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Turkmenistan

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Two railway tracks cross a sand-coloured quay and end at a raised ferry ramp above slate blue sea water, an amber signal lamp beside the ramp.
PoliticsBrief26 Oct

Central Asia’s five foreign ministers meet Georgia’s in Batumi for the first time

The foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met Maka Botchorishvili in Batumi on Friday in the first meeting of this format, and visited the port with the head of Georgia’s Maritime Transport Agency. The Middle Corridor, digital freight documents and port and rail capacity filled the agenda. Botchorishvili called closer ties with Central Asia a key foreign policy priority for Georgia.

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  1. A gas compressor station with rows of air coolers and large pipes stands on flat desert at dawn, one amber light on a mast.
    EnergyAnalysis26 Oct

    Turkmenistan dates first TAPI gas to mid-2027 and ties it to the Afghan side’s readiness

    Turkmengaz expects about 80 billion cubic metres of gas this year and next, roughly half of it exported to China and Uzbekistan. Its chairman told the closing press conference of Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan 2026 on Friday that the Serhetabat to Herat section of TAPI should be complete by the end of this year, with first gas to Afghanistan by mid-2027 if the Afghan side is ready.

  2. An offshore platform in silhouette on calm water at dawn, with one amber navigation light on its rail.
    EnergyBrief23 Oct

    Turkmennebit and CNOOC sign on Caspian blocks among five OGT documents with no sums

    After the second day of Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan 2026 on 22 October the state concerns signed five documents: a Turkmennebit memorandum with CNOOC on blocks in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian, a services memorandum with Malaysia’s MPRC and three pipe-supply contracts with plants in Tashkent, Tianjin and Kazakhstan, News Central Asia reported. No values were published.

  3. A welded steel pipeline string on wooden skids running across flat desert to the horizon at dawn, with an open trench beside it and an amber survey ribbon on a stake.
    EnergyBrief22 Oct

    TAPI’s Herat section is 80% built and has two commissioning dates at the Ashgabat forum

    The 31st Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan conference opened in Ashgabat on 21 October with Galkynysh’s fourth phase, the TAPI pipeline and a Malaysian offshore deal as the government’s headline items. TAPI’s chief executive put the Serhetabat to Herat section at about 80% complete and due by the end of 2026. Turkmengaz’s chairman gave 2027 for the same section.

  4. A single lit match standing in sand before the open end of a huge pipeline section lying on the ground at dusk.
    EnergyBrief21 Oct

    Serdar Berdimuhamedov greets OGT-2026 with Galkynysh’s fourth phase and the Herat pipeline

    The 31st Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan conference opens in Ashgabat on Wednesday 21 October for three days under the motto “Energy. Partnership. Progress.” The president’s greeting, which the state portal published on Tuesday night, names the fourth stage of Galkynysh started in April, the Serhetabat-Herat pipeline at its final stage and the Caspian licence blocks, and gives no figure.

  5. Four folded documents in a row, each bound with a slate-blue wax seal, with a lump of amber sealing wax and a brass stamp beside them.
    PoliticsBrief21 Oct

    SCO governments sign four documents in Dushanbe and hand the council’s chair to Uzbekistan

    The 25th Council of Heads of Government signed a joint communiqué, a 2026-2030 trade and economic action plan, a digital freight platform concept and a decision on the regulation of a data bank of investment projects in industry on Tuesday, by the Russian government’s list. Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk said the meeting was “to a greater degree” about a new SCO bank, on whose shares it is “still too early to speak”.

  6. Six identical stone plinths with blank brass nameplates stand in a row against a navy wall, one nameplate lit by a shaft of amber light.
    PoliticsAnalysis20 Oct

    Samarkand gives the C5+1 a vision without figures as Trump says why the Graham act stays waived

    The statement the six foreign ministers adopted in Samarkand on Monday 19 October runs to six visions and names no sum, no sanction and no country outside the format. Tashkent supplied the sums, 54 agreements and initiatives worth about $12 billion by Mirziyoyev’s count, and Washington the reason the Graham act’s duties on Russian energy buyers stay waived: Trump is negotiating with Putin and can impose them at any time.

