One thing that is clear whenever I go to central Asia is that they want to be connected to the west, maybe not Turkmenistan, which is its own separate category, but even post-Karimov Uzbekistan is reaching out to the west.
We've seen countries that have had bad relationships with the west. I can see it from Washington. For example, Kurdistan is one of them, and they are now suddenly trying to make sure the west doesn't forget about them. The message coming out of this region is that they don't want us to leave them. They don't want to be stuck between China and Russia. The message they're hearing back, though, is a message where we make sometimes strong statements about Georgia or Ukraine, but we're not necessarily following them up with any security guarantee.
They see a U.S. president who questions the fundamental alliances and they ask themselves, “If the President of the United States can question NATO, what does that mean for a partner like Kazakhstan?”
Many of these countries are looking to the west. They see a European Union that is in disarray and they're looking at other countries in the west. Canada is one of them. I think Canada has a role and it's one they would like to play. You see these countries often looking at Japan and South Korea, which are very active economically in the region. As they see Europe and the United States turn inward on themselves, they are now hoping for countries that have not been as in front of the west as places they would like to increase engagement with.
From a Canadian perspective, I think there's probably a longing in the region for a greater presence or a greater focus on central Asia. You also hear that the Nordics are another area that the central Asians are focusing on. They clearly want to have a relationship with the west. They want the economic engagement and some of the countries are more than willing to meet us half-way, at least on the governance issue.
Kurdistan is struggling to do it. Kazakhstan talks a great talk. They have great plans. All they need to do is implement them. The other countries are really very much regressing. Uzbekistan, however, is also opening up a little bit and doing some interesting things right now, but it's still too early to see where that is going to go.