By Vali Kaleji 

While the Armenian government appears to seek a short-term balance between the U.S. and Russia in the railway sector, its long-term objective is to end Russia’s monopoly and extensive influence over this critical infrastructure in Armenia. The realization of this objective, as well as reforms in the electricity and gas sectors, largely depends on the outcome of the decisive parliamentary elections on June 7, 2026. These elections will determine whether Armenia returns to its pre-2018 foreign policy orientation or continues its recent trajectory toward closer alignment with the West.

 Photo by Denis Belitsky, 2023

BACKGROUND:

On 13 February 2008, Armenia signed an agreement transferring full control of the state-owned Armenian Railways to South Caucasus Railway (Yuzhno-Kavkazskaya zheleznaya doroga, YuKZhD), a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian Railways (RZhD). Subject to mutual agreement, the contract may be extended until 2048. The agreement followed a concession model, transferring operational, managerial, and investment responsibilities to the Russian side. Although ownership of the railway infrastructure formally remained with the Armenian government, operational control, investment decisions, tariff policy, and network development were effectively placed under Russian authority, constituting influence without formal ownership.

The 2008 railway agreement was effectively a continuation, and one of the consequences, of the 2002–2003 “debt-for-assets” agreement between Armenia and Russia, which settled Armenia’s US$ 96 million debt to Russia. The 30-year concession agreement is widely regarded as a major turning point in the development of Russia’s structural influence over Armenia’s economy and infrastructure in the post-Soviet period. Under the debt-for-assets arrangement, ownership or management of six major industrial and economic assets in Armenia, including electricity, gas, electronics, and defense-related sectors, was transferred to Russia, facilitating Russian dominance and influence in other sectors, including railways and telecommunications.

To reduce this monopoly and dependency, the Armenian government signed an agreement with Iran in 2009, one year after the 30-year concession agreement, to construct the “Marand–Norooz–Meghri–Yerevan” railway. Russia opposedthe project, and despite considerable efforts by Armenia, the railway was never realized, leaving Russia’s monopoly over Armenia’s railway network intact.

Plans to revive Soviet-era railway routes in the southern South Caucasus failed to materialize in the transformed regional environment following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. However, the peace agreement signed by Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan at the White House on August 8, 2025, marked a new phase in the construction and integration of road and railway routes in southern Armenia. Nevertheless, despite the completion of approximately 80 percent of the 110-kilometer Horadiz–Aghband railway line in southwestern Azerbaijan (around 140 kilometers including auxiliary routes), and Turkey’s initiation of a new 224-kilometer railway line from Kars to the Nakhichevan border, scheduled for completion before 2030, the rehabilitation and construction of the railway line in southern Armenia has yet to begin.

In these circumstances, during a press briefing on February 13, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that a country maintaining “friendly relations” with both Russia and Armenia could “purchase the concession management rights” of Armenia’s railways, which are currently under Russian management. He presented this as a potential solution to Armenia’s loss of “competitive advantage” by having international routes pass through the country. When asked which states could assume such a role, Pashinyan mentioned Kazakhstan, the UAE, and Qatar, while noting that the list was not exhaustive.

IMPLICATIONS:

Pashinyan’s recent statements may represent the latest step by the Armenian government to reduce the country’s dependence on Russia in the infrastructure sector. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian control and influence over Armenia’s railway network and railway management became particularly significant due to Armenia’s status as a landlocked country. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia’s railway routes with Azerbaijan (the eastern route) and Turkey (the western route) were closed. The disruption of railway connections between Armenia and Azerbaijan also severed Armenia’s rail link with Iran via the Julfa–Nakhichevan route. Consequently, over the past three decades, Armenia’s only active railway connection has been the northern route, a Soviet-era railway line running through Georgia to Russia and the Black Sea. Notably, despite the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Russia and Georgia following the August 2008 war, this railway corridor, like the road route, has remained open and operational.

