Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan summons Iran’s ambassador over posts calling the Registan Persian heritage
Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador Mohammad Ali Eskandari on Friday and handed him a note of protest over posts by Iranian missions that described Samarkand’s monuments as part of Persian civilisation, Gazeta.uz reported on Saturday. The posts answered a video that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recorded at the Registan on 19 October. Tashkent demanded their deletion.
Kazatomprom calls a second shareholder vote on supplying uranium to Rosatom’s Uranium One
Kazatomprom’s board will put the natural uranium supply contract with Uranium One, a Rosatom subsidiary, to shareholders again after a first vote went against it, with absentee voting from 25 November to 9 December. In Tashkent, Rosatom’s director general Alexei Likhachev said the company fears no competition for Uzbekistan’s next reactors and will offer its services.
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.
Tashkent signs a cooperation agreement with Oppenheimer on possible municipal bonds
The Tashkent city administration signed a cooperation agreement with Oppenheimer & Co.’s investment banking arm on 22 October after discussing access to international capital markets, including a possible municipal bond, the hokimiyat’s press service said. No amount, tenor or timing was named. A day earlier Andijan region had discussed a $300 million eurobond with the same bank.
US order on buyers of Russian oil and gas waives every duty and names no country
Executive Order 14436 reached the Federal Register on 21 October: four pages that set the Graham act’s duties and waive them, with its bank and secondary sanctions, in one text. The 100% duty on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas is tied to new purchases from 18 October, the five are unnamed, and the waivers run until the President or the Secretary of State decide otherwise.
Andijan region plans a $300 million eurobond through its own investment company
A delegation of Andijan region discussed with the US investment bank Oppenheimer raising $300 million on international capital markets through a eurobond issued by Andijon Invest Kompaniyasi, the regional administration’s press service said on 21 October. No tenor, coupon, timing or guarantee was named. The same bank offered in September 2025 to help finance three Andijan projects worth $1.2 billion.
TurkPA closes its 15th plenary in Bishkek with a declaration and the next session in Türkiye
The Bishkek Declaration ended the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States’ 15th plenary on Tuesday, the assembly’s site reported, after the speakers of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Türkiye, the Turkish Cypriot speaker as an observer and Uzbekistan’s Senate chair Tanzila Narbayeva as a guest had spoken. On the agenda were four model laws, the 2027 budget and the election of two deputy secretaries general.
Tashkent clears VEON’s Perfectum deal with conditions on tariffs and speed
A special commission approved the purchase of Rubicon Wireless Communication, the company behind Perfectum, by VEON’s UAE-registered holding for about $207 million including about $93 million of assumed debt, Spot reported on Tuesday from the committee’s Telegram channel. Perfectum must run as a separate operator for at least three years and keep its 5G fixed-wireless tariffs for a year.
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”.
Uzbekistan’s $12 billion US package: 54 documents, twelve names, one verb in dispute
The package presented at the Uzbekistan-United States Business and Investment Council in Samarkand on Monday 19 October names GE Aerospace, Wabtec, four American financial houses, three minerals firms and three others, with one sum for all. Its ministry says the 54 documents were signed, the presidency says prepared, and only AKFA Group’s $80 million plant in Kentucky came with a figure of its own.
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.
Mirziyoyev puts a second nuclear plant on the agenda, with investor talks the next day
Uzbekistan is preparing a second nuclear power plant and talks with investors on it were set for the following day, Shavkat Mirziyoyev told an open dialogue with fuel and energy investors on Friday 16 October, in the account a presidential administration official posted on Telegram and Spot relayed at 16:19 Tashkent time.
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.
Tashkent will index heating tariffs to inflation from May 2028, with a 10% ceiling a year
Centralised heating tariffs in Uzbekistan are to be indexed every year from 1 May 2028 by the annual inflation rate but by no more than 10%, deputy economy and finance minister Khurshed Mustafayev said on 14 October, Spot reported on Thursday evening. The same mechanism has applied to household electricity and gas tariffs since the start of 2026, he said.
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.
Tashkent drafts a 5,000-soum propane price from 1 November and a 3,000-soum subsidy
Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Economy and Finance has published a draft resolution that sets the retail price of liquefied gas for households at 5,000 soums a kilogram from 1 November, 2.5 times the current 2,000, and pays needy families back 3,000 soums a kilogram on up to 20 kilograms a month until 1 January 2030.
Four in five British seasonal farm visas go to Central Asians who buy the visa themselves
Britain granted 41,766 Seasonal Worker visas in the year to June 2026 and 79% went to Central Asians, with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan the countries the Home Office names. Its survey with Defra of 16,787 workers shows who paid: 90.1% said they bought their own visa, 63% spent £500 to £999 before arrival, and 26.8% of Uzbek respondents reported paying labour or migration ministry fees.
Four Central Asian presidents are in Baku for the seventh CICA summit
Tokayev, Mirziyoyev, Rahmon and Japarov are in Baku for the seventh summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia on 15 October, their third joint appearance in eight days. Azerbaijan closes two years in the chair with a Baku declaration expected, Laos is to be admitted as the 29th member, and the forum’s depositary and secretary general are Kazakh.
Astana says Russian gas keeps flowing after a pipeline blast and fire in Penza region
A section of the Central Asia-Centre trunk line ruptured and caught fire near the village of Volchkovo in Russia’s Penza region on 13 October, with a flame of about 70 metres, Gazprom Transgaz Saratov confirmed to Kursiv. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said that evening that Russian gas deliveries to Kazakhstan and transit to Uzbekistan were running to plan.