On December 24th the President of Kyrgyzstan, Almazbek Atambayev, held a major press conference in Bishkek which was notable for a series of important statements on foreign and domestic policy. According to analysts, the tone and the meaning behind his statements implied that Kyrgyzstan had embarked upon the path of a closer alliance with Russia. One of the most resounding of President Atambayev’s remarks was in regard to the future of the U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan. «There should be no military dimension at Manas international airport», he stated… According to the president of Kyrgyzstan, the American presence has had a destabilizing effect on the region…

The last month of the passing year was full of events related to the process of former USSR integration. Uzbekistan has finally left the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a body steady on the way to becoming a full-fledged defensive alliance (otherwise the very term «collective security» would lose its meaning). The Eurasian Economic Community’s existence is nearing its end to give place to the Eurasian Economic Union by 2015…

The allegations the US is not leaving Afghanistan after 2014 have been going around for quite a long time. They were confirmed once more in mid-October.  Taking into consideration the country ‘s extremely important geopolitical location, it looks like it won’t be just a token presence… Тhe reluctance on the part of Islamabad to allow the transition of US forces and equipment across the Pakistani territory leaves only the states of Central Asia as a transition route for the United States supplies… 

 The stakes are high in the big game around the Caspian hydrocarbons. The main goal of the West is to separate the countries of South Caucasus and Central Asia from Russia, to avoid the integration of post-Soviet states within the framework of common economic space, to make the energy routes bypass the territory of the Russian Federation. Supposedly, as a result, the geopolitical former Soviet Union space would acquire a new shape described in the concepts of New Silk Road and Greater Middle East…

…No doubt, Moscow would be confronted with a situation calling for a  tougher than ever strategy if the Operative Reaction Center – a US military base to stay indefinitely in the post-Soviet space regarding which Russia has serious ambitions – pops up in Uzbekistan. Picking up after several makeshift bases narrowly geared to supply the Western coalition in Afghanistan, the facility would come as a slap in the face to Moscow, a humiliation comparable to what Washington would have experienced seeing Russia install a military base in Mexico, Nicaragua, or Cuba…

By the end of July the situation in the Mountaneous Badakhshan (Gorno-Badakhshan) autonomous region abruptly exacerbated. Gordo-Badakhshan is a highland area in the south-eastern part of Tajikistan, making up almost a half (45%) of the territory… In response to the killing of Abdullo Nazarbaev, special services General, the authorities launched a military operation to eliminate the criminal organization responsible for the crime… The fact that there were armed people from Afghanistan taking part in hostilities evokes special concern… The events make remember that the dividing of Tajikistan along ethnic and religious lines after the 1997 peace accords still tells, the existing divisions may be rather easily be used to destabilize the country… The further conflict escalation is not excluded.

Russia's positions in Central Asia are increasingly coming under pressure as the deadline for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is drawing closer. Uzbekistan was the first to subject its relations with Russia in the security sphere to a serious overhaul, and in no time the trend has proved contagious. So far, the defiance of other Central Asian republics is limited to demands of higher compensations for hosting Russian military bases: recently, Tajikistan rolled out an unprecedented cost of lease for Russia's 201st military base, and Kyrgyzstan indicated three sites on its soil would come at a higher charge for Moscow…

As the US main forces withdrawal from Afghanistan slated for the middle of 2014 is drawing near, the prospects for Central Asia are becoming more uncertain. As is known a part of US military equipment is to leave Afghanistan to stay in the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. The US military are discussing the issue with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan… The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already expressed concern over the base in Kyrgyzstan to be used for waging war against Iran making the Central Asian states involved in combat…

The June summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) highlighted China's swelling economic presence in Central Asia. Chinese premier Hu Jintao unveiled an ambitious agenda for the region, with $10b in loans to be infused into the corresponding projects. At the moment, the Chinese investments in Central Asian republics estimatedly total $20b, and Beijing evidently aims at the role of the main economic partner of the entire Central Asia, especially in the spheres of energy and transit…

On May 23, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India penned a deal to construct the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline which is supposed to pump gas from Turkmenistan to South Asia… The invention of the project to construct a pipeline linking the Caspian region and Afghanistan dates back to the Soviet era. The theme was reopened by the US after the collapse of the USSR with the aim of reconfiguring the region's transit network so as to pull apart Russia on the one side and the Central Asia plus the Caucasus on the other… The Trans-Afghanistan pipeline project was reborn in the late 2000ies, when Ashgabat took to diversifying its gas export routes and the US needed to offer India and Pakistan viable alternatives to gas import from Iran…