Cooperation with Central Asia

After independence, relations with the closest neighbours became a first-rank task for Uzbekistan, because economy, water, transport and security were tightly linked to them. In January 1993 a meeting of the region’s leaders was held in Tashkent, discussing the Aral Sea and a shared economic space, and bilateral treaties were signed in the following years. With Kazakhstan a friendship treaty was concluded in 1992, a document on eternal friendship was signed in 1998, border agreements were reached in the early 2000s, and a treaty on strategic partnership was signed in 2013. Relations with Tajikistan were complicated by the civil war of 1992–1997 and by differences over borders and water; from 2017–2018 trade, transport and flights were gradually restored. With Turkmenistan a treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance was signed in 1996 and a strategic partnership treaty in March 2017. Talks with Kyrgyzstan on border questions lasted a long time: treaties covering most of the border were signed in 2017 and the rest in 2023; in the summer of 2010, during interethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan temporarily took in more than 100,000 refugees; in November 2017 an international conference on regional security and sustainable development was held in Samarkand, and from 2018 regional consultative meetings of heads of state became regular.