The absence of Armenia’s railway connectivity in three directions, eastward towards Azerbaijan, southward towards Iran, and westward towards Nakhichevan and Turkey, and the country’s dependence on the northern route through Georgia to Russia significantly strengthened the monopoly position and influence of the Russian-controlled South Caucasus Railway company. The Armenian government’s new approach therefore represents a step toward reducing Russia’s monopoly and influence over Armenia’s railway infrastructure, while also diversifying the country’s rail connections.

However, the most noteworthy aspect is Russia’s continued presence in these developments. Although Russia was excluded from the agreements reached during the Washington summit, it nevertheless expressed readiness to discuss possible participation in the Trump Route with Armenia. Mikhail Kalugin, Director of the Fourth CIS Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, argued that “there are ample grounds” for such involvement. Among other points, Kalugin referred to South Caucasus Railway, which “holds a concession to manage Armenia’s railway network.”

On the other hand, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan revealed that he had asked Russia to “urgently address” the full restoration of railway sections adjacent to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan and the Turkish border. The issue concerns three key railway sections: Yeraskh–Nakhichevan, Gyumri–Kars, and Ijevan–Gazakh. Pashinyan stated that he had raised the matter with Russia more than a month earlier.

However, the Armenian government appears to support Russian participation and investment only in railway sections located outside the so-called “Trump Route.” Addressing possible Russian involvement in the project, Nikol Pashinyan stated that the route is a bilateral initiative with the U.S., adding that “any third-party involvement can be discussed only bilaterally.” Pashinyan also responded to the South Caucasus Railway’s expressed readiness to transfer only the Meghri railway section, through which the Trump Route is expected to pass, from its administration to Armenia, arguing that the statement reflected a “misunderstanding.” “The [Meghri railway] section is not under Russian management for it to be handed over to Armenia. It is Armenia’s sovereign territory, and we have not delegated the management of that sovereign territory to anyone. There is no railway there to be managed by anyone,” Pashinyan stated.

In fact, as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk stated, the Russian Federation has decided to begin substantive negotiations on the restoration of two sections of Armenia’s railway network that would reconnect Armenian railways with the railway network of the Republic of Azerbaijan near the town of Yeraskh and with the railway network of the Republic of Turkey near the settlement of Akhuryan. The total length of the sections to be restored has been announced as 1.6 kilometers and 12.4 kilometers, respectively. All of these sections exclude southern Armenia, through which the Trump Route is expected to pass. Nevertheless, the reopening of these railway sections forms part of the Pashinyan government’s Crossroads of Peace project.

CONCLUSIONS:

Armenia’s exit from political and military dependence on Russia is unlikely without ending Russia’s monopoly over the country’s economic infrastructure. The Armenian government took an initial step in this direction by nationalizing the country’s electricity grid, and on July 9, 2025, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed a law permitting the nationalization of the national electricity distribution company. However, this decision became politically contentious following the arrest of opposition leader Samvel Karapetyan, who had acquired full ownership of the Armenian Power Grid Company and the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant in 2017.

Armenia’s dependence on Russian-controlled economic infrastructure extends beyond railways and electricity. The exclusive supplier of natural gas in Armenia’s domestic market is Gazprom Armenia, a Russian-Armenian company established in December 1997, whose shares are wholly owned by Russia’s Gazprom. Consequently, Armenia’s efforts to end Russia’s monopoly and influence over its economic infrastructure face significant obstacles. The realization of this objective will largely depend on the outcome of the crucial parliamentary elections on June 7, 2026, which will determine whether Armenia returns to its pre-2018 foreign policy orientation or continues its recent trajectory toward closer alignment with the West.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Vali Kaleji, based in Tehran, Iran, holds a Ph.D. in Regional Studies, Central Asian and Caucasian Studies. He has published numerous analytical articles on Eurasian issues for the Eurasia Daily Monitor, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, The Middle East Institute and the Valdai Club. He can be reached at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

By Masom Jan Masomy and Eldaniz Gusseinov

Among external stakeholders, China bears the heaviest cost from the ongoing Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions along the Durand Line. The conflict erodes Beijing’s credibility as a regional mediator on the dispute-resolution front, even as its short-term containment record remains defensible. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to depend on Chinese economic engagement, and both are seeking to expand investment flows from Beijing. China has hosted at least seven formal rounds of the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue, its primary platform for structured mediation between the two countries and has intervened repeatedly with emergency shuttle diplomacy during acute crises, most recently during the open military confrontation.

