Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev authored an article, on April 12, in the government-owned newspaper Egemen Kazakhstan (in Kazakh: Independent Kazakhstan) under the intriguing title “Looking Into the Future: Modernization of Public Conscience.” The phrase “public conscience” actually stands for the way Kazakhstani citizens view themselves... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s official visit to Iran in early March 2017—his third in three years—was scheduled to include the testing of a section of a new railway along the Iran-Azerbaijan border. The Astara (Iran)–Astara (Azerbaijan) railroad is part of the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC),... MORE

Uzbekistan’s new head of state, President Shavkat Mirziyaev made his first official visit to Moscow, on April 4–5. Though the visit was in fact the Uzbekistani leader’s third foreign trip as president, after traveling to neighboring Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Russian commentators nevertheless called it Mirziyaev’s... MORE

Moscow’s anxieties about Central Asia and its position there are becoming increasingly visible. And renewed charges of Russian imperial ambitions in the region and elsewhere clearly sting the Kremlin. Thus, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov felt obliged to denounce “allegations” about his country’s imperial ambitions, claiming,... MORE

As the Syrian civil war enters its seventh year (the conflict officially started on March 15, 2011, with mainly peaceful protesters in Damascus coming out into the streets to demand democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners), a potential peace deal remains out of... MORE

Three months since his election last December, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyaev made his first official trip abroad, visiting neighboring Turkmenistan on March 6–7. The visit put an end to rampant speculation about where his maiden foreign trip would take him. Some, for instance, had expected... MORE

In February, the Iranian government extradited five members of the same family originating from Hamadoni district, in southern Tajikistan, back to their home country (Radio Ozodi, March 2). Abdulfayz Vazirov, 33, and his sister Mohira Salimova, 32, left Tajikistan for Russia in the summer of... MORE

Even though fertility rates have fallen in Central Asia over the last two decades, the earlier rise in the number of births means that the populations of these countries continue to grow far more rapidly than anywhere else in the former Soviet space. Tajikistan is... MORE

Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev surprised his fellow citizens and international observers alike when he announced, on January 11, the establishment of a special commission to elaborate wide-ranging constitutional reform. It had been less than two months since Nazarbayev spoke to a group of Western journalists... MORE

On January 13, 2017, the newly elected president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyaev, attended a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the independent Uzbekistani army (January 14, 1992). The event is an annual fixture on Uzbekistan’s calendar. But this year, the celebration gained... MORE