Tariq Saeedi
The transformation of Central Asia’s consultative mechanism from C5 to C6 with Azerbaijan’s formal inclusion represents far more than a diplomatic courtesy. At the November 2025 Tashkent summit, Central Asian leaders agreed that Azerbaijan would participate as a full member in future meetings, marking a strategic realignment that recognizes existing realities while creating new possibilities for regional integration.
This development deserves careful examination by those shaping policy in Eurasia and beyond.
Geographic Logic and Historical Continuity
Azerbaijan’s position on the western shore of the Caspian Sea places it at the natural terminus of any eastward extension from Central Asia. While the Caspian creates a physical boundary, it simultaneously functions as a connective tissue rather than a barrier.
The five Central Asian states have long engaged with Azerbaijan through multiple regional frameworks including the CIS, Economic Cooperation Organization, Organization of Turkic States, OSCE, and OIC.
Azerbaijan has never been absent from Central Asian conversations; it has simply formalized a relationship that geography and history already dictated.
The civilizational connections run deep. Four of the five Central Asian republics—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—share with Azerbaijan membership in the Turkic language family and common ethnic roots.
Tajikistan, while Persian-speaking, shares centuries of intertwined history, religious traditions, and cultural exchanges with Azerbaijan.
If one were to drain the Caspian Sea from the map, the contiguity of this extended region would become immediately apparent. The C6 format acknowledges what has always been true: these nations constitute a coherent geographic and cultural space.
Strategic Connectivity and the Middle Corridor Imperative
The most immediate practical benefit of the C6 format lies in enhanced connectivity solutions. This extends well beyond simple transportation to encompass a panoramic view of regional integration: cargo transit in multiple directions, energy resource flows, digital infrastructure, and commercial networks.
The European Union has committed substantial resources to the Trans-Caspian route, including billions specifically earmarked for Middle Corridor transport connections. Azerbaijan’s formal integration into Central Asian mechanisms strengthens the institutional framework needed to absorb and deploy this investment effectively.
The Baku International Sea Trade Port at Alat currently has an annual handling capacity of 15 million tons, expected to increase to 25 million tons as Middle Corridor traffic expands. The development of complementary cargo airport facilities at Alat will create a multimodal hub integrating sea, rail, road, and air transport.
The significance extends to standardization and regulatory harmonization. If C6 leaders treat this configuration as a corridor governance core, they can link joint standards on tariffs, customs IT, and digital data flows.
This institutional architecture matters as much as physical infrastructure. Without coordinated customs procedures, digitalized cargo tracking, and harmonized technical standards, even the best ports and railways will underperform.
Energy and Green Transition Synergies
Azerbaijan brings specific advantages in the energy sector that complement Central Asian capabilities.
The country’s experience in hydrocarbon extraction, pipeline development, and energy transit creates opportunities for bidirectional flows. Central Asian states seeking to export their energy resources westward find in Azerbaijan both a transit route and a partner with relevant technical expertise.
Perhaps more significantly, the C6 format arrives at a moment when all parties are exploring renewable energy development. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have discussed a green power plan to export solar and wind-generated electricity across the Caspian Sea to Western markets.
Azerbaijan’s hosting of COP29 demonstrated its capacity to convene international climate discussions and attract green investment. The Central Asian states, with their vast territories and renewable energy potential, can benefit from Azerbaijan’s experience in packaging and marketing green energy projects to international investors.
Geopolitical Balancing and Strategic Autonomy
The timing of Azerbaijan’s integration into the C6 framework is not coincidental. Central Asian states are working to diversify in every possible way, seeking alternative markets as part of their balancing approach to foreign policy. Azerbaijan offers a gateway function that serves this diversification imperative without requiring Central Asian states to choose sides in larger geopolitical competitions.
This matters particularly as infrastructure corridors become geopolitical instruments. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project approved in 2024 will add to the capacity offered by Kazakhstan’s east-west rail access, while routes through Afghanistan toward Pakistani ports offer southern alternatives. The C6 format, with Azerbaijan as its western anchor, provides Central Asian states with an additional option that enhances their negotiating position with all larger powers.
Over the past three years, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made 14 visits to Central Asian countries, while his counterparts visited Azerbaijan 23 times. This intensive diplomatic engagement laid the groundwork for institutional integration. It also signals a foreign policy approach based on sustained relationship-building rather than episodic engagement.
