Hundreds of millions of dollars go missing every year in Central Asia, thanks to trade fraud. Exports are sent to strange destinations, and imports are not all they seem to be. The worst-affected countries are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where both governments are responding through increased trade regulation.
Subjected to an intensive assimilation program, China's Uighurs are becoming "emotional" as they strive to maintain a separate cultural profile, an Uighur leader says.
Central Asian states are hedging their bets in the great oil and gas game. Pipeline projects that would bring regional resources to Western markets tend to grab most of the headlines, but Central Asian states are, at the same time, deepening trade relations with East and South Asian nations.
Russia has joined the states of Central Asia in expressing alarm over recent military gains made by Afghanistan's Taliban movement, as well as the threat posed by the Islamic insurgency in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Leading Russian international security affairs expert Andrei Kortunov spoke with EurasiaNet about Russia's strategy and interests in Central Asia.
EurasiaNet: The situation in Central Asia is deteriorating with the Taliban making advances, and a split has appeared among some Central Asian nations. Uzbekistan, in particular, is reaching out to the Taliban. How does Russia view President Islam Karimov's actions vis-à-vis the Taliban, and what might Russia do to respond?
Following former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the enforced isolation of the Soviet peoples ended. Yet, the isolation of post-Soviet studies to a considerable extent remained, and still remains to this day.
Turkey has launched a fresh campaign to win over the hearts and minds of its ethnic cousins in the former Soviet Turkic states. This time round, the Turks hope to win them over not with idealistic notions of common ethnicity, but by helping Central Asian leaders quell what many see as a mounting threat from Islamic rebels.
Along with increasing security cooperation among themselves, Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are forging closer ties with NATO and its members (i.e., Turkey and the US) to enhance regional security.
In recent weeks in Afghanistan, Taliban military units have scored a string of battlefield successes against the forces of the northern alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. The victories could help the Taliban consolidate their power in Afghanistan, while raising the threat of instability in the neighboring countries of Central Asia.
It is this jarring disconnect that disturbs Stephen Cohen. Apparently, more significant than Putin's negative report on the status quo was his "emphatic commitment to building a democracy." In other words, after a decade of transition, the best Russia has to offer is a vow to keep plugging away at a still elusive goal, even as basic living standards sink to dire levels.