 Photo by Crystal51, 2015

BACKGROUND:

For a state positioning itself for a more influential role in the emerging global order, mediation has become a core instrument of strategic projection. This ambition found formal expression in Beijing’s May 2025 white paper, “China's National Security in the New Era.” Released by the State Council Information Office on May 12, the document represents the first dedicated national security policy statement since the founding of the People’s Republic. Its opening chapter frames China as a source of certainty and stability in a turbulent world, and the same self-positioning runs throughout the text. By tying political security to international order within a single "holistic" framework, with economic development as the connecting axis, Beijing presents its own internal stability and modernization as stabilizing forces for the broader international system. The Afghan-Pakistan file is currently the closest test of that framing on China’s periphery.

The results have been limited. China has not resolved the underlying disputes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and each failed mediation round makes the next one harder to frame as credible. Experts generally agree that Chinese mediation acts as a “band-aid” over structural wounds. The long-term drivers of hostility remain untouched: Islamabad’s demand that the Taliban crack down on TTP safe havens, and the historically unrecognized Durand Line that sits beneath nearly every bilateral grievance. Strategic distrust between Kabul and Islamabad has only hardened since 2021. On short-term crisis containment, however, Beijing’s record is defensible. It pulls both sides back from open war and keeps communication lines open, with the promise of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) used as an economic incentive to buy time, even when this does not produce durable agreements. For Beijing, short-term containment is “good enough” provided it prevents a regional collapse that threatens Chinese investments.

Pakistan’s declaration of “open war” on Afghanistan in late February 2026 produced significant civilian casualties across the country. On March 16, Pakistani airstrikes hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul. Afghan officials placed the death toll at approximately 400 patients, a figure that has not been independently corroborated. Human Rights Watch verified at least 143 killed and over 250 injured. Islamabad denied intentionally targeting the facility. By April 5, Taliban officials reported cumulative civilian casualties of 761 killed and 626 injured since late February, figures the United Nations has not fully verified. Prior to the hospital strike, UNAMA had documented 76 civilian deaths and 213 injuries from clashes beginning on February 26 and called for compliance with international humanitarian law.

The most recent mediation round, hosted by China in Urumqi, did not yield a permanent ceasefire between Kabul and Islamabad. It did, however, halt active kinetic conflict and keep further negotiation tracks open. Earlier mediation attempts by Qatar and Turkey, with parallel engagement from Saudi Arabia, sought to reduce escalation. Afghanistan and Pakistan have nonetheless experienced their most serious deterioration in relations since the Taliban seized power in 2021. Major trade routes at Torkham and Spin Boldak have remained closed since the October 2025 clashes, disrupting bilateral trade flows.

IMPLICATIONS:

Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan stem largely from Islamabad’s claim that the TTP operates from Afghan territory and conducts attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul’s immediate rejection of this claim has strained the bilateral relationship since August 2021. The unresolved dispute undermines Pakistan’s capacity to control its borderlands and opens space for non-state armed groups to regroup in remote border regions, a development that also concerns regional neighbors.

In this context, China’s mediation efforts stem from deeper structural stakes, linking border security and regional connectivity. For China, any instability or rise in militant mobility across the narrow Wakhan corridor or in the Pak-Afghan region raises long-term security questions. This issue is critical to China’s implementation of transportation projects across Eurasia. Discussions between China and Central Asian states also covered the potential integration of transport projects, including proposals to connect the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, currently under construction, with Uzbekistan’s proposed Trans-Afghan railway. Under this configuration, the combined route would originate in Kashgar and, via Afghanistan and the CPEC, terminate in Gwadar. The result is a ring of Chinese influence spanning Central and South Asia. China would be positioned to integrate high-tech production supply chains along this corridor.

