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The UK sanctions 4 Georgians for Kremlin disinformation and names Tskhinvali’s leaders
Britain’s package of 1 October lists 23 individuals and entities and 8 ships. Among them are 7 people “involved in spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation”, 4 of them Georgian nationals, and the serving and former heads of the Russian-installed authority in South Ossetia. The same evening a few dozen people rallied in Tbilisi’s Rike Park for Mikheil Saakashvili’s release, against the interior ministry’s refusal.
The Kremlin thanks Tokayev for his words on Putin as he flies on from Berlin to Munich
Russia values and is grateful for the assessment Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave of Vladimir Putin in Berlin, Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, and the two presidents’ close, constructive and trusting relations let them discuss the hardest questions of the international agenda, Ukraine included. Tokayev arrived in Munich on Wednesday afternoon for talks with Bavaria’s government and Landtag and a Kazakh-Bavarian technology forum, Kazinform reported at 14:45 Astana time.
Takaichi and Uchral: 35 minutes, an exchange of notes on the airport loan and a JETRO office
Takaichi Sanae received Nyam-Osor Uchral on Tuesday at 17:45 for 35 minutes and a working dinner, Tokyo’s foreign ministry said. The two welcomed the exchange of notes on the yen loan for the Chinggis Khaan airport expansion, agreed to open a JETRO office in Mongolia and to start talks on a tax convention, and Japan backed Mongolia’s bid for a Security Council seat in 2047.
PACE calls Armenia’s June vote a real choice made under Russian pressure of a new scale
Observers of the Council of Europe’s assembly, led by Damien Cottier of Switzerland, found that the 7 June election gave voters a real choice in a well-run process, under Russian interference on a scale their report says no member state has seen before, Armenian media reported on Monday as the assembly sat in Strasbourg. That plenary also elected Hayk Konjoryan, a vice-speaker of Armenia’s parliament, one of the assembly’s vice-presidents.
No political prisoner among Turkmenistan’s 1,054 pardoned, Turkmen.news reports
The list of 1,054 convicts pardoned for the 35th anniversary of independence contains no political prisoner and no member of the Baluch minority, Turkmen.news reported on Monday, citing its sources in the security agencies. The decree, which the outlet and Khronika Turkmenistana both date to Friday 25 September, is the first to free more than a thousand people at once since the anniversary pardon of 2023.
Tajikistan asks for its first UN Security Council seat, for 2028 to 2029
Foreign minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin told the General Assembly on Saturday that Tajikistan has put its name forward as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2028 to 2029, the first candidacy in its history, Asia-Plus reported on Monday afternoon. The vote comes in June 2027, when Kyrgyzstan will be six months into the first Central Asian seat since Kazakhstan’s in 2017 to 2018.
Turkmenistan pardons 1,054 prisoners for its 35th anniversary and names none of them
Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed the pardon decree at an enlarged sitting of the Cabinet and the State Security Council on Friday, two days after a Halk Maslahaty that had passed without one. The number sits between the 736 pardoned before the 2024 anniversary and the 1,180 of 2023, by the counts Turkmenportal and Fergana reported in those years.
Turkmenistan shuts its airspace to Iranian airlines, Tehran’s aviation authority says: the Dushanbe flights now go round through Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
A Varesh Airlines flight from Tehran to Dushanbe turned back on Thursday after 1 hour and 8 minutes in the air when Turkmenistan refused it passage through its airspace, the airline’s Dushanbe office told Asia-Plus, which published the account at 09:21 on Friday; the aircraft returned to Imam Khomeini airport and later flew the route through the airspace of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the Mashhad to Dushanbe service will take the same way round. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said on Thursday that Turkmenistan had refused Iranian airlines transit permits, its spokesman Majid Akhavan quoted by Iran International and relayed by News.az at 15:26; the airline tied the refusal to the sanctions on Iran the United States announced recently. No statement from Ashgabat had appeared on the state portal or on TDH by Friday morning.
Mongolia’s new justice minister declares 3 apartments worth 2.2 billion tugrik and shares in at least 6 companies, the anti-corruption agency’s register shows
G. Temuulen, sworn in as justice and home affairs minister on Tuesday, holds 3 apartments with a combined declared value of 2.2 billion tugrik and shares in at least 6 companies, gogo.mn reported from the Anti-Corruption Agency’s declaration register in the first hour of Wednesday, naming TTEM, Euroconstruction, Harte Gold Corp, Khanburgedei, Yarlag and Taobao Mongol among them. Dorgio.mn’s reading of the same register when the ruling party nominated him on 17 September lists the first 5 with Chemostemics as the sixth, and adds vehicles at 1.2 billion tugrik, livestock at 523 million, deposits of 94 million, loans of 303 million, his own annual income of 75 million and his family’s of 134 million.
Ashgabat sets the CIS summit and a Caspian ecological summit for Avaza on 9 October with Putin confirmed, as the Halk Maslahaty gathers 4 days before the 35th anniversary
Turkmenistan will host the CIS Council of Heads of State and a Caspian Ecological Summit in the Avaza national tourist zone on 9 October, and President Putin “again confirmed his participation” in both, the state news agency’s account of the 2 presidents’ telephone call on Tuesday says. The call came on Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s birthday; the same account has him congratulating Putin on the conduct of Russia’s State Duma election and wishing “the new composition of the Russian parliament fruitful work”. On Wednesday the Halk Maslahaty, the country’s supreme representative body, holds its regular session in Ashgabat’s Maslahat köşgi palace, with the velayat delegations in the capital since Monday, 4 days before the 35th anniversary of independence on Sunday.
