Latest Updates

The Annual Meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) commencing on 3 May 2003 is an opportunity to assess frankly and honestly the records of the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The capacity of security forces to both prevent and provoke conflict is increasingly recognised. Police forces can play a vital role in providing the security environment necessary for peaceful political and economic development, and are at the forefront of tackling international security issues, including drugs trafficking, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.

ICG’s first report on Kyrgyzstan, published in August 2001, highlighted the potential for crisis facing the country. International attention was then rarely focused on Central Asia but since September 2001 the region has suddenly registered on policy-makers’ agendas.

Competition for water is increasing in Central Asia at an alarming rate, adding tension to what is already an uneasy region.

For the past decade Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have all been involved in high stakes negotiations to define their respective borders. Strong-arm politics, economic pressures, shadowy backroom deals, nationalist sentiments, public dissatisfaction and an environment of mutual mistrust have marked this process.

In response to the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001, the United States and a broad though informal coalition of allies and like minded states are building up a military capability in Central Asia that will in all likelihood strike inside Afghanistan.

For most of the decade since it gained independence, Kyrgyzstan has been described as an island of democracy and stability in Central Asia. In comparison with other countries in the region, it has indeed carried out deeper economic reforms and allowed more room for civil society and opposition political activity. Recent developments, however, indicate that this stability is fragile, and that hard-won democratic gains are being eroded.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent states that emerged in Central Asia had to begin almost from scratch in building both military forces and security strategies.

All the new Central Asian republics have weathered a catastrophic economic storm with the collapse of the Soviet economy and a subsequent array of shocks including exclusion from the rouble zone, disruptive privatisation processes, the drought of 2000 and tumbling world cotton prices.