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On March 4, 2022, Caspian Week, as Horasis’ strategic partner, took part in the Horasis USA Meeting: Shaping America's Role in a Post-Pandemic World. The virtual event was co-chaired by Murat Seitnepesov, Chairman of the Caspian Week Forum. The Greater Caspian Region is one of the world’s foremost transport and trade hubs. Cooperation between neighbouring states will advance the region’s development and boost trade between and beyond the Caspian Sea. What are the region’s most pressing needs, and how might the US unlock its potential? Find more on our session: America and the Greater Caspian Region: Launching A New Partnership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0jZ9_2kB0
During the session, panelists explored new modes of partnership between the USA and the Greater Caspian Region.
The first part focused on situation-driven issues. According to Matthew Bryza (Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, USA), given the current situation in Russia, the US should focus even more on linking Central Asia directly with the South Caucasus and onward to Europe. The region is very rich in resources, from natural gas and oil to minerals, and these should be connected more closely with European markets via Turkey, as the Azeri pipeline has shown.
Murat Seitnepesov went a step further and focused on export choices. Exporters and producers now favour pipelines, particularly Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, and rail infrastructure. Companies are rerouting exports away from Russia and towards the Black Sea via Azerbaijan and Georgia. The flow of finance also needs rerouting, as Bart Turtelboom (Chairman, Delphos International Limited, USA) pointed out. Caspian countries have relied heavily on Russian banks, which can no longer support trade flows. The immediate priority is the stability of the global supply chain, which global financial supply issues caused by sanctions are making worse. The world is still hungry for resources, and the full functioning of export corridors from the GCC is paramount to growth. Bryza rated US policy in the region as very effective in opening new export routes and securing energy supplies for Western markets, but he lamented its limited focus on South-East Asia. Westwards, the US supported five pipelines, including the CPC pipeline from Kazakhstan. Three others bypassed Russia or did not include it: Baku-Supsa, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum. Eastwards, Washington tried various projects dubbed "The New Silk Road" from 2002, but the Chinese RBI probably had the upper hand, focusing on the former Soviet Union (FSU) at Russia's expense. The US now supports an East-West corridor that began with hydrocarbons and now includes telecommunications and surface transport. It also included a military corridor linking the US and its NATO allies to Afghanistan. This new route, the "Lapis Lazuli Path", runs from Afghanistan to Georgia.
Sham Bathija (Former Minister and Advisor to the President of Afghanistan) was not optimistic about Afghanistan’s development, but took a more supportive view of this corridor and other initiatives from Karzai's time. Economic problems are slowly being solved, for example through access to Afghan reserves at the IMF, and the initiatives remain in place. He focused more on regional trade, arguing that Afghanistan could benefit from integration into the Greater Caspian Region. He said the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline project would help connect the country. The project would benefit not only Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, and it may be a model for other developing regions seeking to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This idea resonated with Gligor Tashkovich (Former Minister for Foreign Investment, North Macedonia), who had previously attracted more than $1.5 billion to North Macedonia. That result came from international lobbying and a deep reform of the country’s legal and economic framework. For instance, business registration time fell from 42 days to 4 hours. This impressive result gave him the credibility to repeat his success in Uzbekistan, where he is working on FDI.
Beyond these immediate issues, Seitnepesov and Turtelboom stressed that the region’s medium-term priority is its economic transformation agenda. For too long, financial security relied on a single external ally, now sanctioned, so diversification is needed. These countries should stand on their own feet. Uzbekistan seems well placed to make major progress here. Over the next five years, both expected the country to improve its political stability and policy agenda.
The Greater Caspian Region includes 16 countries around the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, up to Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. It has been a transport and trade route between East and West since the time of the ancient Silk Road.