Valdai Club

On August 12, 2018, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed, in the Kazakh city of Aqtau, the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which had been developed by the Caspian littoral states for more than twenty years. With its signing the multilateral cooperation of the regional states is entering a new format, says Andrei Chebotarev, director of the Alternativa Center for Current Research (Kazakhstan).

The current year may mark an important step for Central Asian countries – constantly vacillating between rapprochement and disunity – toward the former. It is essential that they do so if there is to be a collective response to present-day global and regional challenges. There are also mutually beneficial economic, transport, logistical, cultural, humanitarian, and other projects to be implemented.