In such a situation, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) may reorganize and reestablish itself across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Its propaganda has consistently identified Chinese assets as legitimate targets. The early-2026 suicide bombing at a Chinese-run restaurant in a district of Kabul reinforced these security concerns. Separately, an armed assault using grenades dropped from drones killed five Chinese nationals and injured five others near the Afghan-Tajik border in December 2025. The pattern suggests that militant groups may be finding operational space along the porous Afghan-Tajik frontier from which to threaten Chinese interests across Central Asia.

Beijing is concerned that groups such as ETIM and ISKP may exploit periods of confrontation between Kabul and Islamabad. When Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions rise, militant activity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan tends to increase, generating a volatile environment for Chinese personnel and CPEC-related projects.

To strengthen border security, China has established three new counties within a year. The He'an and Hekang counties sit near the disputed Ladakh border with India, and the newly formed Cenling county lies close to Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The administrative restructuring is designed to expand border surveillance and constrain the movement of anti-China Uyghur militants through Xinjiang's porous frontiers. Strategically, the move tightens governance over Kashgar in Xinjiang, the urban anchor for both the Wakhan corridor and the CPEC Karakorum Highway.

CONCLUSIONS:

While South Asia and the Middle East are experiencing heightened military confrontations that strain international peace, China addresses these crises through diplomatic engagement and economic cooperation. Its official statements emphasize de-escalation through restraint rather than coercion. Diplomatic brokering between Afghanistan and Pakistan offers potential strategic advantages for Beijing at both regional and global levels. The limits of this approach, however, are visible. Following the Urumqi negotiations, border skirmishes resumed, with Pakistani strikes hitting Kunar province on 27 April 2026.

By combining formal trilateral platforms with quieter shuttle diplomacy, China positions itself as central to regional crisis management and as a hedge against the regrouping of transnational terrorist networks. The Afghanistan-Pakistan case nonetheless demonstrates that economic incentives alone are insufficient to produce durable settlements between parties locked in active confrontation.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Masom Jan Masomy is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Director at the Regional Studies Centre of the Afghanistan Science Academy in Kabul. His work focuses on South and Central Asian affairs with a particular emphasis on Afghanistan and on the dynamics of great power politics across the wider Central and South Asian regions. His research interests span political and economic developments, security and migration, climate change, diplomacy, and regional connectivity. Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Eldaniz Gusseinov is Head of Research and co-founder at the political foresight agency Nightingale Int., and a non-resident research fellow at the Haydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies of Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul. Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

By Anatoly Motkin

In late April 2026, Tencent - the Chinese technology conglomerate behind WeChat - completed the acquisition of a 3.2 percent stake in Kaspi.kz, Kazakhstan's dominant super app, at approximately US$ 518 million. Just months earlier, Tencent led a financing round in Uzum, Uzbekistan's first tech unicorn, lifting the startup's valuation to US$ 1.5 billion and opening the door for the Chinese giant to enter Central Asia's digital economy. Taken together, these two moves constitute something far more consequential than routine investment decisions. They represent the arrival of Chinese digital power at the heart of post-Soviet Eurasia and Washington has yet to formulate a coherent response.

 Photo by Pixels Hunter, 2020

BACKGROUND:

Kaspi.kz is not a typical fintech startup. In Kazakhstan, it operates as a powerful super app that integrates payments, e-commerce, and consumer services into a single platform, commanding roughly 75 percent of digital payments and nearly 89 percent of e-commerce activity in its home market. Critically, the platform seamlessly integrates payments, online commerce, fintech services, travel, classifieds, and access to government services,  meaning it is directly plugged into state administrative databases. Similarly, Uzum in Uzbekistan combines e-commerce with fintech and banking services, touching millions of citizens’ financial and transactional lives daily.

The strategic logic of Tencent's acquisitions is straightforward. The investments align with strengthening economic ties between China and Kazakhstan, where Chinese investors are already backing 224 industrial projects valued at an estimated US$ 66.4 billion. But the digital dimension of this relationship is qualitatively different from physical infrastructure. When a company like Tencent acquires a meaningful stake in platforms that mediate the daily financial, commercial, and civic transactions of tens of millions of people, it gains something invaluable: structured, real-time access to population-scale behavioral data.

