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Ankara seeks a Black Sea moratorium on attacks after 73 ships were hit this year
Türkiye is pressing Russia and Ukraine to accept a Turkish draft moratorium on attacks against civilian commercial vessels in the Black Sea, modelled on the 2022 grain deal but covering all cargo, Hürriyet Daily News reported on Friday from Turkish media, with 73 vessels attacked since January and 52 of them linked to Türkiye. Hakan Fidan said on Thursday the sea must never become a new front.
Dushanbe takes fuel supply to the US envoy as Russia ships 73% of its oil products
Energy and water minister Daler Juma discussed the supply of Tajikistan’s domestic market with oil products with the US charge d’affaires in Dushanbe on Thursday, the ministry reported, without naming sources or volumes. Tajikistan imported 1.37 million tonnes of fuel and liquefied gas worth $1.13 billion in nine months, and Russia supplied 73.2 per cent of the oil-product bill, by Asia-Plus’s count.
Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejects the opposition’s challenge on the Catholicos clause
The Constitutional Court refused on Friday to examine a petition by the Strong Armenia and Armenia factions against the National Assembly’s decision approving the government programme, which envisages the removal of Catholicos Karekin II, ruling that programme provisions are political statements without normative content. Speaker Ruben Rubinyan also signed the order composing a parliamentary inquiry committee on the clergy that only majority deputies joined.
Azerbaijan’s GDP grows 1.5% in nine months as the oil sector shrinks 1.2%
Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product reached 102.0 billion manats in January to September, 1.5 per cent more than a year earlier, the State Statistics Committee reported on Friday, with the oil and gas sector down 1.2 per cent to 30.3 billion and the rest of the economy up 2.6 per cent to 71.7 billion. Budget revenue ran 2.8 per cent above plan.
S&P affirms Mongolia at BB- as the central bank tells MPs inflation hit 13% in July
S&P affirmed Mongolia’s BB- rating with a stable outlook on 8 October, the government’s communications office reported on Friday, with net external debt seen falling from 184 per cent of current account receipts in 2020 to 58 per cent this year. A day earlier central bank governor Narantsogt told MPs inflation reached 13 per cent in July and policy stays tight until it returns to about 5.
Georgian prosecutors investigate a central bank board member over an alleged crypto stake
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia opened an investigation on Friday into Nana Keinishvili, a member of the National Bank’s board since September 2023, under article 337 of the Criminal Code on illegal participation in entrepreneurial activity by a public official, acting on statements and audio recordings that the crypto operator Bitexchange sent to the bank. The board will consider her temporary recusal at its next sitting, the bank said.
Kobakhidze calls the European Parliament worse than the Supreme Soviet of the late 1980s
Georgia’s prime minister answered Thursday’s 445-vote resolution on Friday by saying the European Parliament reminds him of the Supreme Soviet, which in his words was in better shape in the 1980s, while Speaker Shalva Papuashvili counted the ninth hostile resolution and Kakha Kaladze called them riddled with lies. EU foreign ministers take up Georgia under current affairs in Luxembourg on Monday.
Putin, Aliyev and Pezeshkian hold the first three-way summit since 2017 at Avaza
Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Masoud Pezeshkian held a trilateral meeting after the Caspian Ecological Summit on Friday, Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Interfax, the first sitting of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran format since Tehran in November 2017. APA’s correspondent reported the North-South transport corridor as the main topic, Aliyev then received Pezeshkian separately, and Putin boarded his plane at Turkmenbashi after two full-format bilaterals in two days.
Kazakhstan’s current account turns to a $2.4 billion surplus as the tenge slips to 448.94
Kazakhstan’s current account showed a surplus of $2.4 billion, or 1.6 per cent of GDP, in the first half of 2026 after a deficit of $13.1 billion for the whole of 2025, the Ministry of National Economy said on Friday from National Bank data, the first surplus in three years. For Friday the official dollar rate is 448.94 tenge, up from 447.14 on Thursday.
ADB grants Tajikistan $20.5 million to digitise pensions for 250,000 pensioners
The Asian Development Bank approved a $20.5 million grant on 2 October to modernise Tajikistan’s Agency of Social Insurance and Pension, $19.5 million of it from the Asian Development Fund and $1 million from the Japan-financed High-Level Technology Fund, by its release from Dushanbe. A new platform is to serve 320,000 contributors and 250,000 pensioners, and $12.32 million comes from ADB’s Middle East conflict package.
