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.
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.
Georgia’s Constitutional Court rules today on summoning Ivanishvili in the party-ban case
Georgia’s Constitutional Court resumes its hearing on the banning of five opposition parties at 14:00 today, 26 October, after three days of sittings in Batumi. The plenum will first rule on a motion by Gakharia’s party to question Bidzina Ivanishvili and other Georgian Dream leaders as witnesses, then turn to the merits. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze says the five are in reality one party.
Lelo’s motions fall on day two in Batumi as Japaridze asks what the party is accused of
The Constitutional Court rejected every motion by Lelo Strong Georgia on the second day of hearing Georgian Dream’s suit to ban five opposition parties, including referral to the European Court of Human Rights and an invitation to Venice Commission experts, Badri Japaridze told reporters on 22 October. The hearing resumes on 23 October. A Georgian Dream committee chairman defended the new channel to Moscow.
Pashinyan calls the EAEU report a third attempt to change Armenia’s government
Asked on 22 October about the four governments’ report on suspending the EAEU treaty for Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan said member states have no right to expel a member and called the report a third attempt to change the government after 2023 and June 2026. He ruled out an economic apocalypse from gas at $300, and on Friday the CSTO’s secretary general said Armenia had de facto left that bloc.
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.
Aliyev approves the alliance treaty with Kyrgyzstan and takes Erdogan’s call about Ankara
Ilham Aliyev signed on 21 October the law approving the Treaty on Allied Relations between Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, signed at Cholpon-Ata on 31 July 2026, Report said at 17:13 Baku. The same evening Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned to repeat his congratulations on 35 years of independence and to invite Aliyev to the 13th Organisation of Turkic States summit in Ankara on 29 and 30 October.
Georgia’s party-ban court keeps its judges and Kobakhidze names a Russia envoy
On the first day of the hearing on banning five opposition parties, the Constitutional Court’s plenum rejected the motions to recuse its judges and removed a National Movement leader from the room for the rest of the proceedings. In Tbilisi the same afternoon Irakli Kobakhidze appointed Giorgi Zurabashvili his special representative for relations with Russia and said no new phase was beginning.
Armenia knows of no way to suspend an EAEU member, Mirzoyan says
Armenia’s foreign minister said on 21 October that his government knows of no legal mechanism by which four EAEU members can suspend a fifth, that sovereignty takes precedence over trade, and that he does not know how far a unilateral gas price rise would be in the spirit of partnership. Earlier that afternoon a parliamentary committee voted four to one for the TRIPP agreement with the United States.
Khurelsukh’s Berlin visit yields a declaration, a Frankfurt consulate and mutual driving licences
Foreign minister Batmunkh Battsetseg and state secretary Bernhard Kotsch of the Federal Foreign Office signed the Mongolia-Germany joint declaration in Berlin on Tuesday during the president’s state visit, Montsame reported. It puts renewable energy and the green transition first among economic priorities, keeps the joint university of minerals and technology and adds UN peacekeeping and mountain-infantry training to defence cooperation.
Georgia’s Constitutional Court opens hearings on a bid to ban five opposition parties
A lawsuit signed by 88 Georgian Dream MPs in the 150-seat parliament asks the Constitutional Court to declare five opposition parties unconstitutional: the United National Movement, the Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, the Federalist Party and Gakharia’s For Georgia. Substantive hearings run in Batumi on 21, 22 and 23 October, and the opposition will protest outside the court from 11:00 while its lawyers sit inside.
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”.
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan sign an EAEU appeal that prices a suspension of Armenia
The heads of government of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan sent the Eurasian Economic Commission on Tuesday a report on what suspending the union treaty for Armenia would cost: gas assumed at $300 instead of $177.50 a thousand cubic metres, trade with the union cut by 55.6%, remittances from Russia halved. Their appeal goes to four presidents and Armenia’s prime minister, two months before the presidents’ December date.
Armenia’s parliamentary committee takes up the TRIPP agreement on Wednesday
The National Assembly’s foreign relations committee debates the ratification of the framework agreement on strategic cooperation with the United States on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity on Wednesday 21 October, with Ararat Mirzoyan as rapporteur. Ratification itself falls to the plenary, which opens on 27 October.
Garibashvili’s bribery case goes to trial in open court after a hearing he did not attend
Judge Lela Kalichenko sent the former prime minister’s case to a hearing on the merits on Monday after the defence asked for its termination and the prosecution objected. The charge is a bribe of 1.5 million lari taken as part of a group, with 750,000 lari said to have passed through his former defence minister’s hands.
Kyrgyzstan takes the TurkPA chair from Kazakhstan with a mallet and a list of priorities
Aibek Dadebai, chairman of Kazakhstan’s Kurultai, handed the symbolic mallet of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States to Jogorku Kenesh speaker Marlen Mamataliev in Bishkek on Tuesday. The assembly’s 15th plenary session runs there on 19 and 20 October with the speakers of Azerbaijan and Turkey in the hall.
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.
Japarov leaves Yerevan with a roadmap to 2029, a travel agreement and a pension accord
Sadyr Japarov’s official visit to Armenia on 16 and 17 October ended with a joint statement with Nikol Pashinyan and a set of documents exchanged in Yerevan: a cooperation roadmap for 2027 to 2029, an agreement on procedures for citizens’ visits and stays, a memorandum on protecting Lakes Sevan and Issyk-Kul, a sister-city agreement between Yerevan and Bishkek and an agreement on cooperation in pension provision, Armenpress reported on Saturday.
Japarov needs no new language test as a failed hopeful reports a night with the police
Sadyr Japarov will not have to sit the state-language test if he stands on 27 January 2027, because the B2 certificate he earned as a candidate in 2020 does not lapse, Kyrgyztest’s head said on Saturday. One of the two hopefuls who failed its written part, ex-financial police chief Syimyk Japykeev, said on Monday he had spent the night at a police station, the police citing noise and drink.