This is not an abstract concern. China has developed a data governance architecture predicated on domestic security, in which the party-state enjoys extensive data access power over domestic big tech companies. Under China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017, any Chinese organization or citizen must support, cooperate with, and collaborate in national intelligence work. There is no meaningful legal firewall between a Tencent minority stake in a Central Asian super apps and the Chinese state’s appetite for foreign data.

Large datasets about local populations can be transferred to China under conditions where weak local regulation provides little protection. The cautionary tale is well documented: Huawei’s provision of digital infrastructure for the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa was later found to have been transferring server contents to Shanghai every day for five years. Central Asian governments should study this precedent carefully.

Tencent’s fintech plays are only the most visible thread of a much broader Chinese digital expansion across the region. Huawei has been deeply embedded in Central Asian telecommunications networks for over a decade, building 4G and 5G backbone infrastructure across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The company is scaling its open source platforms OpenHarmony and openEuler to accelerate what it calls ”digital sovereignty” across Central Asia, deploying the language of sovereignty while consolidating its own architectural control over the region’s digital nervous system. Meanwhile, Alibaba Cloud has established data center operations in the region, and Chinese e-commerce platforms increasingly intermediate cross-border trade flows between China and its Central Asian neighbors under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Beijing’s Digital Silk Road initiative promotes the development of transnational network infrastructure and aims to enhance information connectivity across BRI countries - and Central Asia sits squarely at the geographic core of this project. Chinese technologies increasingly mediate social, political, and economic activities in recipient countries, creating layered dependencies that are difficult to unwind once established.

IMPLICATIONS:

The data sovereignty implications are severe. Super apps connected to government service portals do not merely capture consumer preferences, they capture identity verification records, tax filings, property registrations, healthcare interactions, and travel histories. For an intelligence service, this is not commercial data. It is a population census updated in real time.

Central Asian governments have begun to sense the risk. Kazakhstan has enacted data localization requirements. Uzbekistan has been strengthening its cybersecurity regulatory framework. But regulatory intent and enforcement capacity are very different things, particularly when the investment relationship itself creates structural dependencies and political incentives for governments to look the other way.

What can the U.S. offer as an alternative? The answer lies not in prohibition, Washington cannot tell sovereign governments whom to accept investment from, but in competition and capacity-building. Three lines of effort are essential.

First, the U.S. and its partners should actively promote alternatives in the fintech and digital infrastructure space. American and European venture capital has largely ignored Central Asia. The region’s digital markets are growing rapidly, and the vacuum left by Western investors is being filled by Chinese capital on terms that suit Beijing’s strategic interests. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), established during President Trump’s first term and granted expanded authorities in 2025, and its European counterparts should prioritize co-investment in Central Asian digital platforms, with data governance conditions attached.

Second, Washington should expand the Pax Silica framework, the emerging U.S.-led digital technology alliance, to explicitly address data security standards for countries in the region. Establishing clear criteria for trusted digital investment, analogous to the Clean Network initiative for 5G but adapted for the fintech and super app era, would give Central Asian governments a positive framework to reference when evaluating foreign stakes in systemically important digital platforms.

Third, the U.S. government should invest in building Central Asian regulatory capacity on data governance, cybersecurity auditing, and foreign investment screening in the digital sector. Technical assistance programs through the State Department’s Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership and bilateral cooperation agreements can help governments develop the institutional tools to assess the risks embedded in transactions like Tencent's acquisition of Kaspi.kz - before the deal is done, not after.

CONCLUSIONS:

China’s digital expansion into Central Asia is not accidental. It is a deliberate, coordinated strategy executed through commercially rational transactions that each, individually, appear benign. The Tencent–Kaspi deal will be reported as a fintech investment. The Uzum funding will be celebrated as a startup success story. But viewed in aggregate and in strategic context, they represent the systematic acquisition of data leverage over populations that sit at the intersection of China’s continental ambitions and America’s competitive blind spot. Washington needs to start paying attention, and start competing, before the architecture of Central Asia’s digital future is set in Beijing.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Anatoly Motkin is President of StrategEast Center for a New Economy, a leading independent institution advancing digital economy in developing countries, in collaboration with international financial institutions, development agencies, global tech companies, and governments.

