US President Joe Biden this Saturday defended the territorial integrity of Central Asia in the face of a possible Russian threat, in a telegram to Turkmenistan’s leader Serdar Berdimuhamedov on the eve of parliamentary elections in this Central Asian country.
Biden expressed his support “for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Central Asia,” a region recently visited by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The US president emphasized the closeness of bilateral relations since the independence of the republic on the Caspian Sea in 1991, and congratulated the Turkmen people on the “Nowruz” festival, which celebrates the arrival of spring.
Central Asian countries have not complied with Western sanctions against Russia following Moscow’s war on Ukraine, but they advocate a diplomatic solution and do not support Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which has even been publicly rejected by Kazakhstan.
However, the five Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – either abstained or did not vote on the UN General Assembly resolution passed a month ago urging Russia to withdraw troops and eventually end the war.
Central Asia is considered Russia’s “backyard” and is the only region, other than Iran, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has traveled since the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine in February 2022.
Of the five countries in Central Asia, Tajikistan is the only one to sign and ratify the Rome Convention on the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against Putin.
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have also signed but not ratified it, while Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have never signed it.
Turkmenistan, often compared to North Korea for its authoritarian and reserved regime, will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday, with 3.5 million voters voting.
Source: DN
