On March 21, 2024, in a formal event held at Astana Square in Almaty, the President of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Jomart Tokayev, congratulated all Kazakhstanis on the holiday of Nauryz. In his speech in the square, the President announced four strategically important national development projects, the promotion of which he designated as a key socio-economic priority for the republic in 2024. These are the reconstruction and modernization of the country’s transport infrastructure and heat and power network…

On the 2^nd of April, US President Joe Biden had an almost two-hour-long phone call with China’s Xi Jinping, where both leaders discussed the future of US-China ties and issues that underpin it. A bone of contention was restrictions on the transfer of US technologies to China. While Biden argued that restrictions were meant to protect US “national security”, Xi pointed out that restrictions were hurting China’s smooth growth. But despite this clash, a key outcome of the phone call was Washington’s announcement that the US Treasury Secretary…

Two weeks after the meeting of the Chinese parliament, commonly referred to as the “Two Sessions”, held in the first half of March this year, two equally noteworthy forum events were held in Beijing and immediately afterwards in the resort town of Boao (on Hainan Island), attended by Chinese and foreign experts. The main theme of the latter was the implementation of a fundamentally innovative trend in the country’s economic policy, the main provisions of which had been outlined by the Chinese…

According to the Statistical Service of Kazakhstan, the total volume of goods transported by rail between Kazakhstan and China reached 23 million tons as early as 2022 and grew by a record 22 percent last year. In view of this high volume of freight traffic and the clear upward trend, the Kazakh authorities are having to invest heavily in the development of new railroads in order to serve the growing freight volumes and enable the rapid and efficient delivery of goods through the country…

The trend in recent years and even months to talk more and more frequently and actively about the Global South as such, and about Africa in particular, may in some cases be seen as a fashionable, superficial fad, but it is not without a significant practical component. Even a cursory analysis of the dynamics of bilateral meetings and summits with an “African focus” is the most vivid illustration of the “turn to Africa”…

Against the backdrop of the secondary sanctions adopted by the United States against countries that violate the embargo regime imposed on Russia, since the beginning of 2024 Turkey has started to take actions that are inconsistent with the course of the strategic partnership (at least in the sphere of trade and economic relations), willingly or unwillingly. In particular, we have witnessed the refusal of Turkish banks to accept payments from Russian legal entities and now from Turkish exporters of goods to the Russian market (except for agricultural products). Finally, some Turkish terminals have been refusing to accept…

On 22-23 January 2024, Turkmen Foreign Minister R. Meredow visited Japan. During this trip, meetings were held with the Japanese Foreign Minister, the Ministers of Digital Transformation; Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism; Economy, Trade and Industry; representatives of Japanese business, the Director of the Foreign Trade Organisation of Japan and the Head of the Export Credit Organisation of Japan. The leitmotif of the talks was the cooperation…

Turkey, currently strengthening its position in the international arena, is seeking to bring about a multipolar world, with itself as the leader of the Turkic pole. As part of its Turan project, Ankara is now focusing its attention on the southeastern area of the post-Soviet space. Technically, it could be said that the relevant international pan-Turkic structure already exists, in the form of the Organization of Turkic States…

You’ll find an important Russia-India story on page 28 of the Google News results, to care about what’s really happening between the two BRICS nations. Many reading this may not know that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation and announced the deepening of a strategic partnership between the two countries. Russia and India – strategic partners – isn’t that page one New York Times stuff? Well, no…

From the very beginning of Zelenskyy’s presidency, Ukraine was (and still is) both a window of opportunity for Turkey and an extremely delicate area of manoeuvring between Russia and Western countries. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meets regularly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president has travelled to Istanbul or Ankara once a year since 2019 (with the exception of 2022), while Recep Erdoğan visited Kiev in 2020 and twice in 2022…

Today my interlocutor is Oleg Borisovich Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry and Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. Our conversation turned out to be serious and topical. We touched on the question of how Russian-African cooperation can withstand the West’s harsh external pressure, talked about security challenges and discussed the catastrophic loss of the West’s position…

With Russia able to withstand – and virtually defeat – the combined military strength of NATO in Ukraine, its foreign policy and its diplomatic outreach to the rest of the world is bound to gain not only confidence but also become a lot more assertive than it was during the first year of this conflict when Washington launched its so-called “isolate Russia” project. Translating its military gains in Ukraine, Moscow, for instance, recently hosted Palestinian factions to unify the…