Numbers

The Five Central Asian States

• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan

How It's Used

“The U.S. has maintained relatively strong relations with the five Central Asian states since the Soviet breakup a decade ago.”

"Post-Soviet Central Asia sits at the strategic crossroads between Russia, China, Afghanistan and the Middle East and borders the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Its largely Islamic peoples are divided into five authoritarian states. Despite significant differences, the states are very poor and weak, increasingly vulnerable to attack by criminal elements. Besides terrorism, the potentially serious threats include narcotics, arms, and human trafficking. Uzbekistan is the region's largest and most powerful state, so it is vitally important that the United States gets its policies there right."

"As the gateway to Afghanistan and Iran, and an area where both China and Russia vie for influence, the five Muslim countries of Central Asia—the other four are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — have a strategic importance to the United States well out of proportion to their size. Uzbekistan is the region’s heart, with its most religious population, and also, at 28 million, its largest."

"Other Central Asian countries share Kazakhstan's iron-fist approach to critical newspapers. A bunch of variously repressive super-presidents rule all five post-communist Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan's ageing leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been in the job for 18 years. He shows no signs of retiring."

"Three sub-categories do make sense. One is the five autocratic 'stans of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). They scarely count as 'Europe', though a hefty Britain-sized tenth of Kazakhstani territory (200,000 square kilometres [77,220 square miles]) lies unambiguously in Europe. Kazakhstan also this year chairs the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a Vienna-based post-cold-war talking shop. But none of the 'stans has become a member of the Council of Europe (another talking shop and human-rights guardian, based in Strasbourg). That shows the problem. The definition of 'Europe' is as unreliable as the word 'eastern'."

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