Senior U.S. Diplomat Stresses Washington’s Commitment To Cooperation With Central Asia

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 Mirziyoev 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 at the end of the two-day visit to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, and 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.

The increase in U.S. diplomatic contacts comes as China’s economic and political influence in Central Asia grows and it seeks to strong arm those nations to return asylum seekers from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, a major concern for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The greater interest also comes as Washington seeks to exit its 18-year war in Afghanistan, which also borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Xinjiang.

The post-Soviet countries of Central Asia, with mainly Muslim populations, have been implementing state programs to bring home citizens who had joined the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

“We are committed to the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. We are committed to Afghanistan never be used as a platform for terrorism, whether it is against Tajikistan, against the United States, against our partners,” Wells said, stressing that Washington will continue to assist Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan, with security-related matters.

According to the Tajik Foreign Ministry, the sides also discussed bilateral ties, security in Afghanistan and the region, and “focused on the issue of the further strengthening of the guarding of the Tajik-Afghan border…as well as terrorism, extremism, radicalism, and illegal drug trafficking.”