Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The day before, the III Central Asian Conference on the theme "Russia and Central Asia: interface with a changing world", which has already become traditional, was held in Tomsk. 

Organized by the Valdai International Discussion Club, the dialogue platform over the years has become an important platform for an open exchange of views, discussion and joint assessment of the situation in Central Asia, development of proposals for the development of interaction between the Central Asian states and the Russian Federation to ensure stability, security and sustainable development of the region.

The high demand for such a permanent mechanism of expert dialogue is evidenced by the expanding expert pool from year to year. Thus, the past event brought together more than 60 representatives of leading analytical centers not only from the Central Asian states, but also from Iran, China, India and other countries. All this speaks of the growing role of Central Asia as a single region, its growing subjectivity and significance in the context of the development of mutually beneficial cooperation in the vast Eurasian space.

The forum participants gathered in Tomsk focused on the issues of interaction between the countries of Central Asia and Russia in the context of a changing global environment. During the event, the prospects for the interconnectedness of the Eurasian space and the impact of global trends on the economy, politics and security of Central Asia, the importance of the region for ensuring the stability of Eurasia were discussed.

It was noted that interest in cooperation with the region is steadily growing. For example, Governor of Tomsk Vladimir Mazur emphasized that the share of Central Asian countries in the trade turnover of the Tomsk region is 45%. The countries of Central Asia are key partners in the educational sphere. 90% of students are citizens of Central Asia.

The experts also highlighted the new political and economic climate in the region and the emerging fundamentally new mechanisms of interaction. Thus, in their opinion, the Consultative Meetings of the Heads of State of Central Asia today demonstrate an atmosphere of mutual trust and dialogue.

This is evidenced by the concluded conceptual documents - the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation of the Countries of Central Asia in the 21st century, the "Roadmap" for the development of regional cooperation for 2022-2024, the Concept of interaction between the states of Central Asia within the framework of multilateral formats, the Regional Program "Green agenda” for Central Asia.

Thus, priorities and effective measures for the further development of regional cooperation were determined.

In turn, the emergence of a number of new regional platforms, such as the Central Asian Economic Forum, the Central Asian Expert Forum, and others, also greatly contributed to the rapprochement of the countries of the region.

As experts noted, today Central Asia is transforming into a developed, capacious interconnected market, which allows the region to act as a space for mutually beneficial cooperation. Thus, Russian experts emphasized that in 2022 the trade turnover of the Russian Federation with the Central Asian countries increased by 20% compared to the previous year and amounted to more than US$41 billion.

Central Asian investment in Russia has also grown. The deepening of economic cooperation between Central Asia and China is clearly observed.

In turn, the Chinese participants of the meeting emphasized the 37% increase in the turnover of the countries of the region with China last year.

The experts stressed the need for a new look at the development of regional cooperation. Given the resilience of the region to existing threats, the importance of preserving Central Asia as a space for cooperation in the interests of all parties is greatly increased.

Thus, during the speech of the First Deputy Director of ISMI Akramjon Nematov, the definitely high level of consolidation achieved by the Central Asian states was emphasized. Economic cooperation, intra-regional trade and economic ties with major markets are growing. At the same time, the openness of Central Asia to the world allows supporting and develop the full range of multilateral ties. This has a positive impact on the sustainability of the region.

Akramjon Nematov noted that at present the challenges facing Central Asia cannot be solved without international cooperation. In this context, the most important task is to maintain Central Asia as a platform for interaction, free from the competition of major world players.

As the representative of the ISMI emphasized, the rivalry of the world's leading players only limits the region in solving emerging problems. In this regard, it is important to strengthen the subjectivity of Central Asia, its potential to act as a space of trust and dialogue, contributing to the rapprochement of all members of the world community. At the same time, he noted that the key to ensuring regional security is the joint use of the region's capabilities.

Today, Central Asia is a more interconnected region, able to jointly overcome common challenges and realize emerging opportunities.

Today it is important to support the trend towards the transformation of Central Asia into a space of mutually beneficial cooperation, the openness of Central Asia for equal partnership with all states of the world. This is one of the determining factors for the sustainable development of the region.

The First Deputy Director of the ISMI emphasized that it is important to prevent the region from being drawn into the current global geopolitical confrontation, otherwise it will inevitably feel the negative consequences of the growing geostrategic rivalry.

As Akramjon Nematov noted, today Central Asia essentially remains the only place where various states, despite all their disagreements and contradictions, can maintain a dialogue, communicate on issues of the global agenda that require the combined efforts of all parties.

Moreover, cooperative ties are maintained in the region, work is underway to find ways to fill the niches formed as a result of the relocation of Western companies, and to stabilize the socio-economic situation in the Eurasian space.

That is why Central Asia should remain a zone for seeking mutual compromises and continuing mutually beneficial partnerships, and avoid turning the region into a space of geopolitical confrontation.

According to Akramjon Nematov, in order to solve all the problems existing in the region and realize its common potential, it is necessary to continue the dialogue of all parties interested in cooperation.

In this context, the expert emphasized that the basis for the common security and prosperity of the region is the Samarkand initiative of solidarity for the sake of common security put forward by the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and prosperity. It is designed to unite the efforts of the states and peoples of the world to mitigate existing contradictions and disagreements by building up cultural, civilizational, interethnic, interreligious interaction based on the principles of equality, cooperation, tolerance, justice, humanism, recognition of the priority of universal human values, respect for cultural, national, religious diversity.

"It will allow us to form a new global dialogue platform, free from geopolitical rivalry, cultural and value differences and ideological bias, to restore trust in international relations, which is necessary to solve the pressing problems of our time," Akramjon Nematov concluded.