  7. Gas-processing columns and pipe racks in a flat desert at dawn.
    EnergyBrief19 Oct

    Ashgabat’s oil and gas week opens on Wednesday with 1,700 delegates and TAPI on the agenda

    The 31st Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan conference and exhibition, OGT 2026, runs in Ashgabat from 21 to 23 October with more than 1,700 registered delegates from 75 countries representing 450 companies, the state portal reported on Saturday 17 October. The Galkynysh field, the gas-transport network, the TAPI pipeline, Caspian cooperation and gas processing head the programme as the portal lists it.

  8. A raised customs barrier held up by a single taut cable over an empty border crossing lane at dusk.
    PoliticsAnalysis19 Oct

    Trump waives every Graham act duty two days before the deadline as Rubio reaches Samarkand

    An executive order signed on Friday 16 October adds a 500% duty to goods from Russia and 100% duties to the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and to five facilitators of evasion, then waives all three until the president or the secretary of state decides otherwise. Two days later Marco Rubio landed in Samarkand for Monday’s C5+1, with a business delegation and the duties set aside.

  9. A row of small slate-blue and brass bells down a long conference table toward a single larger amber bell at the far end.
    PoliticsAnalysis16 Oct

    Baku keeps the CICA chair to 2028 and an Azerbaijani takes the secretary general’s post

    The seventh CICA summit in Baku on 15 October extended Azerbaijan’s chairmanship to 2028, made Azerbaijani ambassador Sultan Hajiyev secretary general to 2030 and admitted Laos as the 29th member, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said. Kazakhstan founded the forum in 1992 and a Kazakh ran its secretariat until this week. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the members had agreed to turn CICA into a full international organisation, a line the ministry omits.

  10. Cutaway of a two-storey freight hall with a slate-blue steel frame, an amber crate on the upper floor and a lit rail tunnel below.
    PoliticsBrief15 Oct

    Meredov receives the EU envoy as a 10 million euro skills programme meets in Ashgabat

    Turkmenistan’s foreign minister met the European Union’s special representative for Central Asia, Eduards Stiprais, on 14 October, the ministry said, on the second day of the fifth high-level meeting of DARYA, a 10 million euro EU programme on skills for the five Central Asian states that the European Training Foundation runs.

  11. Six slate-blue bowls in a row on a wooden table beside a larger amber bowl.
    PoliticsAnalysis14 Oct

    Rubio brings 200 business leaders to Samarkand as the Graham act’s 30-day deadline arrives

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be in Samarkand between 17 and 22 October for the C5+1 ministerial, bilateral meetings with all five governments and a delegation of more than 200 business leaders, the State Department said on 13 October. Sunday 18 October is the thirtieth day of the Graham act, the deadline it sets for the president’s first duties on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas.

  12. Grouped bar chart of IMF real GDP growth forecasts for nine regional economies in 2026 and 2027, with a dashed amber line at 3.1 percent for world growth in 2026.
    EconomyBrief13 Oct

    The IMF slows seven of nine regional economies in 2026 and lifts Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan

    The IMF’s October World Economic Outlook, published on Tuesday, has growth slowing this year in seven of the nine economies CAW covers, with Kyrgyzstan still the fastest at 9% and Azerbaijan the slowest at 1.7%. Uzbekistan edges up to 7.8% and Azerbaijan gains too, from 1.4%. World growth slows to 3.1% in 2026 and recovers to 3.4% in 2027, the Fund says.