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider 

A recent succession of visits by Central Asian leaders to Islamabad over the past four months has drawn attention in New Delhi. In response, India has intensified its diplomatic engagement with the Central Asian Republics (CARs) to counter Pakistan’s expanding regional influence. Indian officials have conducted discussions with counterparts from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to strengthen economic ties. Concurrently, Pakistan has undertaken a significant policy shift by activating alternative trade corridors through China and Iran, reducing its reliance on routes via Afghanistan to access Central Asia. Despite this strategic rivalry, certain connectivity initiatives reveal areas of convergence and potential cooperation between India and Pakistan. 

 Photo by Alexander Lukatskiy, 2022

BACKGROUND:

Both India and Pakistan view post-Soviet Central Asia as a region of considerable geostrategic and geo-economic importance. Endowed with substantial hydropower capacity, the region possesses significant untapped energy reserves and critical mineral resources. For both states, primary interests in Central Asia include energy security, infrastructure development, trade, and connectivity.

India has advanced a proactive “Connect Central Asia” policy aimed at strengthening political, economic, and cultural engagement with the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. By 2025, India’s trade with these five states reached approximately US$ 2.5 billion, nearly three times the volume of Pakistan’s trade with the region.

Afghanistan, serving as a critical bridge between Central and South Asia, remains central to the strategic competition between India and Pakistan. Pakistan’s historical support for the Taliban has contributed to strained relations with the CARs, many of which have been wary of the Taliban’s rise due to concerns over regional stability and extremism. In contrast, CARs have often aligned with anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

India, during the Taliban’s first regime (1996–2001), opposed the movement and supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, a stance that strengthened its political alignment with the CARs. This policy brought India closer to the region, where skepticism toward Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy persisted. Although regional dynamics have evolved in recent years, India’s earlier opposition to the Taliban and its engagement with alternative Afghan actors significantly shaped its favorable ties with Central Asia.

Under the current Taliban regime, India has engaged pragmatically with Kabul amid escalating tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of harboring anti-Pakistan militant groups, contributing to a deterioration in bilateral relations. This conflict has prompted a notable shift in the Afghan policies of both states. Pakistan has adopted a more confrontational stance, reportedly launching Operation Ghazab lil-Haq in February to target militant sanctuaries within Afghanistan. In contrast, India has maintained a pragmatic approach, guided by a strategic calculus often characterized as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Simultaneously, Pakistan has extended support to the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front (NRF), formerly known as the Northern Alliance. This shift in Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy has facilitated closer alignment with the CARs, many of which remain wary of the Taliban regime.

In December 2025, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov visited Pakistan, the first such visit by a Kyrgyz leader in over two decades, marking a revival of bilateral relations. Both countries agreed to increase trade from approximately US$ 16 million in 2024 to US$ 200 million by 2027–28. In February 2026, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev undertook a two-day visit to Islamabad, during which the two sides committed to expanding bilateral trade to US$ 2 billion over the next five years. In the same month, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also visited Pakistan, with discussions focusing primarily on developing transport corridors to provide landlocked Kazakhstan access to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea ports.

In response to the deepening economic engagement between Pakistan and CARs, India has intensified its diplomatic outreach to the region to advance trade and investment ties. In March 2026, Turkmenistan’s Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Baymyrat Annamammedov, and India’s Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Bandaru Wilsonbabu, held discussions in Ashgabat on expanding cooperation in industry, construction, chemicals, and fertilizers.

Concurrently, India is pursuing a proposed US$ 3 billion agreement for the import of uranium from Kazakhstan, currently under consideration by Kazatomprom, the country’s national nuclear energy agency. In addition, India’s Tata Power is reportedly nearing agreements in Tajikistan’s energy sector. 

