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Dushanbe and Yerevan agree to convene their economic commission
Rahmon and Pashinyan used the SCO sidelines in Bishkek to line up the next session of the Tajik-Armenian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, with business forums to follow. No documents were signed.
Armenia opens a new case against the man who ran its taxes and treasury
The Investigative Committee announced a new criminal case against Gagik Khachatryan, a former finance minister and former head of the State Revenue Committee, and said he would be detained. Prosecutors want 210 properties, stakes in 29 companies and 33 billion drams, about $85 million, forfeited.
The SCO leaves Bishkek with 28 documents and two new centers
The 25th anniversary summit closed on 1 September with 28 signed texts, the Bishkek Declaration at the top: charter amendments that add two new bodies to the organization's structure, a roadmap for settling more trade in national currencies, and sectoral programs running to 2030.
Charter amendments top the SCO's anniversary pile in Bishkek
The organisation's heads of state met in Bishkek today over a Bishkek Declaration and more than 20 documents, charter amendments among them. The final texts were still unpublished as this edition went to print.
Aliyev and Pashinyan pace out the Trump route in Bishkek
Azerbaijan's president and Armenia's prime minister met on the margins of the SCO summit on 31 August and discussed what both readouts call further practical steps on the TRIPP corridor. For one afternoon the normalisation track between Baku and Yerevan ran through Kyrgyzstan.
Kazakhstan fills both posts in a morning, and the ten-day clock starts
The Kurultai approved Yerlan Karin as vice-president and Olzhas Bektenov as prime minister on 31 August, and Tokayev signed both appointment decrees within hours. The resignation Bektenov handed in on Friday lasted 3 days. The message is continuity; the new fact is the seat built beside the presidency.
Tokayev gives the Security Council its own apparatus
While the chamber waits for a prime minister's name, the president spent Saturday building a state body: the Security Council's apparatus, directly subordinate and accountable to him.
Moscow packs a referendum for Bishkek
The Kremlin has named the topic Vladimir Putin brings to Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek: the choice it wants Armenia to put to a vote.
The summit begins at dinner, and the declaration can wait
Xi Jinping opened his state visit with a Sunday-night dinner, Narendra Modi landed with his Tashkent deals already signed, and Moscow published its agenda before reaching the hall. The heads of state sit on Tuesday; the week they are meant to crown is already running.
Georgia's president pardons 9 from the protest cells
Mikheil Kavelashvili pardoned 9 people jailed across three waves of Georgian protest, from the 2024 marches against the foreign-agents law to last October's unrest, in an act the ruling party framed as answered petitions.
Lavrov answers the Kocharyan file with a referendum demand
Moscow's first comment above spokesperson level on Armenia's prosecuted ex-presidents arrived on Friday from Sergey Lavrov: the leadership in Yerevan is "guided by other tasks", the Eurasian membership on the table is worth $6 billion to $12 billion a year by his count, and the choice between Brussels and that union should go to a referendum without delay.
The Kurultai builds itself in an afternoon, and the government's clock waits on two names
Kazakhstan's new parliament finished its own construction on Friday: a speaker elected by secret ballot, three deputy speakers, 8 committees, all inside the opening sitting. The executive it faces stayed unbuilt. President Tokayev accepted the Bektenov cabinet's resignation in the morning and told deputies he will submit a prime minister and a vice-president once the chamber's structure stands, which by late afternoon it did.
Baku protests images displayed at its Moscow compound
Azerbaijan's foreign ministry condemned "provocative images against our country" displayed by unknown persons outside its embassy's guest house in Moscow around midday Thursday, and asked Russia for a legal assessment of the act.
Delhi and Islamabad close the Bishkek list
India and Pakistan put their confirmations on the record on Thursday: Narendra Modi attends Tuesday's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, and so does Shehbaz Sharif, at a table the Kyrgyz presidency counts at 21 heads of state. Four days out, the open question is what gets signed.
The Kurultai sits, and the government's mandate returns
Kazakhstan's new single-chamber parliament convened at 11:00 in Astana on Friday, 145 deputies seated and 110 of them from one party, with three acts on its opening table: a speaker to elect by secret ballot, the Bektenov cabinet's mandate to receive, and a first bill the president has already named.
Astana holds an Uzbek scholar on a spying charge, and neither capital will say why
Ikboljon Qoraboyev, a professor of international relations at Maqsut Narikbayev University in Astana and a citizen of Uzbekistan, has been in custody since 3 July under article 176 of Kazakhstan's criminal code, espionage, his family told the BBC's Uzbek service. Nearly 8 weeks later no institution in either capital has said what he is accused of doing.
Baku's media complaint goes on the record: 96 outlets
The number that reached the wires this week began as an interview. Azerbaijan's ambassador to Russia counted the Russian outlets running theses about his country at 96 or more, and asked Moscow for a political assessment and concrete measures. The count had circulated for days as a stray figure; now it has an author on the record.
Georgia's jailed ex-premier turns into a recruitment target
Irma Inashvili publicly invited Irakli Garibashvili to join her Alliance of Patriots: a political prisoner, in her reading, should answer with politics. The ruling party answers his letters from jail with one word, masquerade.
The Kurultai gets its names, and its first bill is about children
Kazakhstan's five parliamentary parties published their deputy lists ahead of Friday's opening session, and Tokayev has told the new chamber what he wants on its desk first: a ban on social-network registration for anyone under 16.
Two months for Kocharyan, ruled around a hospital bed
Armenia's Anti-Corruption Court granted the investigator's motion in full on Thursday morning: Robert Kocharyan, the country's second president, goes into detention for 2 months. The ruling landed while he lay in a hospital ward.