Britain sanctions a Kyrgyz Finance Ministry payment company and two Bishkek processors
The UK Sanctions List added Processing KG, whose sole shareholder is Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Finance, its director Ulan Bukabaev, TokenSpot and Tsunami Payments on Thursday under the Russia regime, 24.kg reported at 21:22 Bishkek time from the Foreign Office’s notice. All three face an asset freeze and a ban on payments through them, and London cites reasonable grounds to suspect business of economic significance to the Russian government.
Armenian and Azerbaijani officials meet in Goris on where TRIPP’s power lines will run
Representatives of the relevant structures of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a technical meeting in Goris on Thursday on the placement of power transmission lines within the TRIPP project, Armenia’s Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure and Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers said in near-identical texts the same afternoon. The sides discussed technical questions, coordination between their bodies and the next steps needed to move the work forward.
US, Korean and Chinese companies eye UzAuto Motors as Navoiazot’s pre-sale clean-up begins
Companies from the United States, South Korea and China have shown interest in buying UzAuto Motors, the director of Uzbekistan’s State Assets Management Agency Sohibjon Murodov said at a press conference on Thursday, adding that the carmaker goes to open international tender whoever asks. Navoiazot’s financial recovery has begun, and Paynet’s sale went by a pre-emptive right, he said, by Spot.
Mongolia opens the 450 MW Tavan Tolgoi plant to private builders on a 30 to 70 split
Tavan Tolgoi’s 450 MW thermal power plant will be built as a public-private partnership in which the state-owned Tavan Tolgoi company invests up to 30 per cent and private capital the rest, with the selection to go to the Cabinet next week, Economy and Development Minister J. Enkhbayar told the Economic Standing Committee on Thursday, by ikon.mn. On Wednesday the Cabinet backed investment agreements for three more plants.
A Bishkek court jails Kadyr Atambayev for four years over a plot to seize power
The Pervomaisky district court of Bishkek convicted Kadyrbek Atambayev, the former president’s son known as Kadyr, of violent seizure of power under article 326 of the Criminal Code on Thursday and gave him four years with confiscation, the Bishkek outlet Economist.kg reported from the court’s registry. Social Democrats leader Temirlan Sultanbekov received four years, merged with his 2025 vote-buying sentence into seven, and former deputy Kubanychbek Kadyrov was acquitted.
Rospotrebnadzor ends the Irkutsk watch as Armenia’s new commission sits for the first time
Medical observation of every contact of the laboratory worker who died in Irkutsk has ended, the whole set of preventive measures was completed on 8 October and more than 5,500 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogen, Rospotrebnadzor said on Thursday, calling social-media reports of a second case false. In Yerevan an interdepartmental commission created by the prime minister’s decision held its first meeting the same evening.
Pashinyan calls the Shaki shooting an ordinary crime and keeps the trial in Armenia
The Azerbaijani serviceman held over the 1 October shooting in Shaki will be tried in Armenia’s courts and, if sentenced to prison, will serve the term in Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan told the National Assembly on Wednesday, calling the incident “an ordinary criminal situation”. Defence Minister Suren Papikyan acknowledged shortcomings over the border crossing and said the man did not resist arrest, which to him shows he was no saboteur.
Bulgaria ends the search for ten sailors as Erdoğan raises Black Sea safety with Putin
Bulgaria ended the search for the ten crew of the Turkish-owned Alfa Watan at 17:00 on Tuesday after finding three life rafts, an overturned lifeboat and no one, and expects the second ship hit, the Able, to sink, its rescue chief Rumen Nikolov said in Varna on Wednesday, by Euronews. The same day Erdoğan told Putin by telephone that navigational safety in the Black Sea matters.
Britain’s trade minister sits in Akorda as UK Export Finance takes a seat in Yerevan
Tokayev received Lord Anas Sarwar, the UK Minister of State for Trade, on Wednesday and invited Prime Minister Andy Burnham to visit, citing trade up 83% in 2025 to over $1.6 billion and more than 500 British companies, by Akorda’s readout as Zakon carried it. The same evening the first Armenia-United Kingdom Business Forum drew about 2,000 participants and a UK Export Finance team to Yerevan, by Armenpress.
Mongolia drops the fuel duty to zero at three Chinese crossings through the end of 2028
The Cabinet approved on Wednesday a resolution setting the customs duty on 92-octane petrol and diesel imported through Zamyn-Üüd, Bulgan and Shiveekhuren at zero from 21 October 2026 to 31 December 2028, by the government’s readout on the public broadcaster MNB. At the same sitting export revenue was reported at $16.6 billion for nine months, up 54%, and reserves at a record $8.9 billion.