Valdai Club

Uzbekistan, like many of its partners in the Central Asian region, is interested in further expanding cooperation with many partners and economic groups, including the countries of South Asia. Thanks to such cooperation, it can jointly develop food and agroindustry cooperation projects, update and increase high-level technological potential, writes Valdai Club expert Ulugbek Khasanov for the 3rd Central Asian conference of the Valdai Discussion Club.

On July 25-26, Tashkent will host an international conference “Afghanistan: Security and International Development.” Valdai Club expert Ulugbek Khasanov writes why it is crucial to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a source of permanent threats for the neighbouring countries, to ensure the participation of all ethnic and religious groups in the country’s social, political, and economic life as a key pre-requisite for the completion of the process of national reconciliation.

In the modern world, many countries, due to the devaluation of the stabilising mechanisms of the international system, strive to pursue a pragmatic policy based primarily on their own interests. The realistic and objective perception of such interests is becoming a topical issue, as well as their correlation with history, geography, economic feasibility and reality, writes Ulugbek Khasanov, Head of Regional Security & Conflicts Study Lab., University of World Economics & Diplomacy (Uzbekistan).

The problems in Afghanistan have obviously dominated the approach to security in Central Asia over the past 40 years since the Saur Revolution. This is why the entire context and results of the June 2021 summits of the G7, NATO, US-EU and US-Russia came down to a number of strategically important issues on the global agenda in which Afghanistan occupied a key role, writes Ulugbek Khasanov, Head of Regional Security & Conflicts Study Lab., University of World Economics & Diplomacy, Uzbekistan.

After many years of conflict in Afghanistan, the destructive impact of a complex set of internal contradictions and the frequent change of priorities in the approaches of external players have further aggravated tensions in this strategically important part of Central Asia.

For all the problems, disputes and setbacks at the initial stage of the existence of the post-Soviet space, there was a steady search for ways to preserve and promote the erstwhile close cooperation seen as a balance to the protracted “disintegration” of the former unitary system.

The heads of government of the SCO, who met in early November 2019 in Tashkent, adopted a new version of the SCO multilateral trade and economic cooperation programme until 2035. It aims to strengthen the positive dynamics of the member states’ development in such segments as banking and finance, industrial, technological, transport and logistics, scientific and educational, social, information and digital technology.

If the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) hope to improve upon their traditional models for interaction, it will be important for them to enhance their ability to adapt to the new realities of the global economy