Central Asia's week that was #21
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan open arms to Taliban, nuclear power in Uzbekistan, Russia travel advisory issued. Also, Nomad Games in Astana, health insurance in Uzbekistan, and developments in crypto world.
So this happened…
Kyrgyzstan officially removed the Taliban from its list of proscribed organisations. Officials said the move was aimed at fostering dialogue with Afghanistan. The self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan welcomed the decision, which it said aligned with growing international recognition of the regime now ruling the country. Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced a few days earlier that his country too had removed the Taliban from its list of designated terrorist organisations. He said this was done in recognition of Kazakhstan’s “developing trade and economic cooperation” with Afghanistan. Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov last month travelled to Afghanistan making him the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Kabul since the Taliban seized power in 2021. While there, Aripov oversaw the signing of 25 trade and investment agreements worth a total of $2.5 billion.
Russian state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom has formally begun work on a project to build a small modular nuclear (SMR) power plant in Uzbekistan. The go-ahead was signalled by the company’s engineering subsidiary signing a protocol with Uzbek nuclear power agency Uzatom definitively setting the regulatory and financial terms of the project . The power station, which will be built in the Jizzakh region, just west of Tashkent, will comprise six 55 megawatt RITM-200N water-cooled nuclear reactors. The modular nature of the plant should mean shorter construction times than would be required in a traditional nuclear power station project.
The governments of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan advised their citizens to temporarily avoid travelling to Russia due to intensified border controls. The Tajik Embassy in Moscow cited Russia’s enhanced security measures at land and air checkpoints as grounds for refraining from travel unless “extremely necessary.” The measures have been in place since a mass killing in March near Moscow that culminated in at least 145 deaths and was linked to Tajik nationals. Russia has since that time passed laws further tightening migration policies. Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry likewise warned its citizens of heightened document checks and pressure on migrant workers.
Kyrgyzstan and China inaugurated a new border checkpoint, Bedel, the third major crossing between the neighbouring nations. Completion of the infrastructure needed to bring the crossing up to full capacity, including roads and customs facilities, is scheduled for 2027. The opening ceremony was attended by Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Bakyt Torobayev and the chairman of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Erkin Tuniyaz. Chinese authorities are resting much of their trade strategy for Xinjiang on the idea of scaling up engagement with Central Asia. Exports from the region to the five nations of Central Asia in 2023 rose by 23.2 percent year-on-year. The surge in demand for Xinjiang-produced electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar batteries was particularly pronounced.
The Culture Ministry in Kyrgyzstan issued a formal warning to the Kyrgyz branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for allegedly spreading false information. The ministry cited a report claiming that associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late founder of Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, supported President Sadyr Japarov during his 2020 election campaign. In a post on Facebook, presidential spokesperson Askat Alagozov condemned the outlet for engaging in what he termed rumour-mongering. He questioned in his post whether Kyrgyzstan might be well-served in ridding itself of the broadcaster’s presence. RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service has faced similar pressure before. It lost its broadcasting rights after purportedly spreading disinformation during the 2022 Kyrgyz-Tajik border conflict. The outlet eventually regained its rights after negotiating a settlement.
A village in Kazakhstan's Almaty region was placed under quarantine following an anthrax outbreak. Four residents suspected of contracting anthrax after butchering an infected animal were initially put under observation. Health officials later said that the number of confirmed human anthrax cases had risen to 11. At least 16 people had been hospitalised as of September 9. The authorities say no further spread of the disease has been observed and that the situation is under control. Local officials urged the public to be vigilant when buying meat products and stressed that anthrax is not transmissible from person to person.
And there’s this too…
The fifth edition of the World Nomad Games got underway in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, with a lavish opening ceremony attended by the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan’s former president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, was also present in the 30,000-seater Astana Arena stadium. Athletes from 89 countries are taking part in the games, which focus heavily on disciplines traditional to the Eurasian region. The highlight event is kok boruu — a sport known as buzkashi in Afghanistan — in which two teams of horse-riders seek to manoeuvre a goat’s carcass into goals at either end of a field. While ostensibly intended to promote local cultures, the Nomad Games have taken on a political dimension too as nations in the region increasingly seek to assert their unique identities.
Uzbekistan will launch a pilot state health insurance system in Tashkent and in the Syrdarya region from October as part of broader reforms designed to curtail the high volume of out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the public. The autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan will join the initiative from January. Full nationwide implementation is expected by the end of 2026. It is estimated that out-of-pocket payments accounted for 53.1 percent of health spending in Uzbekistan in 2021. According to figures from 2018, around 38 percent of those expenditures in Uzbekistan were on pharmaceuticals. The most hard-up resort to buying medicine of dubious provenance, at times with tragic outcomes. At least 68 children died in late 2022 as a result of being administered contaminated cough syrup imported from India.
Kazakhstan is poised to set up an expert commission to devise rules on how Kazakh words will be spelled once the process of switching from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet is complete. A draft proposal on a 21-person commission has been published online for public scrutiny, and feedback will be permitted until September 17. The switch to Latin script has been a painfully drawn-out process. Lawmakers proposed a 25-letter Kazakh alphabet to replace the 42 Cyrillic characters currently in use as far back as 2017. That bruited alphabet has since undergone transformations, but there is still no consensus on how best to render Kazakh words in Latin script. The idea of creating a commission appears intended to put the debate to bed.
UzNEX, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange in Uzbekistan, began trading the Toncoin cryptocurrency, which is associated with Telegram founder Pavel Durov's TON project. Toncoin is the 15th cryptocurrency available for trading on UzNEX, which was set up in 2019. The value of Toncoin, which counts around 7 million active users, slumped dramatically following Durov’s arrest in France in late August. Uzbekistan allows the sale of cryptocurrency only through national exchanges, with all systems hosted domestically. In June, Kazakhstan’s Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA) announced that it had cleared Toncoin for trading on its licensed platforms. Fully 112 digital assets have to date been approved for trading by the AFSA.
Regulators in Kyrgyzstan have granted permits to two more companies for cryptocurrency mining, bringing the total number of companies in the sector to at least 33. Critics of the cryptocurrency mining business in Kyrgyzstan question the wisdom of allowing such an energy-intensive industry in a country that regularly experiences power shortages. In August, Energy Minister Taalaibek Ibrayev urged the public to limit their use of air conditioners, warning that excessive electricity consumption could force the country to release unsustainable amounts of water from its hydropower facilities. Earlier this year, the same minister dismissed concerns over crypto-mining, insisting, incorrectly, as it later turned out, that the power used by the industry was being purchased from Kazakhstan.
SalamNews, a semi-official news outlet in Turkmenistan, reportedly ceased operations after publishing content without prior approval from the authorities. Turkmen.news, an Amsterdam-based news website, reported that SalamNews’s social media accounts have not been updated since mid-August and that the outlet’s website is currently unavailable. SalamNews output was entirely uncontroversial, even by the standards of the censorship-happy Turkmen state, and was typically tilted toward more general interest areas, such as sport and pop culture. The apparent shuttering of the outlet indicates that even self-censorship is not sufficient to appease the authorities in Ashgabat. Control over the free flow of information has tightened inexorably in Turkmenistan over recent years. The efforts of censors have concentrated mostly on limiting access to the internet.
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