Politics
Power and governance
Pashinyan asks parliament to found the Fourth Republic
Nikol Pashinyan presented the 2026-2031 government programme to the National Assembly on Monday as a change of state: "the Republic of Armenia is transitioning to the historical phase we call the Fourth Republic", built to deliver peace, freedom and security inside 29,743 square kilometres.
Five parties are in, and the observers split over the count
Kazakhstan's election commission gave the Kurultai vote its first official numbers on Monday: Adilet at 71.17%, five parties past the 5% bar, turnout trimmed overnight to 74.08%. By evening the OSCE's mission had assessed more than a third of the counts it watched negatively, while the CIS, SCO and Turkic missions cleared the vote in full.
Avaza pins three summits to three October days
Turkmenistan's government site lists the dates of the autumn in Avaza: Caspian environment ministers on 7 October, the Consultative Meeting of Central Asian heads of state with Azerbaijan on 8 October, and a session of the CIS Council of Heads of State on 9 October.
Azerbaijan takes a seat at Central Asia's table
Ilham Aliyev and Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a Treaty on Eternal Friendship in Tashkent on Sunday and chaired the third session of their Supreme Interstate Council. The document that travels furthest is procedural: Azerbaijan's full participation in the Consultative Meetings of Central Asian heads of state, a format that now runs across the Caspian.
Exit polls give Kazakhstan a five-party Kurultai, and the government prepares to resign
Kazakhstan's first Kurultai election closed on Sunday with turnout of 74.19% and every published exit poll giving Adilet about 7 votes in 10. The official result is due by 30 August; the appointments that follow it, a resigning cabinet and the country's first vice-president, are due within days of the count.
Ten days before the guests, Bishkek audits the preparations
The city hosting the SCO summit has ordered a check of what the preparations cost. At Thursday's municipal collegium, mayor Aibek Dzhunushaliev's departments were told to verify expenditure on the summit and the World Nomad Games and to inform law enforcement "in the established manner".
Georgia's jailed ex-premier says the pressure now reaches his father
Irakli Gharibashvili, 8 months in custody, has sent a third statement out of prison. In a letter passed through an intermediary, netgazeti reports, he describes pressure to give evidence and a threat of arrest hanging over his 65-year-old father.
Ashgabat opens its hosting season with a Tajik signature
Serdar Berdimuhamedov received Tajik foreign minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin on Thursday, and the two foreign ministries signed a cooperation program for 2027 and 2028. The reception is advance work for an autumn in which Avaza hosts two summits.
Armenia's cabinet approves a programme for the Fourth Republic
Armenia's government adopted its 2026 to 2031 programme on Thursday and cleared it for parliament, turning this week's agenda item into a five-year contract that reaches from the Baku peace file into the affairs of the Armenian Church.
Yerevan promises everyone a deepening, and Moscow sends the first invoice
The programme Armenia's cabinet takes up on Thursday lists partners from Washington to the EAEU for deeper relations, all at once. One of those partners has already put a price on its line: Rosselkhoznadzor is asking for inspection results and a written compliance programme.
Kazakhstan's first Kurultai campaign ends with 59,000 questions
Wednesday night's television debates closed the argument phase of Kazakhstan's first elections to the Kurultai, the 145-seat single chamber replacing the Senate and the Mazhilis. Two campaign days remain; the country votes on Sunday.
Baku's wanted list reaches into a Moscow ministry
Aleksey Chadayev, an adviser to Russia's transport minister, announced his resignation late Tuesday after Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office charged him and 2 media figures over summer livestreams and put them on a wanted list. Russia's foreign ministry, for its part, has stepped back from the commentators: their views, it says, in no way reflect Moscow's position.
The Middle Corridor is one row in Washington's tariff table
Caucasus and Central Asia holds 4 names together: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, filed under Belt-and-Road Overland Nodes. That label does more work than any of the coverage that trickled into regional media this week.
Kazakhstan’s foreign vote loses 3 stations before Sunday
Polling stations in Ukraine, Iran and Ethiopia will not open for the 23 August Kurultai election, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, as ballots go out to 70 stations abroad and the campaign closes tonight on television.
Baku hands Moscow’s envoy a list of 3 broadcasts
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry summoned Russian ambassador Mikhail Yevdokimov on Tuesday and lodged what it called a firm protest over “provocative, insulting and threatening statements” about Azerbaijan’s state, people and leadership in Russian media.
Washington's transshipment map reaches the region, and Tbilisi demands facts
A White House report on Chinese tariff evasion places Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in one category of small transit economies, and on Tuesday Georgia's prime minister answered it: show a fact.
Seven leaders draw lots for the last word before Saturday
Kazakhstan's seven party leaders draw lots Tuesday morning, live on 24KZ, for the speaking order in Wednesday's final televised debate, the last set piece of the campaign before Saturday's Kurultai election.
Armenia changes its military police chief while Delhi's defence secretary is in town
President Vahagn Khachaturyan appointed Major General Aram Hovhannisyan chief of the military police on Monday, on Nikol Pashinyan's recommendation, the second security appointment inside a week. The same day, the general staffs of Armenia and India exchanged a new cooperation framework.
In Chon-Gara the border swap becomes citizenship paperwork
The Uzbek and Kyrgyz interior ministries met in Kadamjai on Monday and built the machinery for moving people, property and citizenship across the territories the two states are exchanging. In Chon-Gara, a village now under Kyrgyz jurisdiction, registration has already begun.
Pashinyan answers Baku on Metsamor and replaces his Security Council secretary
Armenia’s prime minister broke a day and a half of silence to answer Ilham Aliyev point by point without naming him, and in the same week replaced his Security Council secretary of eight years, the man reported to have run the quiet channel to Baku.