilitate electricity generation that is almost completely decarbonised. Reports say that Azerbaijan may be directly affected by decarbonization on a global scale. Consequently, Azerbaijan may face both water scarcity and extreme hot weather in the coming years. It will especially affect agriculture. Click here to read... [17]