Serdar Berdimuhamedov chaired the meeting at the Avaza complex and opened it by congratulating Ilham Aliyev on the first sitting held officially in a six-party format, the TDH agency’s readout of Thursday says. Azerbaijan’s accession was the natural result of years of movement towards each other, the host said, and the delegations had agreed during the preparations that the next meeting would be held in Azerbaijan in 2027. A signing ceremony after the closing produced two papers, the Joint Statement on the results of the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Decision on the governing documents of the Consultative Meeting, signed by all six presidents, by APA’s report of the ceremony, and the text of neither was on the host’s sites by Friday morning.
The host’s own list ran to a format of regular six-party consultations between foreign ministries, a six-party mechanism for diversifying trade in which business associations take the initiative, a new mechanism of economic cooperation whose parameters he proposed to agree in the near future, electricity supply projects alongside the pipeline routes, and Turkmenistan’s infrastructure on the Caspian offered for the Central Asia, Caspian, South Caucasus and Europe corridor. Serdar Berdimuhamedov reminded the table that Turkmenistan had proposed at the last General Assembly session to declare 2028 the Year of International Law, and he thanked the five for backing it.
Tokayev brought numbers. Intra-regional trade came to about $13 billion last year, about 8 per cent of the six states’ total turnover, and he proposed that the governments draw up a joint action plan to raise it to at least $20 billion, Kazinform reported from Akorda at 15:23. Kazakhstan is completing the Moiynty to Kyzylzhar and Darbaza to Maktaaral rail lines, opens the Bakhty to Ayagoz route next year and has started the Aral-Caspian highway, he said, citing the World Bank’s estimate that cargo across the Caspian may grow fourfold by 2040 if every infrastructure task is carried out, and proposing to discuss at expert level the integration of the Middle Corridor with TRIPP, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity across Armenia.
His list went on to a framework convention of Central Asia on water use, now before all the parties, an International Water Organization under the UN, a regional programme on artificial intelligence with a declaration on its responsible use, a regional channel built on Kazakhstan’s Silk Way and a youth volunteering forum in 2027, and then he turned on the list itself, asking the foreign ministries to take an inventory of the region’s initiatives and judge which remain relevant, because only a small part of the more than 200 raised since 2018 has been carried out and, in his words, the facts speak for themselves. Two hundred initiatives in eight years and only a small part carried out was the count the Kazakh president brought to the table.
Mirziyoyev listed a comprehensive regional programme of trade and economic cooperation to 2035 under the formula “six economies, one product”, a Central Asia and Azerbaijan business forum in 2027, which UzA’s text of his speech places in Khiva, a platform for financial and technical support of joint investment projects, a new energy concept, digital monitoring of water resources, an international consortium called Clean Air of Central Asia and a regional alliance on critical minerals, by TDH’s account. He noted that the procedure for concluding the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation for the Development of Central Asia in the 21st Century has been completed. Aliyev dated his country’s full membership to November last year and the initiative to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s words at Avaza in August 2025, and counted five top-level visits between Baku and Ashgabat since last year.
Two hundred initiatives in eight years and only a small part carried out was the count the Kazakh president brought to the table.
Azerbaijan’s trade with the Central Asian states grew by more than 50 per cent last year, more than 400 companies with Central Asian capital work in Azerbaijan, and transit on the Middle Corridor grew by more than 10 per cent last year and by about a further 20 per cent in the first eight months of this one, Aliyev said, by APA’s live text of the sitting.
Rahmon proposed a large oil refinery built on the newest technologies to cover the whole region’s needs and a regional strategy for the green transition, by TDH. Japarov proposed a single electronic trading platform for the six, with specialists from Kyrgyzstan’s Hi-Tech Park, by Open.kg’s account of his speech.
The bilateral day produced one treaty. Mirziyoyev and Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Supreme Council of Strategic Partnership between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan after their meeting, UzA reported at 15:28, noting the Shavat-Dashoguz border trade zone and an action plan to multiply mutual trade, which both called important to adopt.
Serdar Berdimuhamedov received Tokayev, Japarov, Rahmon, Pashinyan and the CIS Secretary General in turn, by TDH’s list. Tokayev’s talks covered energy, industry, agriculture and transport and the schedule of coming joint events, Zakon reported from Akorda at 16:20. The same Akorda text names Friday’s second event the Caspian Ecological Summit.
Putin landed at Turkmenbashi at 18:00 local time, by the Kremlin’s stamp, and met Serdar Berdimuhamedov at 20:30 after the official reception for the heads of delegations, in a conversation the Kremlin describes in one sentence on dynamically developing bilateral relations. At 21:00 he received Masoud Pezeshkian. Russian-Iranian trade grew by more than 21 per cent last year and the trend holds in the first seven months of this one, Putin said in his opening remarks, and Russia is ready to do everything in its power to help settle the situation in the region, where Iran, in his words, has again come forward with proposals for a peaceful settlement.
Pezeshkian congratulated him on his birthday, said the United States practises unilateralism, and said Tehran had exchanged initiatives with Washington and would sum them up through intermediaries once the American text is finalised, by the Kremlin’s transcript. Putin also spoke with Aliyev “on his feet” on the sidelines, Dmitry Peskov said, as Interfax carried it at 20:59.
Armenia’s prime minister attended. No meeting with the Russian or Azerbaijani president is planned, there will be contacts and conversations as the leaders are in one place for two days, and it has happened before that they agreed on the spot, he told reporters before leaving Yerevan, Armenpress reported at 12:00. He had spoken to Putin by phone on Wednesday, the agency added.
Serdar Berdimuhamedov received him in the afternoon and thanked him for accepting the invitation to the CIS council, by TDH, and Mirziyoyev discussed bilateral relations with him at 18:16 by UzA’s stamp. Lukashenko and Pezeshkian arrived on Thursday by the Turkmen foreign ministry’s posts, and the evening closed with the festival of the CIS states’ national dishes that every delegation’s agency photographed.
Friday’s agenda has 16 items, Yuri Ushakov told reporters, as Interfax carried it at 01:00. The leaders meet first in the narrow format, where Putin may brief them on the Ukrainian conflict if asked, then in the enlarged one with Pezeshkian present for the first time in the Commonwealth’s history. They are to adopt a statement on the CIS’s 35th anniversary, a concept on information exchange against crimes committed with information and communication technologies, a decision on measures to form a positive image of the CIS, and decisions declaring 2028 the Year of Social Development and Quality of Life and 2029 the Year of Transport Connectivity.
Uzbekistan’s chairmanship of the CIS next year and the date of the next meeting are on the list. All five Caspian leaders speak at the ecological summit that follows, and Ushakov expects a declaration devoted to the sea’s ecological problems, the shallowing included. The inventory Tokayev asked for starts on Friday with Thursday’s joint statement and decision as the newest entries on the list.