Central Asia

This week marks the 15th anniversary of American invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban regime in the course of the Operation Enduring Freedom.

The two-day visit of the President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani to India and his talks with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi that took place in mid-September 2016 are a good reason to discuss the new trends in Afghanistan’s territory control – it is one of the most important elements in the current stage of the geopolitical game.

The Central Asian region has always been distinguished by an extensive amount of attention from various international players paid to it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union this resource-rich and strategically important region began attracting the attention of China, the United States, India, and a number of other influential and wealthy states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and a number of others. Each of these global players have been pursuing their own agenda in this region.

Most people are ignorant of the fact that Tajikistan is among the top ten richest states in terms of natural minerals. However, the country itself is anything but rich, in spite of massive deposits of coal, precious stones, gold, and of the biggest silver deposits on the planet, along with the huge reserves of uranium. It’s clear Tajikistan is unable to take advantage of its natural wealth due to insufficient funds and poor infrastructure, since it has been primarily exporting aluminum and cotton.

The sharp drop in the popularity of nuclear power after the disaster at the Japanese power station, Fukushima-1, turned out to be temporary. Limiting energy consumption is not feasible not least because hydrocarbon energy resources are non-renewable natural resources.

Against the background of the ever mounting number of terrorist attacks around the globe, including the recent tragic events in Nice, a particular emphasis should be laid on the strengthening of anti-terrorist efforts. Certain positive results can be attributed to the anti-terrorist operations in Iraq and Syria, that are being carried out by the so-called “coalition forces”. ISIS forces are not simply suffering losses, they found themselves unable to coordinate their operations properly.

The peace talks process in Afghanistan has not made any real progress since its initiation in June 2015. Subsequent efforts to push forward its development were interrupted twice within less than a year.

In a U.S. drone strike well inside the Pakistani territory of Balochistan province, the Afghan Taliban’s leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed, leaving many people wondering as to why the attack has taken place at a time when peace negotiations, howsoever fragile and uncertain these might have been, were going on and when the U.S. itself has repeatedly stated in unambiguous terms that it wanted a negotiated end of the war.

Six month ago, in December 2015, the town of Mary in Turkmenistan witnessed a long-awaited occurrence significant not only for the country, but for the entire Central Asian region: the launch of the construction of the Turkmen section of TAPI (Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India) gas pipeline. The parties signed an agreement on the construction of a gas pipeline at the end of 2010.