The inaugural European Union — Central Asia summit will be held in Samarkand in April 2025, formalising the C5 + EU cooperation at the highest political level.
Preparations to the high-profile event were discussed during the recent talks between Assistant to the President of Uzbekistan Saida Mirziyoyeva and the EU Ambassador to Uzbekistan Toivo Klaar. The first-ever EU–Central Asia leaders' summit was initially planned for 2024.
“We believe that the upcoming EU-Central Asia summit will significantly strengthen our ties. The new EU leadership is truly committed to expanding relations with Uzbekistan and Central Asia. We are grateful to president Mirziyoyev for proposing Samarkand as the venue for the first-ever EU-Central Asia summit,” the EU ambassador told Gazeta.uz.
In 2019, the EU updated its strategy on Central Asia, to take account of new developments and opportunities for partnership and cooperation – both with the region as a whole and with its five individual countries (C5). The strategy aims to support sustainable development based on democracy, good governance and human rights and to boost trade and investment between the EU and Central Asia.
In 2022 and 2023, the Central Asian Heads of State and the President of the European Council held their first-ever high-level meetings, resulting in the preparation of a further joint roadmap for deepening ties between the EU and Central Asia.
“Intensification of high-level contacts reflects Central Asia's growing geostrategic importance in the light of global developments, including Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the West's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The changes generated new challenges in the region have become, at the same time, opportunities for the Central Asian countries to emerge as regional political actors in their own right. They also provide further avenues for partnership and cooperation in areas such as energy, raw materials and connectivity, alongside a focus on human rights and democracy, where issues remain,” -said the European Parliament in its statement.
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“The EU will stand with Moldova in every step of the way until the very membership,” - stated Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission at her joint press-conference with the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu.
In a significant development for Afghanistan-Russia relations, Zamir Kabulov, Special Envoy of the Russian President, held high-level talks with Taliban officials in Kabul, signaling a further warming of ties between the two nations.
Russia and Türkiye will hold consultations on the Middle East, including Syria and Palestine, on 25th April in Istanbul, according to a Turkish Foreign Ministry source speaking to TASS.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is nearing a defence deal with the EU to reset post-Brexit ties, even as his government courts a U.S. trade deal. Talks will culminate at a May summit, aiming to boost cooperation in defence, energy, and youth mobility.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has firmly rejected claims that the Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline as part of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
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