Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a leaders-level summit with the presidents of all the five Central Asian Republics, i.e., Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan on 27th January. India and Central Asia will celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations by announcing the establishment of India-Central Asia Centre in Delhi which will coordinate future bilateral and multilateral relations.
This virtual meet will be the first of its kind leaders-level meet between India and all the Central Asian Republics. This summit is expected to boost economic, political and military cooperation between India and central Asia even as they share historical cultural and religious linkages. India considers Central Asia as its “Extended Neighbourhood” and this policy was reinforced when P.M. Modi visited all the five countries in 2015, a first for an Indian leader since these countries came into existence in 1991.
India has been taking leadership to steer this relationship with the setting up of India-Central Asia Dialogue at Foreign Ministers’ level, the last of which took place in December 2021. During this meeting, Indian Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar and five of his counterparts discussed propositions to enhance the work on 4cs- commerce, capacity enhancement, connectivity, and contact. India and Central Asian Republics have long sought to establish strategic relations for ensuring security and stability in the “Extended Neighbourhood” especially on the back of Taliban's return to Kabul and associated growing extremist tendencies in the region.
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India also hosted the Heads of National Security Councils of seven nations (Central Asia Republics, Russia and Iran) in November 2021 to increase convergence and cooperation to confront evolving security situation in Afghanistan, such as fundamentalism and narco-terrorism. India will reinvigorate its pitch to increase bilateral trade through Iran’s Chabahar port given the land-locked geography of the two countries. It will also seek to enhance military cooperation in terms of joint military exercises and defence agreements. India and Uzbekistan had undertaken joint military exercises last year in Uttarakhand.
Initially, media reports suggested that India would host the five leaders as invitees to the annual Republic Day parade but the plan was subsequently dropped due to COVID cases in India as well as domestic political situation in Kazakhstan.
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