Uzbekistan’s statement to the UN General Assembly goes to Saida Mirziyoyeva, the head of the presidential administration, a year after the president gave it himself
Saida Mirziyoyeva, head of the Presidential Administration, will speak for Uzbekistan in the general debate of the 81st General Assembly, which runs from Tuesday to Saturday and on Monday 28 September, Gazeta.uz reported on Tuesday, citing its sources. She met the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on the session’s sidelines on Monday, the state daily Yangi O’zbekiston reported at 08:15 on Tuesday; a year ago the 80th session’s debate heard President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
Tokayev names the 126 members of the People’s Council that replaces the Assembly of the People, and it meets on Wednesday
President Tokayev signed 2 documents on Tuesday: decree 1474, approving the composition of the Qazaqstan Halyq Kenesi, the People’s Council, with a list of 126 names, and order 331, convening its first session for 23 and 24 September in Astana, Akorda published. The constitutional law of 5 June, 298-VIII, calls the Council “the supreme constitutional consultative body representing the interests of the people of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, lets it submit draft laws to the Kurultai and initiate a national referendum, seats its members for 4 years in 3 groups of 42, from ethnocultural associations, from public associations and other non-profit organisations, and from maslikhats and public councils, and repeals the 2008 law on the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan.
Armenia’s parties have until Friday to register for the 25 October local elections, the last scheduled vote before the 2027 parliament is chosen
The Central Electoral Commission closed nominations on Monday for the local elections of 25 October and set 25 September as the registration deadline, Armenpress reported. Party lists will be voted in Artashat, Armavir, Gavar, Hrazdan, Goris, Meghri, Ijevan, Dilijan and other towns; Fioletovo and Shamiram vote by majority. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan used the evening’s independence-day address on Republic Square to name “the durability of the state” the country’s principal task and to ask citizens to strengthen it “with education, work and taxes paid”.
Ashgabat now counts 44 documents from its Seoul visit and turns to a Moscow commission
Turkmenistan's Cabinet met by video link on Friday 18 September. The state site's readout raises the Korean visit's tally to 44 signed documents, from the 29 listed by name last week, and turns to preparations for the 14th session of the Turkmen-Russian intergovernmental commission.
A Tbilisi appeal court swaps a 5-year sentence in the '4 October' case for 1 year and a plea; Kobakhidze says repentance is the price of release
The Tbilisi Court of Appeal on Friday approved a procedural agreement between prosecutors and Nikoloz Gventsadze, a marketing specialist and former lecturer at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs who was convicted in May of attempting to seize a strategic facility and of group violence during the 4 October 2025 attempt to storm the presidential palace: his 5-year sentence becomes 1 year in prison and 3 suspended, and he leaves prison in early October, NewsGeorgia reported. The same afternoon Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists in Batumi that Georgia has no prisoners of conscience and that the state is ready to forgive "each of them, if there is repentance and admission on their part".
Tokayev reappoints the heads of the Constitutional Court, the election commission and the audit chamber, and tells 8 new ambassadors Kazakhstan has to hold together
President Tokayev signed decrees on Friday appointing Elvira Azimova chairwoman of the Constitutional Court, Nurlan Abdirov chairman of the Central Election Commission and Alikhan Smailov chairman of the Higher Audit Chamber, the posts all 3 already held, Akorda's releases carried by Tengrinews and Zakon.kz show. In the afternoon he received the credentials of 8 ambassadors at the Palace of Independence and told them the doors of the state would stay open to them "because we need to hold together in this very restless and turbulent world".
Pashinyan's government drafts the Trump route company's charter the day after the court's ruling; Iran's ambassador asks Yerevan for a standing channel on the route
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a meeting on Thursday on the legal and contractual package of the TRIPP Development Company, its charter and the draft shareholder agreement, his office said, and discussions in that format will continue. The same evening Iran's ambassador, Khalil Shirgholami, said in remarks Armenia Today and NEWS.am reported that a joint institutionalised mechanism with Armenia's government would be the best way to address Tehran's concern about an American presence on the Armenia-Iran border.
Pashinyan calls the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative a threat to the peace and puts Kyarki inside 29,743 square kilometres; Shoigu declares Moscow’s crisis with Baku over
At a security conference in Yerevan on Thursday the Armenian prime minister named the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative a serious challenge and a threat to Armenia’s security, and drew the state’s border by the Soviet republic’s 29,743 square kilometres, with the Azerbaijani enclaves outside it and Artsvashen inside. In Moscow the same day Russia’s Security Council secretary said the crisis with Baku had been overcome by joint effort and that Russia “is not ready and will not finance” Armenia’s European integration.
A Tbilisi court gives Georgia's former security chief 13 years for bribes as parliament seats the fourth head of his old service
Grigol Liluashvili, who ran the State Security Service from October 2019 to April 2025, was convicted of taking bribes in an especially large amount as a group on all four episodes of the indictment, under article 338 of the Criminal Code, which carries 11 to 15 years. He denies the charges.
Georgia's parliament confirms Tamaz Borashvili as its fourth security chief in 18 months, 83 votes to none
Parliament approved Tamaz Borashvili as head of the State Security Service on Wednesday, Interpressnews reported at 12:36: 83 deputies voted for, none against, for a term the law sets at six years. He is the fourth holder of the post since April 2025. Anri Okhanashvili took it on 4 April 2025 and left on 23 August; Mamuka Mdinaradze was confirmed on 3 September 2025 and resigned on 21 April 2026; Gela Geladze followed and announced his resignation on Monday.