Afghanistan at Heart of Central Asia’s Roadmap: From Isolation to Regional Connectivity

DIDPress: In an analysis, Eurasianet reported that Relations between the five Central Asian countries and Afghanistan are warming as plans move ahead for new rail links, increased trade and creating opportunities for ordinary Afghans.

Central Asian states are prioritizing bringing Afghanistan back into the economic fold with increased connectivity and trade focused on practical cooperation that serves their economic interests and, ultimately, helps improve regional security, analysts say. 
“We try to look on Afghanistan more pragmatically because if we build a wall around Afghanistan, then it is not useful or helpful for the regional situation, stability and security. That’s why we are involved in economic ties,” Sanat Kushkumbayev, chief research fellow at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank close to the government, told Eurasianet.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a regional forum held in Ulaanbaatar last month which discussed promoting closer collaboration between Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan (CAMCA).

Kushkumbayev sees increasing engagement as a way of re-establishing “historic ties” with Central Asia’s southern neighbor, ties that have been upended by almost 50 years of upheaval in Afghanistan.
Central Asian efforts to strengthen connections with Afghanistan received a boost on July 3, when Russia officially recognized the Taliban government in Kabul. Russian recognition potentially paves the way for Central Asian states to follow suit in the not-too-distant future.

Tighter ties will be a win-win for all parties, Eldaniz Gusseinov, a Kazakhstan-born research fellow at Istanbul’s Ibn Haldun University, suggested in an interview at the same forum. 
“We [in Central Asia] share such a huge border with Afghanistan, three out of five states [Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan] have a common border, and they also try to promote stability and security, prosperity for Afghanistan through increased trade,” he told Eurasianet.

Trade between Central Asia and Afghanistan is on the rise. For example, Uzbek-Afghan trade stood at $1.1 billion in 2024, around 25 percent up on 2023.
Taliban officials have become increasingly visible at regional events, signaling that Afghanistan is open for business. In a session at the Astana International Forum in May, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, Afghanistan’s acting commerce and industry minister, fended off awkward questions about his government’s treatment of women.

While the Central Asian governments pay lip service to the need to improve the lot of women and minorities in Afghanistan, they do not publicly take the Taliban to task over human rights, preferring to focus on mutually beneficial cooperation.

One important area of engagement is forging new transport routes linking Central Asia with the wider world through Afghanistan. The war in Ukraine is forcing Central Asian governments to seek alternatives to the well-established northern corridor via Russia and look for access to new markets and export routes. 

The Central Asian states are prisoners of their geography: all are landlocked and must go through a second country to reach an ocean; Uzbekistan is double landlocked and needs to go through two countries. 

“Given our own geographic location, we are pushing a long-term strategy to restore connectivity with South Asia. There are simply no other directions for building new transport corridors in our case,” Sanjar Valiev of Uzbekistan’s Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a think-tank under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry, told the CAMCA forum.

Uzbekistan is promoting a trans-Afghan Corridor that would connect it with Pakistan’s Arabian Sea ports via Afghanistan, if completed. One proposed rail route would connect Termez on Uzbekistan’s Afghan border with Peshawar in Pakistan via Kabul.

Uzbekistan already hosts a transport and logistics hub on the border, the TermezCargo Center, aimed at streamlining the transportation of rail and road cargo into and out of Afghanistan.

An Uzbek-built railroad has connected the northern Afghan cities of Hairatan and Mazar-i-Sharif since 2011. This is the main gateway for Afghanistan’s imports from Central Asia, connecting with Uzbekistan’s rail network in Termez via the FriendshipBridge, a Soviet-era structure crossing the Amu Darya river.

In February, it was announced that work would start on extending the line to Herat on Afghanistan’s border with Iran, after completion of a feasibility study. This could ultimately provide access to the Persian Gulf for double landlocked Uzbekistan.

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are collaborating on another rail link crossing Afghanistan, for which Astana allocated $500 million in April. The route starts in Torghundi, on Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan, and passes through Herat and Kandahar on its way to Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan – again providing access to maritime trade, and the huge markets of South Asia, for the landlocked Central Asian states.

Valiev was candid about the challenges these ambitious projects face. “Construction involves challenging mountainous terrain requiring advanced engineering expertise and significant financial investment,” he noted.

The volatile security situation in Afghanistan – and the wider region, given the recent Iranian-Israeli conflict and Pakistani-Indian hostilities – may well impact the implementation of these projects. 

“In many discussions, there is still a high level of skepticism about the current Afghan authorities’ ability to ensure the safety of the new railway across the country,” Valiev acknowledged. “Nevertheless, we in Uzbekistan are convinced that all these problems can be solved with political support, the involvement of international financial institutions and constructive communication between specialists.”

Beyond diversifying transport and export routes, there is a focus on providing ordinary Afghans with jobs with the aim of economically stabilizing the war-ravaged country. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan offer scholarships to Afghan women to pursue studies under a European Union-funded scheme which began before the Taliban came to power, but has become a lifeline now that women are barred from attending university at home.

Another project designed to draw Afghans closer to Central Asia is the AIRITOMFree Zone in Termez, which opened last year and allows Afghan citizens to enter for up to 15 days visa free. This 35-hectare zone offers access to shopping, leisure, healthcare and educational facilities in a secure setting.
“For Afghans it’s an opportunity to go abroad without any obstacle, to see another world,” Gusseinov pointed out. 

Building bridges between Afghans and Central Asians can ultimately “help them to improve the internal situation in Afghanistan,” he concluded.