The news of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 reached me while I was in Tashkent, as part of a European Parliament delegation. The Uzbek officials we met on that fateful day appeared to be in utter shock, yet their remarks were meticulously cautious—a graphic demonstration of the geopolitical tightrope walk that defines Central Asia today. 

That combination of alarm and restraint foreshadowed the region’s strategic response to that major geopolitical earthquake: a determined diversification of its foreign partnerships. 

Uzbekistan’s recent decision to join the “Board of Peace,” an initiative spearheaded by President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, primarily to address the situation in Gaza, is the latest move in this high-stakes game. For Tashkent, this was not an act of improvisation. The official rationale, as articulated by senior presidential advisor and former foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, showcases a pragmatic foreign policy: it aligns with national security, upholds Tashkent’s declared foreign policy principles, and addresses Uzbekistan’s “vital interests” in the Middle East’s stability.

Those interests are primarily linked to countering radicalization and violent extremism. Uzbekistan’s historical adversary has been the UN-designated terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which long operated from sanctuaries in neighboring Afghanistan. However, the importation of Salafist ideologies from the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East, and the proselytizing activities of the radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a movement that seeks the establishment of a global caliphate, are other major concerns.

This foreign religious influence strikes at the........

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