Iran in Central Asia
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April 2021 - 18 Pages
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Executive Summary
In April 2021, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif embarked on a diplomatic tour of Central Asia, meeting with heads of state in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. The timing was no accident, as Iranian diplomats met with their Western counterparts in Vienna to discuss the JCPOA, Zarif was effectively signalling that Iran’s “eastern pivot” was here to stay. At the end of his tour, he summarised that message – and Iran’s new ideological commitment to the region – in a single tweet: “Central Asians aren’t just neighbors; they’re kin.” As pressure mounts on the United States to return to the nuclear deal, and China assumes a more assertive role in regional affairs, it is possible that Iran’s efforts to build a bridge to this part of the world may finally bear fruit.
This report seeks to explore the dynamics behind Iranian ties to Central Asia’s political heavyweights—Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan—and how their behaviour may shape the future of Tehran’s regional policy. Iranian policy towards Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are driven by three intertwined objectives, and speak to a strategic calculus in Tehran pushed by a need to counteract American pressure at all costs:
Expanding trade and energy infrastructure, as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan sit at the crossroads of a number of markets which could provide relief from sanctions;
Overcoming political isolation, especially through regional organisations in which Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are key members; and
Reducing perceived threats to national security, for which Iran seeks its neighbours’ help in excluding the US from the region’s security architecture.
By physically and financially linking itself to nations like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – as well as Russia and China – Iran is hoping to raise the costs of US unilateralism and overcome American sanctions. This alignment towards the east, marks a major paradigm shift for Iranian foreign policy: one in which the country no longer conceptualises itself merely as a “Middle Eastern” power, but rather a “Eurasian” one. In practical terms, this suggests that Iran increasingly views East, South, and Central Asia as its new centre of gravity and will expend much of its political capital in the coming years seeking to integrate itself into regional alliances and networks.
This special report was funded by one of two summer research grants offered to students and recent graduates who wished to conduct a self-directed research project on a topic related to Iranian politics or economics. The author was awarded in grant in September 2020 following a call for applications.
About the Author
Timothy Doner is a Middle East analyst with a primary focus on the political economy and foreign policy of Iran. He currently works at the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defence Studies (C4ADS), where he specialises in the use of open source data to track money laundering, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Tim received his bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from Harvard University and his MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. Tim has been featured in media outlets like The New York Times, BBC and The Economist as “the world’s youngest hyperpolyglot” – someone who speaks dozens of languages.
