Russian officials recently reiterated their continued interest in a major energy project in Tajikistan, while authorities in Dushanbe remain hesitant. Meanwhile, a sizable Tajik labor migrant community has become a continued irritant in bilateral relations. Moscow is prepared to complete the Rogun hydroelectric power plant,... MORE

Two weeks before Kyrgyzstan’s December 16 parliamentary elections, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev abruptly sacked Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev. Atambayev represents the moderate opposition in the government and his Social-Democratic party has been rapidly gaining ground in the run up to the elections. Atambayev was also... MORE

In the covert “great game” currently playing out between Russia and the United States to control the hydrocarbon assets of the Caspian, a glittering new prize has appeared on the horizon. Kazakhstan’s massive offshore Kashagan oilfield is the world's largest discovery in the last 30... MORE

On November 23 in Ashgabat, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and Gazprom president Alexei Miller held tense talks with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov on joint gas projects. The Russians goaded the Turkmens to open Caspian offshore blocks for Russian exploration and to start construction work... MORE

Last week, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev again called for the reform of the country’s defense and security structures. On November 15, he ordered the various heads of the defense and security bodies to prepare detailed proposals for restructuring their agencies, as part of the ongoing... MORE

Moscow is lining up the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- in a Russia-led bloc within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. This bloc has emerged in the run-up to the... MORE

Almost all of Kyrgyzstan’s political parties that registered for the parliamentary elections on December 16 have now identified their top five candidates. Each political party had to come up with a list of 100 candidates for their official party lists. The top five slots tend... MORE

On November 5 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived in Damascus for a three-day visit. Both Nazarbayev and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, seemed satisfied with the talks, which covered investments, bilateral trade, and political ties. Beset by chronic economic and political troubles in the turbulent... MORE

Officially, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of the Interior (MVD) claims to have crushed the power of organized crime in the country. This assertion appears partly supported by the considerable reduction in the number of gangland killings since the 1990s. Nevertheless, Karavan newspaper reported on November 2 not... MORE

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao recently concluded a whirlwind tour of Central Asia following the sixth Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, held in Tashkent on November 2. While there, Wen met with Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Karim Masimov. While no details of the meeting emerged, Wen... MORE