During a visit to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, a senior U.S. diplomat has urged Central Asian nations to deepen their cooperation to boost economic opportunities and strengthen security in the region, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.
Alice Wells, principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs at the U.S. State Department, told RFE/RL in a January 7 interview that Washington remains committed to working with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan through the so-called C5+1 format.
“I think there is a tremendous potential for C5 cooperation both within Central Asian countries but also with the United States and with the neighborhood,” Wells said.
Wells noted that “more opportunities” for such cooperation came after Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over the region’s most populous country, Uzbekistan, in 2016 following the death of Islam Karimov, whose 25-year rule was mainly isolationist.
“And we were actively seeking to take advantage of the opportunities to open borders and to [engage with] one another,” Wells said, adding that “there are also common counterterrorism concerns, particularly as countries of Central Asia are courageously taking up the challenge of bringing back foreign terrorist fighters.”
Wells spoke more than a month after a State Department official said the United States had “intensified” its bilateral diplomatic engagements with the five Central Asian nations.
