US Special Operations Forces have permission to enter Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on a “case-by-case” basis when conducting counter-terrorism operations.
Turkmenistan and China are negotiating an expanded natural gas supply and loan agreement. Many crucial issues must be resolved before the two can finalize a deal. Ashgabat and Beijing have not yet agreed on a price for Turkmen natural gas exports to China, and any deal between the two will have to gain approval from the transit states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and, ultimately, from Russia.
The United States intends to cut funding for assistance programs in most countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia, under the new budget proposed by the Obama administration on February 14.
As the unrest in Egypt has continued unfolding, there has been much speculation about the possibility of similar developments occurring in Russia and other countries across the former Soviet Union (FSU).
Georgia leads all countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the money it spends on lobbyists in Washington, DC, according to a review of US government records.
In terms of democratization, most of the post-Soviet states in the Caucasus and Central Asia remain stuck in the mud, according to an annual survey issued by US-based advocacy organization Freedom House. The exception to the rule in 2010 was Kyrgyzstan, which was deemed to have registered modest democratization gains.
A decade after its debut on the terrorism scene in the Pamirs as Central Asia's most aggressive militant group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has undergone a transformation hundreds of kilometers to the southeast, in the mountains of Pakistan's restive Waziristan region.
As an economist at the University of Applied Sciences in Goettingen, Manuel Stark studies development models. Stark, who has spent time in South Korea and Mexico, compares developing countries in terms of politics, culture, and administration, to see what factors contribute to their economic success.
The US Defense Department has gained an inordinate amount of influence over the distribution of security assistance in Central Asia, exerting an “oversized impact” on US foreign policy in the region, according to a report released October 15.
