All sections

Rubrics

Editorial desks and subject areas

All NewsEvery published article, newest firstEconomyBusiness and investmentPoliticsPower and governanceEnergyResources and climateSecuritySecurity and conflictsChina FactorChina in the regionTurkish FactorTurkey's role in the regionOpinionPositions and commentary

Countries

Country hubs across the Eurasian space

KazakhstanCentral AsiaUzbekistanCentral AsiaKyrgyzstanCentral AsiaTajikistanCentral AsiaTurkmenistanCentral AsiaMongoliaInner AsiaAfghanistanInner AsiaPakistanSouth AsiaTurkeyRegional powerChinaNeighboring powerRussiaNeighboring powerCaucasusGeorgia · Armenia · Azerbaijan

Formats

Ways to read the archive

Wire BriefsFast updates from the wire deskAnalysisContext and interpretationOpinionCommentary and argument

Info

About, contact, and reader utilities

About Central Asia WireSearch ArchiveContact EditorialRSS Feed
Central Asia Wire
Independent Central Asia Monitor
Breaking
The UK sanctions 4 Georgians for Kremlin disinformation and names Tskhinvali’s leadersKazakhstan’s inflation slows to 9.3% in September as the tenge opens the week at 447.73Turkmenistan reports 6.3% growth for 9 months and a budget collected to 100.1% of planFour German party foundations stop work in Georgia after Tbilisi rejects their grants
Politics

Three Caucasus capitals sell one corridor at the UN in a day: Kobakhidze’s $7 billion to 2032, Pashinyan’s 26% rising to 49%, and Bayramov’s direct dialogue with Mirzoyan

Irakli Kobakhidze told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Georgia will put $7 billion into its transit infrastructure by 2032, the railway’s modernisation, new highways, the Anaklia deep-water port, a new international airport for Tbilisi and a fibre-optic cable under the Black Sea, and that Georgia “reaffirms its readiness to maintain dialogue with all international partners willing to work with us on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality”; the words European Union did not occur in the speech, Novosti Gruzii noted on Friday morning, and 20% of the country “remains under the occupation of the Russian Federation”. The same day Nikol Pashinyan told the hall that Armenia “will initially have a 26 percent stake in the TRIPP Development Company” and that “in the 50th year, the Republic of Armenia’s share will become 49 percent”, Armenpress reported at 05:24 on Friday, and on the margins Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan reviewed the progress since the Washington summit and “agreed to continue direct dialogue”, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said through Report.az at 08:16.

By CAW Editorial25 September 2026
A railway switch seen from track level, the rails dividing into two lines running into a pale morning haze, one rail head catching an amber light.

Kobakhidze’s list is the July list with a sum and a date on it. At the Georgia-Turkmenistan business forum on 16 July the same prime minister named the railway’s modernisation, the East-West highway and the Anaklia port with no figure; in New York the figure was $7 billion, the horizon 2032, the airport and the cable were added, and free-trade agreements giving access to a market of 2.3 billion consumers were the frame, AnewZ reported. Novosti Gruzii counted what was missing: the words European Union, European integration and democracy, from a prime minister who in 2024 promised membership by 2030. Three governments sold the same railway to the same hall in one day.

Pashinyan’s numbers are a company’s. The TRIPP Development Company was written into the framework agreement signed in June and published on 16 July at 74% American and 26% Armenian for 49 years; the 50th year’s 49% puts a figure on what comes after. He named the railway Armenia does not have between its north and its south, “practically possible only through” Nakhchivan, and the line it would join: “a new railway connection will be opened between China, Central Asia, Türkiye and the European Union”. Russia’s place in the speech was a phase: relations “in a transformation phase, and this is a natural process”. Peace was dated to 8 August 2025 and “President Trump’s personal engagement”, and its dividend counted: two and a half years without a casualty from cross-border fire.

Three governments sold the same railway to the same hall in one day.

Baku’s version had gone first, on Wednesday night, when Bayramov told the US-hosted investors’ event that TRIPP’s potential goes beyond transport and named the Baku port and the Alat free zone as the hub; on Thursday he sat with Mirzoyan, “special attention” on “the unblocking of economic and transport infrastructure between Azerbaijan and Armenia”, in the ministry’s words. The corridor is the one foreign-policy sentence all 3 capitals can say without naming Brussels or Moscow, and each said it in its own currency: Tbilisi in dollars with a year, Yerevan in a share of a company whose capital is not public, Baku in a port it already owns.

The banker was the name Tbilisi left out. Brussels put “up to €12 billion” behind the Middle Corridor in the State of the Union speech on 16 September and called a connectivity summit with Bulgaria; Georgia’s $7 billion is a national sum with a date on the same route, and the speech that carried it had no sentence for the union that has put its own number on it. Yerevan cited the Commission’s trade measures; Baku cited Washington; Tbilisi cited sovereign equality. One railway, 3 capitals, and a hall that heard all 3 in a day.

More from