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The Washington peace marks its first year in phone calls and freight
Nikol Pashinyan spent the anniversary of the 8 August 2025 Washington summit on the phone, first with Ilham Aliyev, then with Donald Trump. The operative line came in the second call: construction of the TRIPP corridor is to start “in the near future”.
Three agreements and one grievance arrive at Issyk-Kul
The 47th Eurasian Intergovernmental Council opens in Cholpon-Ata on Thursday with three agreements prepared for signature and a warning from Yerevan already on the record.
A first survey seats two parties in the Kurultai
Eighteen days before Kazakhstan elects its first Kurultai, the one party rating published in the campaign gives Adilet 65.1% and puts every other party except Auyl under the 5% bar.
The premiers follow the presidents to the lake
The EAEU’s heads of government meet in Cholpon-Ata on 6 and 7 August, the Kyrgyz cabinet confirmed on Tuesday, giving the same shore its second summit inside a week. For Nikol Pashinyan it would be a first multilateral room since his reappointment, three days after his cabinet was re-decreed.
Armenia’s cabinet comes back in a day with one new name
Eleven of twelve ministers returned to their chairs on Monday, the day after Nikol Pashinyan’s reappointment; the one new face runs high-tech industry. The parliament’s new speaker is Ruben Rubinyan, the man who has led the normalization talks with Turkey.
A US visa now takes a $15,000 deposit from three Central Asian states
The State Department made its visa-bond rule permanent on 3 August. Applicants from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan will generally post $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 to receive a tourist or business visa. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are not on the list.
Pashinyan is reappointed the day his government resigns
Armenia’s new National Assembly convened on Sunday morning; the same day the government resigned by force of the constitution and President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed Nikol Pashinyan back in.
A declaration at the lake, and a refinery on the table
Six presidents signed the Cholpon-Ata Declaration on Friday, and Tajikistan used the occasion to propose a regional refinery - an idea that the region's fuel squeeze has increasingly reinforced.
Ulaanbaatar brings dust storms to the COP17 table
Mongolia and UNESCAP will launch a regional initiative on sand and dust storms at COP17 in August, built with the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat of China, Japan and South Korea.
Bishkek signs its second alliance in two days
Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan signed a Treaty on Allied Relations at Cholpon-Ata on Friday morning, a day after Bishkek concluded a treaty of the same rank with Tashkent. Two alliances in two days make the lakeshore summit a working one.
Bishkek and Tashkent sign an alliance as the summit gathers
Sadyr Japarov and Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a Treaty on Allied Relations at Cholpon-Ata on 30 July and agreed to create a Supreme Interstate Council. By nightfall Emomali Rahmon and Ilham Aliyev had landed in Kyrgyzstan for the Central Asia–Azerbaijan summit.
Ulaanbaatar counts 4,127 delegates, and rations its traffic
Registration for the UN desertification conference COP17 reached 4,127 delegates, the state agency MONTSAME reported on 29 July, against the more than 2,000 it reported days earlier. The capital will run even-odd licence-plate restrictions from 15 August to 12 September.
The region’s diplomacy moves to a Kyrgyz lakeshore
Shavkat Mirziyoyev departed for Kyrgyzstan on Thursday morning on a state visit that runs into a Central Asia–Azerbaijan summit at Cholpon-Ata from 30 July to 1 August. Ilham Aliyev arrives on a state visit of his own.
Washington picks up the phone on the CPC
Kazakhstan’s foreign minister Yermek Kosherbayev and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the crisis around the Caspian Pipeline Consortium by phone on 29 July. No earlier cabinet-level American engagement with the route’s security has surfaced in the wires since the drone attacks began on 17 July.
Moscow answers Yerevan through its foreign intelligence service
A day after Pashinyan asked Putin to lift the export restrictions, the Kremlin briefing dealt with an EU referendum and the Foreign Intelligence Service issued four statements on what leaving the Eurasian Economic Union would cost Armenia.
Xi Jinping comes to Bishkek for the summit days
China’s president will make a state visit to Kyrgyzstan on 31 August and 1 September, the days of the SCO summit. The file named first is the railway.
Tashkent sacks its energy minister, and four utilities go on probation
Jurabek Mirzamahmudov was released on Monday. Mirziyoyev located the failure in management of the system and gave the heads of four state energy companies until the end of the year.
Tokayev asks for a freeze in Omsk, and Moscow answers in a day
Standing beside Putin, Kazakhstan’s president proposed freezing the war and returning to the Istanbul terms. The Kremlin called a freeze impossible the following morning.
Bishkek gets the SCO summit, and five weeks to prepare
The organisation’s foreign ministers are meeting on Issyk-Kul through Friday to prepare a leaders’ summit already set for Bishkek on 31 August and 1 September, in the SCO’s twenty-fifth year. Kyrgyzstan will host the region’s heads of state a week after Kazakhstan votes for its first Kurultai and days after the UN desertification conference closes in Ulaanbaatar.
SCO foreign ministers meet on Issyk-Kul
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s council of foreign ministers convenes in Cholpon-Ata on 23 and 24 July, with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Belarus’s Maxim Ryzhenkov among those attending. Kyrgyzstan hosts it in the week neighbouring Kazakhstan lost a fifth of its oil production to drone strikes on an export route that runs through another member state’s territory.