Complementary Development Models
An often-overlooked dimension of the C6 relationship involves comparative urban development patterns. Azerbaijan’s demographic concentration, with approximately 90% of the population centered in Baku, contrasts sharply with Central Asian patterns where capital cities typically hold no more than 10% of national populations. This creates opportunities for knowledge exchange on urban planning, infrastructure development, rural-urban migration management, and service delivery models.
Central Asian states grappling with questions of urban growth, rural development, and regional inequality can examine Azerbaijan’s experience with metropolitan concentration.
Conversely, Azerbaijan can learn from Central Asian approaches to distributed development and regional governance. These exchanges may seem technical rather than strategic, but effective governance requires learning from diverse models.
Institutional Flexibility and Selective Participation
The C6 format’s strength may lie precisely in its flexibility. Azerbaijan need not participate in every Central Asian initiative, nor should its presence constrain purely intra-Central Asian cooperation.
President Mirziyoyev proposed transforming the consultative mechanism into a formal regional body called the “Community of Central Asia,” extending its mandate to include security and environmental cooperation. How Azerbaijan fits into expanded security cooperation remains to be determined, but the model allows for variable geometry—participation where mutually beneficial, abstention where appropriate.
This selective engagement respects the distinct character of Central Asian regional cooperation while acknowledging Azerbaijan’s role in areas where trans-Caspian coordination delivers clear benefits. — It represents an institutional maturity that recognizes not all regional mechanisms require identical membership or participation across all issue areas.
Implementation Challenges and Realistic Expectations
The C6 format faces genuine challenges that should not be minimized. Physical connectivity across the Caspian requires significant continued investment in port facilities, shipping capacity, and transshipment infrastructure. Cargo and port capacity have been among the key challenges needed to overcome to unlock the Middle Corridor’s full potential, with the ultimate goal of shortening average transport duration to 15 days.
Regulatory harmonization proves persistently difficult even among highly integrated regions.
The C6 states will need to navigate different legal systems, varying levels of digitalization, and competing domestic interests. Trade facilitation requires more than political will; it demands sustained technical cooperation and mutual adjustment.
Moreover, the C6 format exists within a crowded institutional landscape. The participating states maintain membership in multiple overlapping regional organizations, each with its own secretariats, summit schedules, and action plans. Ensuring that C6 cooperation adds value rather than merely adding meetings will require focused prioritization and disciplined scope management.
Looking Ahead: The First C6+ Summit
The first C6+ summit will provide important indicators of how this format will function in practice. Will it focus primarily on infrastructure and connectivity, or expand into broader economic and political coordination? How will external partners—the European Union, United States, China, and others—engage with C6 as an institutional interlocutor? Will the format develop its own secretariat and working groups, or remain a consultative mechanism?
These questions matter because the C6 format arrives at a moment of significant flux in Eurasian geopolitics.
Traditional transit routes face disruption, supply chain resilience has become a strategic priority, and middle powers are asserting greater agency in shaping regional architecture. The C6 format could evolve into a meaningful governance structure for the Middle Corridor, or it could remain largely symbolic.
Much depends on whether participating states invest the political capital and administrative capacity needed to translate declarations into operational cooperation.
Institutionalizing Geographic Reality
The transformation from C5 to C6 formalizes relationships that geography, history, and economic logic already suggested. Azerbaijan’s integration into Central Asian regional mechanisms acknowledges the trans-Caspian region as a coherent space for cooperation while respecting the distinct identities and interests of participating states.
For policymakers in capitals beyond the region, the C6 format signals several important developments: Central Asian states are actively diversifying their partnership networks, connectivity infrastructure is becoming institutionalized through multilateral frameworks, and middle powers are creating regional governance mechanisms that serve their collective interests without requiring external sponsorship.
The success of the C6 format will ultimately be measured not by summit declarations but by cargo volumes, transit times, regulatory harmonization, and sustained economic integration. The institutional architecture is now in place.
The challenge shifts to implementation, where diplomatic goodwill must translate into technical cooperation, where investment commitments must become operational infrastructure, and where political declarations must yield measurable improvements in connectivity and economic performance.
Those observing this space would do well to watch specific indicators: growth in trans-Caspian cargo volumes, progress on customs digitalization, joint infrastructure projects, and the development of standardized procedures across the C6 region.
These metrics will reveal whether the C6 format represents genuine regional integration or merely adds another layer to Eurasia’s already complex institutional landscape. /// nCa, 28 November 2025