In recent years, the five Central Asian states — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan — have increasingly expanded their bilateral and multilateral relationships beyond Russia, China, and Europe to economically engage with key partners in the Middle East. These burgeoning Central Asian ties with, in particular, the Arab Gulf countries, Turkey, and Iran encompass energy cooperation, transit corridors, trade agreements, and security issues — signifying not only a shift toward greater trans-regional economic inter-independence but also a desire by the landlocked countries around the Caspian basin to diversify their overall foreign policy choices. To discuss the latest geopolitical developments in the region as well as their strategic implications for the United States, the Middle East Institute will be hosting an expert panel of scholars from Central Asia and the US.
The panelists will discuss a wide range of critical policy questions, including: How are the various competing transportation corridor projects involving Central Asian, South Caucasus, and Middle Eastern states changing the geopolitics of the wider region? Is it possible for the US to hinder Iran’s economic cooperation with its neighbors around the Caspian, and should it even try? How do the growing trade links and joint ventures between Central Asia and the Middle East affect the regional goals of outside powers, including Russia, China, Europe, and the US? And what can the US and its Western allies do to encourage a closer alignment of these transformative regional shifts with transatlantic economic and security interests?
Speakers
Iulia-Sabina Joja
Director, Black Sea Program, Middle East Institute
Sanat Kushkumbayev
Member, Board of Directors, Foreign Policy Research Institute under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Bruce Pannier
Central Asia Fellow, Eurasia Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute; Member, Advisory Board, Caspian Policy Center
Assel Tutumlu
Assistant Professor, Near East University
Alex Vatanka (Moderator)
Director, Iran Program, Middle East Institute
Extended Speaker Biographies
Iulia-Sabina Joja is a senior fellow and director of MEI's Black Sea Program. She teaches European security as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and George Washington University. Her research and teachings focus primarily on European and Black Sea security. Prior to this, Iulia Joja served as an adviser to the Romanian President and as a deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia. She has worked with the Romanian delegation to the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was also a visiting scholar at the Center of Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces in Potsdam/Berlin and a DAAD post-doctoral fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Sanat Kushkumbayev is a political scientist and Chief Research Fellow at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KazISS). In 2023–2024, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Central Asia Program at the Institute for European,
Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is also an Associate Professor at the L. Gumilev Eurasian National University (ENU). With over 25 years of experience in research, teaching, and public service across academic institutions, think tanks, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his expertise lies in foreign policy, international relations, regional cooperation, and security issues in Central Asia.
Bruce Pannier is the host of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Majlis podcast and author of RFE/RL’s newsletter Central Asia in Focus. Prior to joining RFE/RL in 1997, Bruce worked at the Open Media Research Institute in Prague. In 1992, he led a sociological project in Central Asia sponsored by the University of Manchester and the Soros Cultural Initiative Foundation. During that time he lived in villages in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Bruce studied at Tashkent State University in the summer of 1990 and studied at Columbia University under Professor Edward Allworth. Bruce has also written for The Economist, Janes Intelligence, Oxford Analytica, Freedom House, The Cairo Review, the FSU Oil & Gas Monitor, and Energo Weekly. Currently, he is a Central Asia Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, member of the advisory board at the Caspian Policy Center, and member of the External Advisory Board, European Neighbourhood Council.
Assel Tutumlu is an Associate Professor in Political Sciene at Near East University, Northern Cyprus. She received her Ph.D. in Global Affairs from Rutgers, State University of New Jersey (USA) and two MA degrees in Politics from the New School for Social Research (New York, USA) and International Affairs (American University, USA). Her research explores the nature of authoritarian regimes in Central Asia and beyond, particularly looking into the discursive and disciplinary practices. Her recent research project funded by the Republic of Kazakhstan looked at the intercommunal violence in Kazakhstan. Currently, she is editing a volume, together with Zulfiya Imyarova and Oliver Jütersonke for Routledge series on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding with working title of the Peacebuilding in the Postcolonial State: New Perspectives on Intercommunal Violence. She has appeared on Al-Jazeera, BBC, TRTWorld, and France24. Her work has been published in Europe-Asia Studies, Central Asian Survey, Security Journal, Journal of Eurasian Studies, Problems of Post-Communism.
Alex Vatanka is the founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute. He specializes in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran. He was formerly a Senior Analyst at Jane’s Information Group in London. Alex is also a Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at DISAS at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Born in Tehran, he holds a BA in Political Science (Sheffield University, UK), and an MA in International Relations (Essex University, UK), and is fluent in Farsi and Danish. He is the author of two books: The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy and Political Rivalry Since 1979 (2021) and Iran and Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy, and American Influence (2015). He is presently working on his third book, “Grand Contest: The Rivalry of Iran, America and Israel in the Arab World.” @AlexVatanka
(Photo by FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP via Getty Images)