By Sanjar Valiyev

June 11, 2018, the CACI Analyst

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s visit to Washington was historic, being the first official visit of an Uzbek president since 2002. Mirziyoyev’s reception, and the breadth and width of agreements signed, constitute an acknowledgement of the reform process in Uzbekistan, as well as of the country’s newfound regional role and in particular its constructive approach to resolving the problem of Afghanistan. Washington’s engagement in these efforts will further improve the prospects of success in Uzbekistan’s domestic reforms and regional initiatives.

 By Stephen Blank 

June 4, 2018, the CACI Analyst

On April 23, after almost ten days of mounting popular demonstrations, Serzh Sargsyan resigned as Armenia’s Prime Minister. While public antipathy to him mounted throughout this interval, it appears that the army’s impending disintegration into pro and anti-Sargsyan groups was a decisive factor. Yet sadly but typically the Western media ignored one of this year’s major geopolitical stories – namely Armenia’s developing revolution – until Sargsyan resigned and even then covered it sporadically. Since Armenia and its capital Yerevan are off the beaten track, apparently they do not merit major news coverage. We should not emulate this mistake. 

 By Emil A. Souleimanov and Anton Barbashin 

May 31, 2018, the CACI Analyst

The “Velvet revolution” in Armenia raised concerns about the possibility of a Russian intervention in this South Caucasian republic, for the sake of preventing Russia’s key ally in the region from slipping into “Maidanization” and Armenia escaping Moscow’s foreign political and security orbit. Yet events that unfolded illustrated Moscow’s rather ambiguous attitude toward the country’s bottom-up regime change, something that Russian elites, fearful as they are of Western-inspired “color revolutions”, have otherwise done their best to forestall. The explanation for Moscow’s reception of Armenia’s revolution lies in Russia’s clout in Armenia, the character of the popular demonstrations and the regime, and Nikol Pashinyan’s reassuring stance toward Moscow and its interests throughout his campaign. 

 By Farkhod Tolipov

May 29, 2018, the CACI Analyst

On March 26-27, 2018, the unprecedented international conference on Afghanistan, “Peace process, security cooperation and regional interactions,” took place in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent. Diplomatic representatives of 21 states, the UN and the EU participated in the conference and signed its final Tashkent Declaration. The event signaled a transformation of Tashkent’s previous positions on Afghanistan, from past initiatives in the form of narrow formula-like approaches to a system-oriented strategy. However, the Tashkent Declaration and speeches given at the conference reveal that the approach contains too much diplomacy and too little solution, especially given the growing terrorism threat in the country.