  13. Pale layered shore terraces left above a calm sea, with one amber gauge post standing at the waterline.
    PoliticsAnalysis9 Oct

    Five presidents create a Caspian commission as Aliyev and Putin differ on the cause

    The first Caspian Ecological Summit ended on Friday with a decision by the five heads of state to create a commission of three deputy prime ministers and senior Iranian and Russian representatives on the sea’s falling level, which meets first in Azerbaijan in the first half of 2027. Aliyev named reduced river flow and man-made factors among the causes beside the climate, Putin named climate change the main one.

  14. A long slate-blue conference table with eight open folders, each with a pen, and a ninth folder closed with an amber seal and its pen lying beside it.
    PoliticsAnalysis9 Oct

    CIS leaders sign 15 documents at Avaza and Azerbaijan is absent from the memory statement

    Azerbaijan is not among the eight signatories of the statement on historical memory adopted at Avaza on Friday, by the Kremlin’s text, one of 15 documents signed as the Commonwealth’s 35th-anniversary council handed the chair to Uzbekistan from 1 January and heard Mirziyoyev invite the leaders to Bukhara next year and Aliyev offer to chair in 2028. Iran’s president sat in for the first time.

  15. A tall leaning stack of paper sheets on a sand-coloured table, two sheets lifted off the top and held by a single amber clip.
    PoliticsAnalysis9 Oct

    Six leaders sign two documents at Avaza as Tokayev counts 200 initiatives and few results

    The eighth consultative meeting of Central Asia’s heads of state, the first with Azerbaijan as a full member, closed on Thursday with a joint statement and a decision on its own rules, and handed the 2027 chair to Baku. Tokayev told the five that more than 200 initiatives have been raised since 2018 and only a small part carried out, while Putin, Pezeshkian and Lukashenko landed for Friday’s CIS summit.

  16. A concrete dam spilling water through three gates at dusk with a single amber lamp on the parapet.
    EconomyBrief8 Oct

    Four of the commission’s five members set the Syr Darya’s winter regime at Avaza

    The Interstate Coordination Water Commission’s 95th session agreed water-withdrawal volumes and reservoir regimes for the 2026 to 2027 non-growing season on Wednesday, after Shardara received 3.69 billion cubic metres in the growing season, 840 million above forecast, by Kazakhstan’s water ministry as Kazinform carried it. The Turkmen chair’s readout and the Kazakh one name four delegations, and neither names Kyrgyzstan.

  17. An empty long table on a seaside terrace at sunset with five blue chairs and a single closed amber folder at the last seat.
    PoliticsAnalysis8 Oct

    Avaza’s first day ends with four CIS decisions and no word on the Caspian ministers

    The CIS foreign ministers signed four documents at Avaza on Wednesday, among them a decision making 2029 the Commonwealth’s transport year, and fixed their next council for Bishkek in April 2027. Listed for the same day in the host’s programme, the Caspian states’ ministers had no readout on Turkmenistan’s state portal, TDH, the foreign ministry’s site or News Central Asia by Thursday morning as the presidents landed.

  18. A mooring rope stretched from an iron ring on a stone quay down to a small wooden boat resting on dry, cracked sand, with the water far off.
    OpinionOpinion7 Oct

    Three summits come to Avaza while the sea beside them is leaving

    A volunteer with a camera found a new island off Kulaly days before the presidents arrive on the Turkmen shore. Moscow’s aide names the climate as the cause of the shallowing. The river that feeds the sea is Russia’s.

  19. A weathered wooden level post with an amber band standing on a cracked, dry seabed, an old shoreline curving away to a thin strip of water on the horizon.
    PoliticsAnalysis7 Oct

    The Kremlin confirms a Caspian summit on Friday that Turkmenistan’s programme post omits

    Vladimir Putin will speak on 9 October at a Caspian Ecological Summit in Turkmenistan where all five Caspian leaders are to speak and a declaration on the sea’s ecological problems, shallowing included, is expected, his aide Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday evening. The CIS foreign ministers meet at Avaza on Wednesday with Sergei Lavrov, and the Caspian states’ ministers meet the same day, by the state portal’s programme.