International watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to promote human rights when he "makes history" this week as the first German chancellor to attend a summit in Central Asia with all five of that post-Soviet region's presidents.
Scholz's three-day trip started in Uzbekistan on September 15 with the signing of a migration deal and will continue in Kazakhstan on September 16-17 for the second meeting of the Central Asia-plus-Germany format that was launched a year ago in Berlin.
"The German government cannot pretend closer ties with Central Asia are possible without a significant improvement in human rights in the region," HRW said. "The upcoming summit offers a chance to make this clear."
In its statement, HRW cited persistent rights issues across the region including the "suppression of the rights to protest and express opinions, including online, jailing of activists, torture in detention, crackdowns on civil society, violence against women, impunity for abusive security forces, and a lack of free and fair elections."
It argued that "little or no progress is possible on the many topics the six leaders highlighted as common priorities" a year ago.
Germany has long been interested in boosting energy relations with Central Asia, but Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has further encouraged Germany and other European nations to look elsewhere for energy and mineral imports.
This week's summit with the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek heads of state is expected to focus heavily on energy along with broader economic and development talks.
The leaders are also expected to discuss international sanctions on Russia.
Upon arrival in the historic city of Samarkand, the German leader met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev and signed a migration agreement that would allow skilled workers from Uzbekistan to travel to the EU country, with a focus on the health-care sector.
It is also intended to speed repatriation of Uzbek citizens living in Germany without legal residence authorization, who he said "must go back." An estimated 13,700 Uzbeks reside in Germany, with the vast majority holding legal residency permits, according to dpa.
“With our agreement on migration and mobility signed today in Samarkand in Uzbekistan, we are enabling people with great talents to enter our country. Also, we committed to un-bureaucratic processes so that those who cannot stay in our country must go back,” Scholz wrote on X.
In the Kazakh capital, Astana, Scholz should meet with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.
Kazakhstan, the largest and wealthiest of the five regional states, has been accused of failing to adequately ensure compliance with sanctions on Russia.
But energy cooperation has been on the rise with Kazakhstan.
Crude oil from Kazakhstan began flowing last year through the 4,000-kilometer Druzhba pipeline from Russia's southern Tatarstan region through Belarus and Poland to Germany, as part of a pivot to make up for lower supplies of Russian oil.
Scholz hailed that step as the start of "a completely new direction in bilateral cooperation" with Kazakhstan, which also lies on huge reserves of natural gas.
In June, international rights groups urged Central Asian governments to take specific steps to end "widespread" torture of detainees and political prisoners in the region.
Such groups allege that Kazakhstan is among the worst offenders.
HRW last month demanded that Kazakhstan stop limiting freedom of expression and end its persecution of comedians, citing the jailing of 31-year-old stand-up comic Aleksandr Merkul.
