Astana: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan on Tuesday for a series of meetings with top diplomats of Central Asian nations as tensions soar over Russia's war in Ukraine. Blinken sat down for talks with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi and then with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
A meeting of the so-called C5+1 group, made up of the U.S. and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, was expected to follow. At that meeting, Blinken will stress the U.S. "commitment to the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Central Asian countries," the State Department said in a statement that mirrors the wording it has been using to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Blinken's visit to Astana and later this week to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, mark his first trip to Central Asia as secretary of state. It comes just days after the anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which has rattled the region. None of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, traditionally viewed as part of the Kremlin's sphere of influence, publicly backed the attack.