The escalating conflict with Afghanistan has prompted Pakistan to operationalize alternative trade corridors to Central Asia via Iran and China. In April 2026, Islamabad dispatched its first shipment to Tashkent through the Gabd–Rimdan border crossing with Iran, thereby establishing a functional route toward Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Concurrently, Pakistan activated a trade corridor through China via the Khunjerab Pass, facilitating connectivity with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

IMPLICATIONS:

During recent visits to Islamabad, officials from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan discussed trade and strategic connectivity initiatives aimed at linking Central and South Asia and providing landlocked Central Asian economies access to Pakistan’s seaports at Karachi and Gwadar. Geographically, Pakistan holds a comparative advantage over India in facilitating commercial access to Central Asia.

Key projects include the Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan (UAP) railway and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway. The UAP corridor is intended to connect Central Asia to Pakistan’s seaports via Afghanistan. Similarly, the CKU railway would enhance regional connectivity by linking China’s Kashgar to Central Asia, with onward access to Gwadar port through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), thereby providing Central Asian states with routes to open seas.

In contrast, India faces geographical constraints in accessing Central Asia, as overland connectivity via Afghanistan would require transit through Pakistan. To circumvent this limitation, India has invested in Iran’s Chabahar Port as an alternative route to the region. Located on the Gulf of Oman, Chabahar constitutes a key node in the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which links India with Iran, Russia, and Central Asian states, thereby facilitating trade while bypassing Pakistan.

Islamabad no longer views Afghanistan as the principal transit route to the rest of Central Asia, largely due to security concerns. The activation of alternative trade corridors via China and Iran reflects a significant shift in Pakistan’s connectivity strategy, driven by tensions with the Taliban regime over cross-border militancy. As one senior Pakistani official noted, “The China and Iran corridors are not just alternatives anymore – they are becoming the preferred routes for regional connectivity.”

Geopolitically, India’s alignment with Israel in the ongoing Iran–Israel conflict risks undermining its strategic interests in Iran, particularly regarding the Chabahar port project. In contrast, Iran has moved closer to Pakistan amid the US–Israel war with Iran, with Islamabad positioning itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran. Pakistan’s emerging role as a diplomatic intermediary has enhanced its geopolitical profile, including in Central Asia, a region significantly affected by instability in the Middle East.

India’s withdrawal last year from the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan, its only overseas military facility near Afghanistan, signals a decline in its intelligence capabilities and strategic influence in the region. Established in 2000, the base served as a strategic counterbalance to Pakistan’s influence and as a key platform for India’s engagement with Central Asia.

India and Pakistan have primarily competed for influence in Central Asia due to the region’s substantial energy resources. However, the viability of key energy connectivity projects depends on cooperation rather than rivalry between the two states. For example, the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline cannot function effectively without mutual coordination, as it is designed to transport Turkmen gas to energy-deficient markets in both India and Pakistan. Similarly, the CASA-1000 hydropower project, which aims to export electricity from Central Asia to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, has the potential to transform strategic competition into convergence between the two countries.

Conversely, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan would have significant repercussions for Central Asia. A war could disrupt trade and energy corridors, undermine major connectivity initiatives such as the INSTC and CPEC, exacerbate militancy, and pose serious risks to regional stability.

CONCLUSIONS:

With their ambitious regional strategies, India and Pakistan could turn Central Asia either into a site of rivalry or a platform for cooperation. Pakistan’s shift in Afghan policy, its counterterrorism operations against militant groups under the Taliban, and its use of alternative corridors via China and Iran, bypassing Afghanistan, are key developments encouraging the CARs to favor Pakistan. From geographical and geopolitical perspectives, Pakistan may be a more viable partner for the landlocked CARs, which seek to expand trade through connectivity to Arabian Sea ports. In contrast, deteriorating India–Iran relations cast uncertainty over the future of India’s Chabahar port project.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Syed Fazl-e-Haider is a Karachi-based analyst at the Wikistrat. He is a freelance columnist and the author of several books. He has contributed articles and analysis to a range of publications. He is a regular contributor to Eurasia Daily Monitor of Jamestown Foundation  Email,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.