Georgian PM Kobakhidze visits Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, pledges to develop ‘middle corridor’
Over the past week, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has traveled to Central Asia, visiting with the heads of state of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
While Georgian officials and their counterparts in Central Asia have regularly emphasised the importance of strengthening ties between the respective countries and regions in recent years, Kobakhidze’s visit comes against the backdrop of Georgia’s deteriorating ties with the West.
In meetings with both Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Kobakhidze pledged to develop the middle corridor, part of a wider project to improve east-west connectivity.
Nonetheless, in official readouts of both meetings, there were few specifics provided.
In regards to the meeting with Mirziyoyev, Kobakhidze said the two 'engaged in a meaningful and productive discussion on bilateral and multilateral relations between Georgia and Uzbekistan, underscoring the special nature of our ties, which are founded on friendship and mutual respect’.
Following his meeting with Berdimuhamedow, Kobakhidze said the two ‘discussed a broad spectrum of bilateral cooperation between Georgia and Turkmenistan, including the perspectives of our future cooperation on joint economic and energy projects. Deepening close ties with Turkmenistan in pursuit of developing a safe and secure middle corridor is high on our agenda’.
In separate spoken comments, Kobakhidze said, ‘we can offer Turkmenistan very specific assistance in terms of transit of energy resources. In addition, we are interested in buying energy resources from Turkmenistan’.
Meetings between Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili and other Georgian officials and their Uzbek and Turkmen counterparts also focused on economic and trade cooperation, according to official readouts.
In general, the descriptions of the meetings were not substantially different from previous visits over the past few years.
Yousef Bardouka
