Bruce Pannier is a Central Asia analyst and appears regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL.
A U.S. delegation visiting Kazakhstan has called on the country to speed up democratic reforms ahead of assuming the OSCE chairmanship in 2010.
Representatives from the OSCE’s 56 member states are meeting to discuss issues vital to the future of Europe’s leading human rights organization.
The managing director of the Nabucco project tells RFE/RL the pipeline will need to carry gas from many countries, including Iran and Russia, to fill its capacity. But the United States, one of the project's key supporters, is raising strong objections to that scenario.
President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who rose to power with pledges to protect the independence of the media, has signed amendments that place broadcasters under greater government authority.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have the water and want gas and oil in exchange from energy-rich neighbors. But those neighbors are balking, and the issue is bringing regional tensions to a boil.
As energy prices skyrocket, the resource-rich Caspian Sea Basin has become a focal point for geopolitical competition. The EU has stepped up its presence in the region, but Brussels is butting heads with Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Already facing severe food shortages, Central Asians are now forced to share their limited crops with the worst infestation in years. The invaders, in turn, are flying farther afield in search of scant food resources.
Just two years ago, Turkmenistan was a reclusive place that few foreigners were allowed to visit. But now it's an emerging, and unexpected, partner for NATO in Central Asia.
China, with billions of dollars invested in Central Asian resources, is making deals that regional leaders find hard to turn down. Beijing, indeed, has a clear strategy for Central Asia -- and it's working.
Turkmenistan plans rare amendments to its constitution that signal at least a veneer of change in Central Asia's most isolated country.
The new Russian president's visit to Astana shows that Kazakhstan has left Uzbekistan behind in a long-running competition to be the region's dominant player.
Following talks in Baku, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan could be closer to agreeing on how to divide up the Caspian energy resources located between them -- and on a pipeline to send them west.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov comes to Azerbaijan for the first visit by a sitting Turkmen president in more than a decade, highlighting recent fence mending and shared interests.
Rakhat Aliev, the exiled former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbaev, says he's ready to give evidence in a U.S. probe into whether Nazarbaev took bribes from U.S. businesses to receive lucrative oil contracts.
A meeting between the Tajik and Kazakh presidents could signal a new regional alignment at the expense of Russian and Uzbek influence.
Sources in Kyrgyzstan insist to RFE/RL and others that the flow of exiles continues three years after security forces opened fire on protesters.
Pipeline politics took center stage as Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad went on the road to promote competing pipelines to export their natural gas.
In its latest move to undo the bizarre legacy of late President Saparmurat Niyazov, the Turkmen government has restored the traditional names to days and months of the calendar.
Is integration of the Central Asian states a realistic goal? The idea, or something like it, was floated again this week.
Officials from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan have opened a meeting in Islamabad to discuss the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
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