On August 9, the sixth consultative meeting of the heads of state of Central Asia was held in Astana, Kazakhstan. The meeting, which saw Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev again present as a guest of honor, together with the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia Representative Kaha Imnadze, marked the beginning of a new cycle of consultative meetings after the first five were successfully held starting in 2018, with only one interruption in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sixth consultative meeting in Astana featured several positive aspects, not the least of which was the continuation of such gatherings among the Central Asian presidents. But despite expectations of a qualitative evolution in the format, and the proposals and documents approved, there were no fundamental or radical changes in what seems to be, for the time being, a consolidated format.
During the meeting, the presidential speeches all featured the usual pattern of advancing very general proposals in several fields, such as agriculture, industry, connectivity, and energy, together with very specific, and innovative, suggestions.
The new ideas ranged from the creation of a Central Asian TV channel or a news internet portal, as Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev emphasized, to developing new effective forms of cooperation in the field of security, although admittedly in a very vague form, as proposed by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The idea of Central Asia’s image and identity was, for the first time, on the table. Tokayev spoke of “a new image of Central Asia” in international politics, while Mirziyoyev, nodding to Tokayev’s article, “Renaissance of Central Asia: On the Path to Sustainable Development and Prosperity,” made a reference to “the beginning of the formation of a pan-regional identity in Central Asia.” Mirziyoyev argued that “the time has come to jointly consider issues of further improving our format of the Consultative Meeting to deepen regional integration and fill the agenda of long-term partnership.”
Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov made unusually strong remarks about the purpose of the meetings, which now have the status of “a tradition” but “should be of consultative nature, a platform for political communication without strictly regulating rules and procedures.”
Seen in an evolutionary perspective, the sixth consultative meeting was the natural product of the previous five, which were tasked to find common normative ground, viable rules of engagement, a flexible and non-sensitive legal framework for interactions, and trust-building mechanisms. The fact that the “Concept for the Development of Cooperation until 2040” has been signed by all parties demonstrates that there is now enough trust and mutual understanding to plan coordination and cooperation in the mid- and long-term.
In the first meeting in Astana in 2018, the idea of “historical responsibility” for the stability and survival of the region was adopted and embraced. In the second meeting in Tashkent in 2019, procedural rules of the consultative meetings were approved, together with an affirmation of mutual respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the regional countries and the first mention of a Treaty of Friendship and Good-Neighborliness in the 21st Century. In the third meeting in 2021 in Avaza, Turkmenistan, the meetings started including scientific diplomacy, inter-regional dialogue, women diplomacy, and humanitarian cooperation more consistently. In the fourth meeting, in 2022 in Kyrgyzstan’s Cholpon-Ata, the friendship treaty was proposed, although only Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan signed it. In the fifth meeting in Dushanbe last year, guidelines on national coordinators were approved, agreements on youth policy and transport were adopted, and a push was given to shared educational and humanitarian projects.
So, what are the main takeaways of the sixth meeting?
The first, and most important, is that the task for the years ahead will have to be finding a common ground on the issue of institutionalization and regional identity. Taking Mirziyoyev’s remarks and Tokayev’s article together and juxtaposing them to the other three speeches and positions, especially Berdimuhamedov’s, it seems that there are some divergences in how to proceed in terms of formalizing and deepening cooperation.
While Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan all consider the current trends irreversible and beneficial, on their side there is – at present – less emphasis on the search for a common identity and the creation of a supranational structure. This, of course, does not mean that there is no interest or open disagreements. But the priorities and sensitivities of all the regional states will have to be fully taken into account and interwoven. Too often considered as an undifferentiated monolith, Central Asia features a complex array of political, social, ethnic, and cultural differences.
It is significant that Tokayev was the only president among the five to refer to the Treaty of Friendship during the meeting. The proposals on identity, image-building, and integration seemed to have been built on the bilateral meeting between Tokayev and Mirziyoyev the day before the consultative meeting. Most likely, for the time being there will continue to be “umbrella proposals” that need to be worked out by state agencies, national coordinators, and at the bilateral level, yet with the purpose of keeping momentum, political imagination, and agency alive. The role of the youth and other actors on the ground will be vital in developing these ideas and avoiding artificiality.
Second, it is important to reflect on the fact that, for all its light-touch approach, the consultative meetings have managed to create a firm and clear-cut set of fundamental norms and principles that define Central Asia and its denser intra-regional interactions. These include the increasing number of ministerial, expert, and inter-parliamentary gatherings, such as the meeting of regional heads of security councils on May 16 and in the Birlestik-2024 military exercises in July, both of which took place in Kazakhstan.
Stability, sustainable development, equality, respect, pluralism and diversity, consensus – these are, on top of the norms enshrined in the U.N. Charter, some of the defining normative features of Central Asia. One can see them codified in the meetings, if not always displayed in practice. This bundle of principles gives the region what Tokayev has recently called “subjectivity” and agency at the international level. In addition, thanks to the constant process of defining rules of engagement and norms of behavior, significant results have been achieved. Over the years, for example, Turkmenistan has become a full participant in the meetings at all levels; difficult border situations have been smoothened behind closed doors; and economic and development indicators have gone up consistently, with intra-regional trade having increased by 73.4 percent (from $5.8 to $10 billion) between 2018 and 2022.
Third, and finally, there are significant similarities with the 1990s. While those were different times, and expertise, resources, and actors were different, several of the projects that are being sponsored at the meetings – especially in the cultural-humanitarian, media, scientific, and environmental domains – are directly linked to proposals and efforts carried out when the Central Asian Union and the Central Asian Economic Cooperation were active. The idea of a magazine called “Central Asia: Problems of Integration” was first proposed in 1996, and the idea of a regional system of security for the five Central Asian states is as old as 1992, when the newly independent states had to coordinate their positioning within the CIS, and materialized in the regional battalion CentrAsBat in 1996.
As I have been told by senior diplomats, one of the roles of the national coordinators of consultative meetings is to review these previous experiences to build on the positives and avoid the negatives. The regional states have more diplomatic and institutional experience now, as well as a younger, more active, and imaginative population who do believe, as the recent Olympics demonstrated, in an idea of regional “togetherness.” To avoid a back-to-the-future scenario, continuity and change, as well as top-down and bottom-up approaches, will have to go hand in hand.