Issues related to gas pipelines and any other channels for transporting energy resources must be studied on a large scale, in the context of geopolitics, economics and geological features. The gas pipeline system of Central Asia and the Caspian region is of a strategic nature not only for the countries included in the Central Asian region, but also for Russia, Europe, China and Iran. In this review, we tried to briefly talk about existing and potential gas pipelines in the region, which, undoubtedly, are an important socio-economic and geopolitical element of relations between countries.Download the overview

Recently, when forecasting global energy consumption, many experts associate it with the energy transition. At the same time, some of them identify such a transition either with the implementation of the so-called “climate agenda”, or with the decarbonization of the world economy and the development of “green” energy, or with the change from one energy source to another. The team at the Center for Energy Diplomacy and Geopolitics has prepared a brief overview of current trends in the energy transition.Download the overview

In late March of this year, the control of the Afghan consulate in the eastern Tajikistan city of Khorog in GBAO (Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region) was rumored to pass over to the Taliban government albeit, the main embassy’s staff in Dushanbe are still operating under the former government’s flag. Some report, including Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, about the Taliban government’s representatives recent visit to the city. There was a further claim about “Khorog consulate issuing Afghan passports and staff were receiving salaries from the Taliban for the last two months”. The recent statement by the acting head of the Afghan consulate in Khorog, Naqibullah Dehghanzada, dispelled all these speculations and officially confirmed the transfer of the consulate to the Taliban control. Download the policy brief

Contrary to the very dim and pessimistic assumptions about Afghanistan's dire economic conditions eventually getting even worse during the Taliban rule, so far appears to be a hasty and premature assessment. Nonetheless, the Taliban’s ability to stay in power so far by utilising any available tools to prevent full scale economic collapse cannot by any means be regarded as a viable transformation to solid socio economic reforms. Thus, this paper will analyse the economy of the country as well as its relationship with Uzbekistan with a greater emphasis on the security and long-term export interests of it to the Taliban-run Afghanistan.Download policy brief

China’s recent unprecedented move on ceremonially accepting the Taliban’s ambassador to PRC in Beijing raised mixed signals around the world. According to the Taliban’s chief spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, “China is the only country to officially approve Islamic Emirate’s ambassador”. It is a rather reciprocal move by China as the country’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, also received an official acceptance in September, last year.    These “diplomatic romans” go further back to the initial official contact between sides when Wang Yi of China met with the representative of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, acting Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban government, in Doha on October 2021. Even earlier, on July 2021, the Taliban delegation and China’s former Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Tianjin.   China’s seemingly proactive foreign policy towards Afghanistan can well be a trigger for various interpretations the first of which could be characterized as the Chinese strive to develop its own narratives and approaches in relation to the Taliban acknowledgement issue. Second, China as a forerunner of a green development, will definitely need an enormous natural resource for its green development endeavour, thereby, Afghanistan could probably be an important destination for satisfying China’s appetite in this field. Third, acknowledging the Taliban’s capacity in providing relatively secure environment for the Chinese interests in Afghanistan such as fighting terrorism and creating transportation corridors, China seems to be winning time as a first-runner.    Moreover, China probably believes that diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government will come naturally providing an active engagement mixed with the capacity-building prevails.

Despite a number of existing structural and systemic problems in the activities of the United Nations, most of the key global problems related not only to military security and peacekeeping, but also to issues in the economic, social and cultural spheres are solved at its platforms. The UN is developing the concept of achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, it is possible to consider OOH as a universal international organization, which has a high degree of legitimacy, which is not possessed by any other international organization.Download brief